‘Tobacco and Me’ - review

I listened to Peter Taylor's latest documentary about smoking, 'Tobacco and Me', so you don't have to.

Actually that's a bit of a cheap shot. Taylor is a distinguished journalist and 'Tobacco and Me' – which I flagged up in advance last week (BBC to broadcast another Taylor-made counterblaste to tobacco) – was a perfectly serviceable companion to the many programmes he has made about smoking.

Ironically for a man who has worked for the BBC "for more than 40 years", Taylor's best known programmes about smoking are arguably Dying for a Fag, which he made for Thames Television's This Week in 1975, and Death in the West which he also made for This Week in 1976.

We heard clips from both programmes. Dying for a Fag featured a man called Peter who had developed lung cancer. Interviewed for the programme, he died a few months after it was broadcast.

Death in the West featured interviews with six cowboys who were smokers and were suffering from lung cancer, heart disease and emphysema.

After it was broadcast it was never shown again because Philip Morris sought and won a "permanent lifetime injunction". The reason for the injunction wasn’t given (perhaps it should have been) but according to Taylor it has been "re-oxygenised" by the internet "which is why we're able to use clips from it".

One clip featured a cowboy saying, "I wish I had known then what I know now". In the Seventies that was arguably a valid thing to say. Today however how many people can honestly use ignorance of the potential health risks of smoking as a stick with which to beat the tobacco industry?

Too often this important point is overlooked by journalists who ignore the fact that many people choose to smoke despite the well known health risks and it's a cop out to say that all smokers are addicted to nicotine so freedom of choice and personal responsibility are irrelevant.

Much of the programme covered old ground, inevitably perhaps because 'Tobacco and Me' is part of a series called Archive on 4.

What gave it a fresh twist were interviews with André Calantzopoulos, executive chairman of Philip Morris International, and Moira Gilchrist, the company's head of global and scientific communications, that for once 'balanced' the ‘opposing’ views of tobacco control campaigners Anne McNeil of Kings College London and Deborah Arnott, CEO of ASH, although I'll come back to the issue of balance later.

The gist of the latter part of the programme was, essentially, is PMI genuine in its commitment to a 'smoke free world' and can it be trusted?

I've been critical of PMI's anti-smoking strategy and tactics but I can't fault Calantzopoulos and Gilchrist for their contributions to 'Tobacco and Me' because they both came across as highly credible.

Calantzopoulos in particular was a far cry from the smooth but bland corporate executives I tend to associate with PMI these days.

When he said, "I understand the mistrust ... over time we will rebuild this mistrust, I hope", I was reminded – as a football fan – of veteran football manager Carlo Ancelotti who is greatly admired for his honesty and integrity.

What I like about Calantzopoulos as a spokesman for PMI is that he joined the company in 1986. In theory it should be harder for him to shake off the 'sins' of the past and the industry's "watershed" moments in the 1990s because he was there, albeit in a junior role.

But he handled his inquisition well and I’m pleased to say that at no point did he disown his old colleagues which would be easy for him to do.

If I have a criticism it's PMI's commitment to a 'smoke free world' that wilfully ignores the fact that despite the well known health risks millions of people enjoy smoking cigarettes and don't want to quit and their choice should be supported and defended.

According to Calantzopoulos however a world without cigarettes is only the start:

"A smoke free world is a world without combustible cigarettes or combustible tobacco products as a first step. A smoke free world is also a world where more people have also quit all nicotine consumption altogether [my emphasis], but I think that the first step is to convince the people who smoke that if they don't quit then the best thing that can do, if you're a smoker, is to switch to these alternatives [heated tobacco and e-cigarettes]."

Nothing new there of course so leaving aide Taylor's concerns about "the potential creation of a new generation of young nicotine addicts", many of whom "are now buying cheap disposable vaping devices", the most interesting part of the programme (for me) was when Taylor pressed Deborah Arnott on why she wouldn't engage with the tobacco industry.

Recalling his time in Northern Ireland when the official government position was "We do not talk to the IRA" Taylor made the point that "in the end we had to talk to the IRA in order to get peace".

Comparing that with the gulf that still exists between the public health lobby and the tobacco industry he added, "The irony is that both sides say they want to see a smoke free future."

Questioning Arnott in a polite but insistent manner, he put it to her that:

"PMI would very much like to talk to you and your colleagues in the health industry and engage in some sort of dialogue. Why won't you accept that, why won't you talk to them, why won't you listen to them and let them explain what they are trying to do?"

