ASH and the smoking ban – still spinning after all these years

July 1, 2007, is a date many of us will never forget, even if we wanted to.

It was of course the first day of the smoking ban in England and this is how ASH continues to spin it:

#OnThisDay thirteen years ago, workers across England could do their jobs without breathing in other people's smoke. Bar workers’ health showed significant improvements following the introduction of smokefree legislation in England. (Bauld, 2011)

In fact, workers across England faced a hellishly uncertain future as the reality of the ban sunk in.

Forget, for a moment, the alleged improvement in the health of bar workers, data shows a significant increase in pub closures in the twelve months after the ban and we know the smoking ban was the principal cause because an identical thing happened in Ireland and Scotland following similar bans in 2004 and 2006 respectively.

Within a decade 10,500 pubs (almost 20 per cent of the pub estate in England in 2007) had closed with thousands of jobs lost, which must have done wonders for the physical and mental health of the thousands of bar staff who lost their jobs.

There were other factors during that time but as Rob Lyons explained in 2017 (Road To Ruin: The impact of the smoking ban on pubs and personal choice) the ban hit landlocked and inner city pubs in particular extremely hard.

As for improving the health of 'workers across England', this claim has always been hotly disputed. It's based on a report funded by the Department of Health and written by tobacco control advisor Linda Bauld.

Many of you will recognise Linda's name and face because she has rarely been off the air throughout the coronavirus crisis, but ten years ago relatively few people had heard of her.

According to the report (The Impact of Smokefree Legislation in England: Evidence Review):

Linda Bauld is Professor of Socio-Management at the University of Stirling and the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies. When this report was completed she was professor of Social Policy and Head of Department of Social Policy Sciences at the University of Bath.

What it didn't mention was that she was also senior advisor on tobacco control to the very government that introduced the smoking ban!

Three months after the review was published it provoked a strong response from Imperial Tobacco.

The Bauld truth is a well-written critique that pulls no punches and concludes that 'none of the claims about the impact of the smoking ban in England ... actually stand up to scrutiny.'

You can be the judge of that and I recommend anyone to read it, especially when ASH is still citing the Bauld review nine years later.

Media-wise the enforcement of the smoking ban 13 years ago was a complete damp squib. Here's my blog post from Sunday July 1, 2007:

You've got to laugh. All week we were anticipating a media blitz, beginning on Friday. I was primed. Neil Rafferty (another Forest spokesman) was also on red alert. And yet - it hasn't happened. Thanks to events outside our control (flash floods, car bombs and the Glasgow Airport attack), we have been dumped by CNN, Sky News, BBC Breakfast and News 24.

Only Voice of America and New Delhi TV went ahead with pre-arranged interviews - which is why I am sitting in my London office, on a Sunday afternoon, munching chocolate, reading the papers and watching Sky while waiting for calls that never come. Ironically, I turned down an appearance on BBC1's regional Politics Show - broadcasting live from a dog track in Brighton - saying I was needed in London. Doh!

What does this tell us? Well, it certainly isn't a conspiracy. Unexpected things happen and when they do the priorities of news editors can change in an instant. That's why anything that involves the news media is so precarious and the outcome so unpredictable. It's like organising a barbecue. You're dependent on the weather and if you get hit by a tropical thunderstorm at the last minute you're well and truly f***ed.

Truth is, the introduction of the ban isn't 'our' story so the pro-choice lobby was always going to struggle to be heard this weekend. (To use another analogy, Labour has dominated the media this week because Blair stepping down and Brown succeeding him as PM is 'their' story. The Tories just had to make themselves available and hope to pick up a few scraps, like George Osborne's interview on Sunday AM this morning.) But it is frustrating that events have conspired to silence us, apart from the odd comment – see here.

Anyway, I'm sure the date will inspire one or two memories from readers. The big question is, how many of you now feel it's your 'patriotic duty' to support our pubs when they re-open on Saturday?

Comments

[Rose2]

It's the governments patriotic duty to release all of us from this first.

Resolution of the Council and the Ministers for Health of the Member States, meeting within the Council of 18 July 1989 on banning smoking in places open to the public

INVITES THE MEMBER STATES:

to take the following measures by introducing legislation or by other methods in accordance with national practices and conditions:

1. Ban smoking in enclosed premises open to the public which form part of the public or private establishments listed in the Annex. Member States may add to the said list;

2. Extend the ban on smoking to all forms of public transport;

3. Provide, where necessary, for clearly defined areas to be reserved for smokers in the above establishments and, if possible, in public transport, particularly for long journeys;

4. Ensure that in the event of a conflict, in areas other than those reserved for smokers, the right to health of non-smokers prevails over the right of smokers to smoke;

to inform the Commission every two years of action taken in response to this resolution. (1) Opinion delivered on 26 April 1989 (not yet published in the Official Journal).

Public and private establishments referred to in point 1 of the resolution (non-exhaustive list)

1. Establishments where services are provided to the public, whether for a charge or free, including the sale of goods;
2. Hospitals, establishments where health care is given and all other medical establishments;
3. Establishments where elderly persons are received;
4. Schools and other premises where children or young people are received or housed;
5. Establishments where higher education and vocational training are given;
6. Enclosed establishments used for entertainment (cinemas, theaters, etc.) ; radio and television studios open to the public;
7. Enclosed establishments where exhibitions are held;
8. Establishments and enclosed places where sports are practised;
9. Enclosed premises of underground and railway stations, ports and airports.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A41989X0726

[Vinny Gracchus]

The smoking ban needs to amended to allow for separate smoking areas indoors and designated smoking areas of equal size as non-smoking areas outdoors (if outdoor restrictions are applied).

[Pat Nurse]

I am a consumer and not a tobacco industry stooge - an industry that I have never worked for or had connections with - so when as a consumer, I say I do not believe the vested interest tripe that paid for professional St Linda of Bauld wrote to support the vested interests of the anti smoker industry, I am not smearing her but saying that for the same reasons I do not believe studies from the tobacco industry, I do not believe her. I am entitled to my opinion.

Most bar staff smoked so there were none to save and those that didn't smoke often chose to work in non smoker pubs and other smoker exclusion so called "hospitality" venues.

This is the first time or easily one of the few where ASH mentions bar staff having been saved by the God of Tobacco Control. How many times since then have they bragged about how it was really about denormalisation or to be more accurate, stigmatision of smokers, than it was about the health of bar workers who were just pawns sacrificed on the alter of tobacco control and thrown into the unhealthy position of being forced onto the dole as pub after pub rapidly shut down for good.

I might believe a tobacco control study if they commission someone completely impartial, who is not funded by them to write the reports they expect to see, and certainly when it comes to measuring health, a scientist is more effective and honest than an in the pocket sociologist like Bauld.

Stick that in your smearing wiki site ASH to add to all the other little nuggets you have up there to discredit little consumers who don't believe a word you say or hate themselves as much as you hate them.

You ruined lives with your smoking ban, you invited hatred of people who did no harm, you worked so hard to bring about exclusion and discrimination which were negative actions not seen since the bad old days when people were judged on prejudice and not character. Some of us became enlightened since the days of "No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs," but TC and it's stooges prefer to take us back to the stone age and then brag about it.

Has there ever been an example of a more regressive group in the 21st century. Not in my opinion.