The slow eradication of choice and personal autonomy
Friday, July 24, 2020 at 11:54 They don't give up, do they?
Undeterred by Parliament’s decision to back the Business and Planning Bill (now the Business and Planning Act) that gives proprietors the right to provide smoking as well as non-smoking areas outside pubs, cafes and restaurants, anti-smoking campaigners are continuing to lobby local councils to refuse pavement licences to businesses whose proposed pavement areas are not 100 per cent 'smoke free'.
'Outside is the new inside,' tweets ASH, adding that 'allowing smoking under new pavement licencing rules is a danger to health and a step backwards in efforts to help people quit.'
The 'danger to health' argument is genuinely outrageous because it plays on some people's unfounded fears about passive smoking and the spread of Covid-19.
Let's be clear: there is no evidence that exposure to tobacco smoke in the open air is a significant threat to anyone else's health.
If there was we would have read or heard about it. And we haven't.
In fact, to suggest that passive smoking in the open air is a risk to other people's health marks another low in the anti-smoking crusade – worse, perhaps, than the equally unfounded claim that 11,000 non-smokers were dying annually of passive smoking in the UK before the indoor smoking ban.
And if it's not the 'threat' of passive smoking, anti-smoking zealots say there's another problem – exhaling smoke in public could pass the coronavirus from one person to another.
Again, to my knowledge, there is little evidence to suggest this is actually happening but some people have decided that evidence is unnecessary because, well, it’s obvious, innit.
As for the Government's amendment being a 'step backwards' in terms of tobacco control, how can it be a backward step when there has never been legislation banning smoking in outdoor areas where people are eating and drinking?
Frankly this is yet another step towards the prohibition of smoking in public places because, for the first time, guidelines have been introduced by government that makes the provision of 'smoke free' areas outside pubs and cafes more than just voluntary.
Despite this the tobacco control lobby continues to whinge (publicly at least). According to a tweet posted by Fresh (formerly Smokefree North East), the new legislation is 'confused'.
Much simpler: say new pavement licenses will be Smokefree. Only 1 in 7 adults smoke. SF [smoke free] very popular. Outdoor spaces can be v cramped. SHS [secondhand smoke] harmful. LAs [local authorities] can take own action on this.
I am reminded of the time before the introduction of the smoking ban in England in 2007.
There was a 3-4 year period when it was clear the Blair government didn't want the responsibility of banning smoking inside pubs and clubs and the matter was left to local authorities.
However the hospitality industry feared it would lead to a patchwork quilt effect up and down the country with smoking banned in pubs in some towns and cities but not in others.
In London, where there are something like 35 borough councils, it could have led to a situation whereby smoking was banned in a pub on one side of the road (in Labour-run Lambeth, for example) but permitted in a pub on the other side (in Conservative-run Wandsworth).
That was the point at which the big pub cos began lobbying for a level-playing field.
Meanwhile, in what world is the Government amendment confusing? The plan seems pretty clear to me:
The government will not ban outdoor smoking in pubs, cafes or restaurants.
Businesses can already make their own non-smoking policies for outside space without the need for regulations. This guidance will reinforce this point, making it clear that the licence-holder has to make reasonable provision for smoke-free seating.
It includes:
1. Clear ‘no smoking’ signage displayed in designated areas.
2. No ash trays or similar receptacles to be provided or permitted to be left on furniture where a smoke-free seating is identified.
3. Licence holders should aim for a minimum 2 metre distance between non-smoking and smoking areas, wherever possible.
'Reasonable provision for smoke-free seating' is exactly what it says. I imagine most proprietors will base their decision on customer demand and the ratio of smokers and non-smokers they expect to attract.
No two businesses will be exactly the same, hence the need for flexibility. What's confusing about that?
Sadly, what is becoming increasingly apparent during the current pandemic is that many people seem pathologically incapable of making choices for themselves.
At all times they want the government to make decisions for them. (This goes for businesses as well as individuals.)
If we continue like this we will create a society in which government makes every significant decision for us and freedom of choice will be slowly eradicated until it no longer exists, at which point people will be incapable of making choices for themselves anyway because they will have lost the habit.
I'm reluctant to draw comparisons with the old Soviet Union but it is widely accepted that the reason many Russians found the collapse of Communism so difficult to handle is because, suddenly, they were faced with making the sort of individual choices that had previously been made for them by the state.
Now that seems to be happening here too. OK, we're a long way short of living under an authoritarian Soviet-style regime but the increasing loss of individual autonomy – including the ability to make decisions for ourselves – is something we must be concerned about.
We agree. The govt amendment is confused. Much simpler: say new pavement licenses will be Smokefree. Only 1 in 7 adults smoke. SF very popular. Outdoor spaces can be v cramped. SHS harmful. LAs can take own action on this. @ADPHNE @LGAWellbeing @LGAcomms @PHE_NorthEast @GM_HSC https://t.co/oJnlptqDiA
— Fresh - Making Smoking History (@FreshSmokeFree) July 23, 2020
Reader Comments (7)
More old wives tales.
From the Lords debate.