Arnott, to be fair, was unflustered by his questions and replied, somewhat imperiously:

"We don't need to meet them. It's out there in the public domain, what they're doing. I have nothing to gain from meeting publicly [my emphasis] with the industry to discuss their plans. It just gives them credibility."

I’m a bit surprised Taylor didn’t pursue this but draw your own conclusions.

'Tobacco and Me' began by talking about a smoker, Peter, who inspired and featured in his first documentary about tobacco, Dying for a Fag, in 1975. It finished on another sombre note:

My dear friend, who died of lung cancer last year, was more than just a statistic. She was someone who was loved by all her family and friends, taken away well before her time.

And I went to her funeral and it reminded me of going to the funeral of Peter who died of lung cancer nearly 50 years before she did.

And it brought it all back again, to think how needless both deaths were, as were the deaths of millions of others, all due to cigarette smoking ... and nicotine.

To be clear, I don't doubt Taylor's sincerity and I appreciate that after half a century of making anti-smoking documentaries he probably has an emotional as well as a professional attachment to the subject, but where is the balance?

Aside from old clips, 'Tobacco and Me' featured four interviewees, two from the anti-smoking/public health lobby, two from PMI. In theory that suggests balance but all four share the same goal – a smoke free world.

I get that this was more of a journey through Taylor's back catalogue, with the 'story' brought up to date, but what about the view, still espoused by the likes of David Hockney, that despite the health risks smoking continues to be practised and enjoyed by millions of adults who don't want to quit or switch to alternative nicotine products?

Why will no journalist or documentary maker devote even a few minutes to those who get pleasure from smoking or find smoking a comfort? Instead smoking is portrayed as inherently terrible with no redeeming qualities.

Likewise public health campaigners and the tobacco industry are generally portrayed in wholly simplistic terms (good versus evil) with no attempt at nuance.

On this occasion, to be fair, ‘Tobacco and Me’ gave Philip Morris a good crack of the whip that fully justified their decision to take part.

Taylor seemed surprised that they had agreed to speak to him, suggesting that in light of his previous documentaries he was probably the company’s “public enemy number one” but I think that was probably his ego talking.

It’s just a pity that to get a fair hearing on tobacco and be treated on equal terms with anti-smoking campaigners you have to align yourself with the forces of prohibition and others who want to make cigarettes obsolete.

If you have a spare 58 minutes you can listen to ‘Tobacco and Me’ here.

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

Hypocritical PMI wants to engage with the Tobacco Control Industry while refusing to engage itself with its consumers who are happy smokers and who it readily insults and degrades with propaganda and stupid opinions like "no one should smoke in the 21st century." It doesn't intend to quit tobacco, it just thinks smokers can be forced through stigmatisation to its new product.

Both Arnott and Calantzopolos are as bad as each other. Neither can be trusted, both rely on bullying and stigmatisation to force smokers to quit, or switch, neither are prepared to talk to smokers to find out how we feel about it all because neither of them care. One side plays politics and attacks legitimate adult consumers for the ideological aim for a world without smokers, and the other bullies and stigmatises smokers to ensure fat profits come from its new device.

Meanwhile, I assume, the documentary maker refused to acknowledge that actually, smoking rates are lower than ever before and yet lung cancer rates for those who don't smoke or have never smoked have never been higher. Neither was there any mention I suppose of how much people smoked back in 1975 to how much the average smoker consumes today? It is certainly a lot less and dose, as we know, makes poison in all things.

What will the smokerphobics do when they get their utopia, criminalise those who refuse to quit, and yet still find that people who have never smoked are still dying from what they call "smoking related diseases" that seem to effect all humans regardless of lifestyle, class, or citizen status?

[Rose2]

Pat

Today I realised that James Ist with his infamous Counferblaste which has been the cause of such misery and confusion over the years, was copying the Spanish in their previous assault on an American staple herb and for much the same purpose.

Amaranth was first cultivated around 8,000 years ago.

"Upon defeating the Aztecs in 1521, Spanish conquerors destroyed the amaranth crops and banned its further cultivation in order to subdue the population, restrict their customs, and convert them to Christianity."
http://cornellbotanicgardens.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/history.panels.pdf

A Counterblaste to Tobacco
King James I of England
https://www.laits.utexas.edu/poltheory/james/blaste/blaste.html

Though Amaranth and Quinoa have recently been exonerated by proper study, tobacco unfortunately, as yet, has not.