Forest at 40
Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 9:02 
Founded in 1979, Forest is 40 years old this year.
To put that in context, in 1979 Margaret Thatcher was elected prime minister, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Iran became an Islamic Republic and former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe went on trial charged with attempted murder.
The Sony Walkman was launched, the first issue of Viz was published in Newcastle upon Tyne, the first J D Wetherspoon pub was opened in the London Borough of Haringey, Sid Vicious died and the price of milk shot up to 15 pence a pint.
Almost 40 per cent of the adult population smoked and the government advised men to drink no more than 56 units of alcohol a week.
Oh, and the turnout in Britain for the first direct election to the European Parliament was 32 per cent.
Next month we’ll announce the date of a special 40th anniversary dinner.
Each week I shall also be dipping into the Forest archives. It’s been a long journey so watch this space!
Logo: Dan Donovan
Reader Comments (9)
And I turned four!
I was 19 and had been smoking for 11 years. Congratulations on the anniversary. May Forest continue to stick up for little people like us against the Goliaths in the antismoker industry.
May FOREST continue to protect the rights of smokers and expand its reach to fend off the lies and exaggerations of the antismoker cartel.
I was 32 at the time.and started smoking regularly.in 1968. I only smoke roll-ups or cigars. I was among those calling for an organization like FOREST to be set up and I was one of the first to join.
Even in 1979 we'd have hints of what was to come. In his last budget, Denis Healey slapped massive duty increases on tobacco products. Then Margaret Thatcher took over but any hopes of a more balanced stance on smoking disappeared when Sir George Young was appointed as a Health Minister Supposedly a Conservative, he seemed to spend most of his time taking away smokers rights. And then there was ASH. Formed in 1975 they soon learned that you might have to get a partial ban at first. In 1979 they would have been happy with one no smoking room but we all know what this led to in 2007 (2006 in Scotland) with the total ban.
Anyway, I congratulate FOREST on its 40th anniversary and that it wlll continue to be effective. I feel it's going to be needed more than ever now.
I was 34 at the time I lost my father to the consequences of his smoking addiction or, like most smokers prefer to say, dependency. He had smoked from his adolescent years and continued until he suffered from a severe pneumonia in his fifties. He recovered from his pneumonia, survived throat cancer and lung cancer and continued to live with a severe form of emphysema, depending on additional oxygen day and night. At the end his heart failed to accommodate to his deteriorated body when he was 68 years old.
So smokers, stay happy as long as you can. Forgive me for being unhappy with 40th anniversary. The story of my father was a smoker's anomaly, wasn't it? Forgive me for being sceptical about the true reasons why Forest exists. Forgive me my laughing out loud, reading words like antismoker cartel and Goliaths in the antismoker industry. Who're you fooling? Besides yourself?
I trust Forest, I don't trust politicians or their lifestyle health quangos.
I was 42 when I lost my mum to NHS neglect 25 years after she quit smoking. My father quit smoking 20 years before he died at exactly the same age as my never smoking father in law - both of lung disease.
The antismoker industry exists. Look at pharma products around you aimed at persuading smokers to quit. Then there is the funding, the career opportunities, the new industry being built up around vaping and public health. It is rather naieve to say it isn't there. It's even more foolish to think tobacco companies give a damn about their consumers as they set their sights on acceptance through vaping and answering the call to stop making cigarettes.
With industry, Government, and authority globally, including billionaires like Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg pumping money and legislation into the cause of creating a future world without smokers, it is amazing that people cannot see the Goliaths being deployed against the David's - ie : the small consumer, the only one not allowed a voice, the one continually screwed for taxes to fund the ideologies and desires of the above.
No one who smokes fools themselves. We all know the risks. Some of us began in another age and now villified, dehumanised, otherised, and discriminated against because we choose a way of life that suits us and those around us who respect our choice. Everyone dies and if everyone quit smoking tomorrow, for sure the graveyards would still fill with people who die at the beginning, middle and end of each generation for a variety of reasons. Life is about living. What suits some, doesn't suit others.
As for smoking, like all things, dose makes poison, and a healthy life is about balance in all things. Non smokers, sadly, also die young. Death is not exclusive to one group in society. The only people fooling themselves are those who think they can live forever or long enough enough to spend their last days ignored in an old people's home.
Bert,
Sorry to hear about your father. Lung cancer, pneumonia, throat cancer are not diseases that only kill non-smokers , smokers are killed too, these diseases do not respect a persons smoking status.
I had an acquaintance who recently died of lung cancer, after receiving a terminal diagnosis he was advised to quit smoking - he died three weeks later.This is how brain washed health professionals are, that they will tell a dying human being to quit smoking despite that fact it can not make any difference. And that is the fault of the anti-smoking industry, because it is they that tell us that reducing smoker prevalence reduces lung cancer rates when we have bucket loads of evidence to prove, conclusively, that it simply is not true.
Anit-smoking kills. Oh, yes it does.
Btw, no, we are not "addicts" nor are we "dependant", we just enjoy using a legal product even though there are times when we are gagging for a fag as much as a cup of tea or coffee.
Smokerphobic bullies refuse to accept that a smoking "addiction" is the same as their "addiction" to caffeine.