As I suspected it would, the tobacco control industry has exploited the lack of news this week to press the Government to do more to meet its ‘smoke free’ target.
Cancer Research UK has published a new report that claims the Government is unlikely to meet its 2030 target unless (yawn) it raises the age of sale of tobacco to 21 and imposes a levy on the tobacco industry to pay for smoking cessation services.
The reason I’m fuming though is because the report has been widely publicised without a single comment questioning either the smoke free target or CRUK’s advice on how to reduce smoking rates to meet that target.
The chief culprit is the Press Association which has issued a report that is clearly based on an embargoed press release, but the nationals must take some responsibility too.
After all, it only takes a minute - having read the press release or PA copy - to pick up the phone and call Forest (or whoever) for a reaction.
A few years ago I complained to a journalist at the PA that Forest wasn’t being given enough opportunities to respond to tobacco control press releases and she replied by saying (I paraphrase) that we were welcome to send her quotes but she didn’t have time to call us.
I said that it was difficult to respond to a press release from the likes of ASH or CRUK if we had no knowledge of it (not being on their media mailing list), but the point seemed to escape her.
Anyway, here’s our belated reaction to the latest CRUK report whose message is very similar to another CRUK report published in February 2020 (Report says England will not be smoke free by 2030 as proposed).
On that occasion CRUK claimed ‘it is likely it would be 2037 by which England could be smoke-free’. Now they estimate it will be 2039.
Our response to this familiar trope was issued in the early hours of this morning but only after I was alerted to the story by reading it online so it was almost certainly too late.
For the record it read:
Campaigners have urged the Government to abandon its “odious” smoke free target.
The call follows a new report by Cancer Research UK that claims that England is unlikely to meet the Government’s smoke free target by 2030.
Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ rights group Forest, said:
“The Government should never have set a target for England to be smoke free.
“2030 was always unrealistic and it’s become an unnecessary distraction from the fact that smoking rates in England continue to decline in all age groups, albeit at a slower pace than the tobacco control industry would like.”
He added:
“Smoke free targets are odious because as long as tobacco is a legal product adults have every right to smoke without further harassment or discrimination.
“Smoking is a choice and if you are an adult that choice must be respected.”
Rejecting calls to raise the age of sale of tobacco to 21 and impose a levy on the tobacco industry to pay for more stop-smoking services, Clark said:
“If you can drive a car, join the army, purchase alcohol, and vote at 18 you are old enough to make an informed decision to smoke.
“Raising the legal age of sale won’t stop young adults smoking. It will drive them to the black market where they will be sold unregulated products.
“The cost of a tobacco levy would be passed on to the consumer. Smokers already pay punitive rates of tax on tobacco. Punishing them even more during a cost of living crisis would be brutal and unfair.”
One journalist has just responded to my complaint (emailed to him at 07:07 this morning so apologies for that!) by replying:
Sorry, Simon - I often do phone you for comment. I didn't approach any groups yesterday, so it wasn't a conscious snub. I'm more likely to come to you when I'm also quoting ASH …
Interesting, isn’t it, that he’s more likely to ‘balance’ a quote from ASH with a comment from Forest but CRUK gets a free propaganda pass. So annoying!
See also ‘Shedding light on CRUK’s relationship with the Press Association’ (January 2015)
Update: Credit where credit’s due, the Mail has included a quote from our press release in this online report - Government is almost a DECADE behind its target for England to become smoke-free by 2030.