Wanted: your views on the impact of the display ban and other anti-smoking laws

The government is currently inviting responses to a consultation on 'The impact of tobacco laws introduced between 2010 and 2016'.

Those laws are:

• The Tobacco Advertising and Promotion (Display) (England) Regulations 2010
• The Tobacco and Advertising (Specialist Tobacconists) (England) Regulations 2010
• The Tobacco and Advertising (Display of Prices) (England) Regulations 2010
• The Smoke-free (Private Vehicles) Regulations 2015
• The Nicotine Inhaling Products (Age of Sale and Proxy Purchasing) Regulations 2015

Questions include:

• Do you think the display ban of tobacco in small and large shops has helped to reduce the number of children and young people smoking?

• Do you think the tobacco display ban has encouraged and supported adult smokers to quit?

• Is the display ban an effective way to protect children and young people from taking up smoking and supporting those who wish to quit?

• Have the Smoke-free (Private Vehicles) Regulations helped prevent people from smoking in vehicles with children?

• Do you believe prohibiting smoking in private vehicles is an effective way to protect children and young people from harms of tobacco and second-hand smoke?

• Do you think the Nicotine Inhaling Products Regulations have helped prevent the sale of nicotine inhaling products, including e-cigarettes, to under 18s?

• Has anyone else benefited from the age restriction and proxy (when an adult buys a product on behalf of a minor) purchasing ban on nicotine inhaling products?

The format is pretty simple. For example:

Do you think the tobacco display ban has encouraged and supported adult smokers to quit?

Yes, I think it has
No, I don’t think it has
I don’t know if it has or has not

I appreciate most of you will be pretty cynical about the outcome of any tobacco-related ‘consultation’, and with good reason. Nevertheless, we would welcome your participation.

To complete the online survey click here. Closing date is 15th September 2019.

Thank you!

Comments

[David Kerr]

Sorry Simon, tried to fill this survey in, it just repeats itself and doesn’t give a full view of what is happening it is designed to make you give up because of the repetition of the questions

[PJH]

@David, instead of [next page] buttons it has a [go back to front page again] buttons. I complained about that in my submission.

You can see which sections you've completed by looking at the [X of Y questions answered] to the right of each item on that front page, and (obviously) you've completed the ones where X is the same as Y.

[Misty]

The problem with these “consultations” are that, as a smoker or a tolerant non-smoker, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If you answer that, yes, one or other or all of these measures have been successful, then it will be trumpeted from the rooftops that such measures are wildly popular and a massive success, and that therefore even more of the same will result in even more “success.” If, on the other hand, you answer that, no, none or not many or only a few of them have been successful, then the response will be that “more needs to be done” to achieve the hoped-for aims. I note that, somewhat predictably, there’s no option to offer the view that any of them have actually been counter productive!

Either way, they’ll never interpret such responses the way they should be interpreted, i.e. they’ve been, by and large, a pretty dismal flop and should therefore be abandoned or relaxed or even reversed. Goodness me – that’s tantamount to admitting that our “experts” have made – Shock! Horror! – a mistake and they’ll never in a million years go even the smallest way towards admitting that - even if youth smoking rates had shot through the roof in the wake of each measure!

I’d also be interested to know how people are supposed to know why young people aren’t taking up smoking as much as they used to (if the figures are to be believed, which is by no means a 100% safe assumption – many young people, I know, simply won’t admit to smoking, even if they are pack-a-day regulars). There is now so much haranguing, pressuring, scare-stories and threats shoved down young people’s throats about smoking on a daily basis – and there has been for many years now – that it’s almost impossible to say for certain how much of a difference a change in the colour of cigarette packs really is likely to have made. Needless to say, there’s no option to make that point, either!

[Pat Nurse]

The results of the survey have proved they are right and that the hate campaign against smokers must continue - even before the consultation is complete. The outcome, as always when allegedly consulting about smokers, is decided before he first consultation page is written.

It is a scam and worse it is a scam paid for by an unwitting and unwilling public.