"Lord Carlile of Berriew spoke about .. "the real danger of the exhalation of coronavirus with that tobacco smoke, if the people smoking are suffering from coronavirus"
Highly unlikely
Nitric oxide treatment can be pivotal in the fight against COVID-19
Jul 21 2020
"Nitric oxide treatment can be pivotal in the world's fight against SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, according to a review from the George Washington University (GW). The article is published in the journal Nitric Oxide.
Nitric oxide is an antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory molecule with key roles in pulmonary vascular function in the context of viral infections and other pulmonary diseases. In SARS-CoV-1 infection, which led to the outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003, nitric oxide inhibited viral replication by cytotoxic reactions through intermediates such as peroxynitrite. It is one of several potential COVID-19 treatments included in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's emergency expanded access program."
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200721/Nitric-oxide-treatment-can-be-pivotal-in-the-fight-against-COVID-19.aspx
Shouldn't they just wait until the results of the clinical studies come in before they start spreading more rumours?
Nitric Oxide Inhalation Therapy for COVID-19 Infections
April 18, 2020
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04338828
This is outdoor ban stage one which will by law now refuse service to smokers outside if space is limited.
The bullies in tobacco control and their vested interest front groups like Fresh aim to create a world of inequality where people are judged and refused basic human decency for the ideological aim of making smoking history because they don't like it and more relevant, they are paid to attack people who smoke and incite fear and hatred against them.
They will keep coming back for more until all smokers are made freindless, jobless and homeless. If smoking doesn't kill them, they will ensure that inequality does.
Smoke or vape makes breath visible. It has no more chance of passing covid from smokers who don't have the virus than those who just breathe who don't have the virus. It is smokerphobic to assume that the virus can magically appear in smoke from a person who is not infected.
As study after study shows, smokers are less likely to get Covid than non smokers so smokerphobics like those in tobacco control are more likely to harm us than we are to harm them.
They perverted science to get their indoor ban and they are busy perverting it now for an outdoor ban.
Anyone who supports these lobbyists who use charity status as a front are supporting anti science regressives.
Boris was the one to bring them under control but since he got covid, he is a born again Nanny Stater and proof that those who lent the Tories their vote to give them a majority for real change not only wasted their vote but got conned by the Westminster bubble again.
It doesn't matter who we vote for, unelected bullies in quangoes like ASH and Fresh always win.
The antismoking activists never stop. They are ideologically compelled to assault others liberty to achieve there smoke free world. It doesn't hurt that that quest provided profit and power thanks to sponsorship from the government and pharma companies. The lies about second hand smoke and now about smoke carrying COVID-19 are just that lies. De-fund tobacco control.
From what I can gather from these forums on this site, it appears to be ash and all the other anti smoking organisations that are doing all the attacking on smokers, with very little opposition being shown. This I realise is because of the media’s acceptance of the uncorroborated lies put out by these organisations. I’m sure Forest must have articles by opposing scientists which repudiate these falsehoods. It would be some form of opposition if Forest put them online time after time after time the way ash and co put their lies online. Also on YouTube and other free sites which can be read worldwide. This could be one way to rebut all these falsehoods by ash and co.
The media lost interest in the dubious science used to get smoking bans and the plight of smokers when they lost revenue from tobacco advertising and gained it from smoking cessation product manufacturers.
Hi Simon
The following information might be useful for you and your readers. When you say
"And if it's not the 'threat' of passive smoking, anti-smoking zealots say there's another problem – exhaling smoke in public could pass the coronavirus from one person to another"
you are absolutely right. There is no record of coronavirus transmission through environmental smoke (or environmental vapor from e-cigarettes).
While there is a theoretical possibility of this transmission because, after all, smoking and vaping are respiratory exhalations, the spreading risk (without face mask) would be equivalent to that from intermittent mouth breathing.
I emphasize INTERMITTENT because we could only be spreading the virus (theoretically) when we smoke and vape, which is (say) puffing for 4-6 seconds 100-300 times a day, this means about 400-1800 seconds per day = roughly 10-30 minutes per day, while we could be spreading the virus continuously when we breath normally (24 hours per day). NOTICE, people take much more time in talking and vocalizing than on smoking or vaping, but talking spreads much more virus containing droplets (and to further distances) than normal or mouth breathing. Coughing and sneezing spread even more and to larger distances. This is what people should worried about.
The maximal horizontal distance spread by environmental smoke is roughly the same as mouth breathing: about 1 to 1.5 meters (same with vaping with low powered devices, up to 2.5 meters with high powered devices). Slightly more than normal quiet nose breathing but much less than by talking loud, coughing or sneezing.
The consequences are straightforward: there is no justification for the authorities to implement special interventions to protect people from possible virus spread through environmental smoke or vapor. The standard recommended measures are sufficient (social distance 0f 1.5 meters and wearing face masks).
Myself and a colleague presented all this in a fact sheet that we distributed through social networks to vapers facing misinformation on COVID19 (it was written in April so it might need to be upgraded).
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12Vz6jI66WUGN7vMHAoyz5Ni1AGOAcaSX/view
We also commented on smoking and COVID19. What we mentioned on possible environmental transmission is on vapor but applies equally well to smoke (see page 7).
Thanks, Roberto, that’s very useful. When I get a moment I will highlight some of your points in a separate post.