Save the date
Thursday, May 12, 2022 at 10:04 The ‘independent review into tobacco control’ led by Javed Khan is to present its recommendations on May 25.
I’ve questioned just how independent the review is (’Independent review’ adopts tobacco control hymn sheet) and the list of speakers doesn’t fill me with confidence.
According to a tweet posted by Khan last night speakers at the presentation will include health minister Maggie Throup, chief medical officer Chris Whitty, Bob Blackman MP and Mary Foy MP.
‘Other speakers TBC.’
Blackman (Conservative) is chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health which is run by ASH.
Mary Foy (Labour) is a vice-chair of same group.
Whitty is arguably the biggest beast on the list and we know precisely where he stands. According to a Guardian profile published in March 2021:
In a Gresham lecture on lung cancer last month, he was clear where blame lay for the most common cancer death in Britain. “This is cancer entirely for profit,” he said.
“Almost all of the people who get this cancer … have got the cancer, because an extremely wealthy, incredibly sophisticated marketing industry – the cigarette industry – has got them addicted to cigarettes at a young age and kept them addicted the rest of their lives, and then they die. This should never be a cancer blamed on individuals. This is a cancer created by industry for profit.”
See also ‘CMO targets tobacco’ (Taking Liberties, May 2021).
Frankly I wouldn’t surprised if Khan’s recommendations aren’t leaked to the media in advance.
However, given his very public pronouncements in recent months it doesn’t take a genius to conclude that they will include raising the legal age of sale of tobacco and introducing an annual levy on tobacco companies to fund the anti-smoking industry.
The latter has always been rejected by the Treasury and the former will be extremely contentious so I hope health secretary Sajid Javid knows he’s in for a fight if he adopts either proposal in the new Tobacco Control Plan.
Expect too a big endorsement of vaping as a quit smoking tool.
If Khan was to adopt the mantra of choice, advocating reduced risk products as an alternative to smoking while publicly respecting those who prefer to smoke rather than switch or quit, there wouldn’t be a problem.
Unfortunately anti-smoking campaigners don’t recognise smoking or even vaping as a genuine choice. It’s an addiction, pure and simple, even if one is significantly less harmful than the other.
As I have long argued they see vaping as a means to an end, the endgame being a world beyond nicotine.
Vaping advocates may celebrate Khan’s endorsement but be careful what you wish for. Nothing will destroy the appeal of vaping as much as the ‘support’ of the anti-smoking industry.
Reader Comments (3)
The independent review is not independent but a back patting exercise for vested interests who make their living by attacking the choices of an alleged free public.
Smoking is not an addiction either - it's a distraction. There is a big difference.
This video is the best explanation I have ever seen as to why people smoke and also how best to quit for those that want to. https://youtu.be/GGiNOzk0aNg
I am sick of all of them. they just want to force smokers underground and, as I always said, they are desperate to criminalise law abiding people because they simply do not like the way they live their lives.
They are nothing but over paid zealous bullies.
"Expect too a big endorsement of vaping as a quit smoking tool."
Just shows how little they know about the importance of inhaled nitric oxide, this obsession with nicotine belongs to the last century.
I got interested in Nitric Oxide when my father was killed by MRSA in one of the first hospital outbreaks, he had gone in for a broken hip.
March 24, 2008
"Dr. Ferric Fang, UW professor of laboratory medicine and microbiology, and his UW colleagues Dr. Anthony Richardson and Dr. Stephen Libby set out to determine what makes Staph aureus a better pathogen than other bacteria.
They focused on a chemical compound called nitric oxide (NO), a natural antibiotic that our cells excrete to protect us from pathogens. For most bacteria, NO creates an environment that keeps invading microbes from undergoing respiration or fermentation, vital chemical processes that allow bacteria to grow."
https://www.washington.edu/news/2008/03/24/scientists-uncover-how-superbug-staph-aureus-resists-our-natural-defenses/