Freedom fighters

I was commissioned to write this article for the online magazine Spiked. You can read it here or below.

According to Sir Chris Whitty, England’s Chief Medical Officer, it’s “dishonest” for lobbyists – people like me – to make smoking a debate between health and freedom.

Speaking on Thursday at the launch of an ‘independent’ review into the Government’s smoke free 2030 policies, Whitty said most people who smoke want to quit but can’t because the “cigarette industry has addicted them at a very young age”.

This is questionable at best. Millions of smokers who started young have quit. It may be harder for some than for others and may take multiple efforts but it’s far from impossible.

But what I really object to is the attempt to shut down a perfectly legitimate debate about the limits of government intervention in something that is deeply personal and even private – our health. Smoking was arguably a public health issue when smoking was allowed in enclosed public places but now you can only smoke in public places that are outside, where no-one else’s health is at significant risk, it should be a largely private matter.

Like or it not the smoking debate has always been about health and freedom because the two are not mutually exclusive. Of course people want to be healthy but when it comes to smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol or eating the ‘wrong’ food, most adults want to be free to make their own choices based on accurate information and without excessive government intervention.

The health risks of smoking are well-known and consistently publicised. If adults choose to smoke tobacco that is a matter for them not politicians or public health campaigners, however well-intentioned. As adults we make all sorts of decisions that impact on our health and in a free society government must respect an adult’s decision to smoke.

If government limited itself to educating people about the risks of smoking and encouraging consumers to switch to lower risk products no-one could complain. But government and anti-smoking zealots can’t resist combining the carrot with the stick on the grounds that they know best what is good for us.

But let’s take a look at the recommendations in Javed Khan’s ‘independent’ review. Chris Whitty called them “bold” but the IEA’s Chris Snowdon called Khan’s ideas “crackpot” and the report "absolutely insane".

As well as raising the age of sale of tobacco from 18 by one year every year until no-one can buy tobacco legally, Javed wants the Government to ban supermarkets from selling tobacco products and rethink the way cigarettes look using ‘dissuasive colours’ and introducing anti-smoking messages on cigarette sticks. He wants anti-smoking messages to be shown in film and TV shows that contain smoking and he wants the Government to increase smoke free places in outdoor public spaces such as pub gardens and pavement cafes.

It may be a tired and overworked term but every one of these proposals represents the type of nanny state some of us have spent decades fighting. Smoking may be unhealthy, potentially, but does it deserve this level of regulation at a time when only 14% of adults smoke compared to 45% in 1974 and smoking rates among children have also been falling for decades and are now at their lowest level since records began?

One area we can agree on concerns vaping. Khan wants the Government to ‘embrace the promotion of vaping as the most effective tool to help smokers quit’. Evidence suggests that e-cigarettes have played a significant role in reducing smoking rates over the past decade. Nevertheless, while e-cigarettes and other reduced risk products must be subject to light touch regulation proportionate to the much smaller risk they pose to consumers, no smoker should be forced to use them as an alternative to combustibles. Switching from cigarettes to e-cigarettes or any other reduced risk product must be voluntary. Smokers must feel empowered to switch, not coerced by policies intended to force them to switch to another nicotine delivery device.

The crucial thing is to offer smokers a choice of reduced risk products alongside traditional tobacco products, inform and update them with the latest evidence about the risks and benefits, and encourage them to make their own informed choices. In short, let the consumer – not politicians or over-zealous public health campaigners – decide. Most important, respect their choice, as adults, even if you disagree with it.

Instead, as the Khan report underlines, and Whitty’s comment confirms, freedom of choice and personal responsibility are increasingly being sacrificed on the altar of public health. Raising the age of sale of tobacco from 18 by one year every year 'until no one can buy a tobacco product in this country' is a classic example of creeping prohibition. Will it stop some people smoking? Not in significant numbers, no. But one unintended consequence is that it will almost certainly drive the sale of tobacco underground and consumers will buy cigarettes on the black market where no-one pays tax and products are completely unregulated. Worse, it will infantilise young adults, taking away their ability to think and make decisions for themselves.

Sir Chris Whitty may disagree but I can’t accept that the smoking debate is only about health. It’s about freedom too and there has to be a balance. Ministers should therefore think very carefully before they adopt prohibition and coercion as tools to achieve their smoke free ambition.

The creeping prohibition of smoking (Spiked, June 14, 2022)