Public health minister – "There is no safe level of nicotine consumption"

Quick follow up to last week's Westminster Hall ‘debate’ on achieving a ‘smokefree’ (sic) future.

My prediction that very few MPs would be present was correct (no surprise there), but I over-estimated the number. Including the chairman, Virendra Sharma, just eight MPs bothered to turn up.

In addition to Bob Blackman (Conservative), chairman of the APPG on Smoking and Health, and Labour's Mary Kelly Foy (who is vice-chair of the same APPG), the others were Jim Shannon (DUP), Liz Twist (Labour), Preet Kaur Gill (Labour’s new shadow public health minister), and public health minister Andrea Leadsom, every one of whom support the Government's ‘smokefree’ ambition.

The only dissenting voice was another DUP MP, Ian Paisley, but his principal concern was the unintended consequences of crime in Northern Ireland and the problems that might arise if a generational ban was introduced there when, over the border in the Republic, tobacco could still be purchased legally at 18.

The defining memory of the 'debate' however was not the pitiful attendance nor the predictable contributions from the likes of Blackman and Mary Kelly Foy, but Andrea Leadsom's performance.

Perhaps I'm used to ministers being a little more guarded in their response, or at least keeping their personal views closer to their chest, but Leadsom didn't hold back. A former smoker, she clearly considers this a personal crusade:

Quitting smoking is the best thing a smoker can do for their health: someone who quits before turning 30 could add ten years to their life. That is very reassuring to me; I started smoking at the age of 14 and gave up as my 21st birthday present to myself, by which time I was smoking 40 a day. I was a student — how did I afford it? I have no idea!

I am so glad I stopped. For anyone who doubts how addictive it is, I turned 60 last year and even to this day, talking about smoking all the time, I sometimes think, “Ooh a cigarette.” That is how addictive it is — 40 years on and I still think, “Ooh!” It is that addictive, and that is absolutely appalling.

But the most jaw-dropping moment was when she declared:

Unlike other consumer products, there is no safe level of nicotine consumption; it is a product that kills up to two thirds of its long-term users and causes 70% of lung cancer deaths.

'No safe level of nicotine consumption'? That’s quite a statement, although I can see what's she done. She's conflated smoking with the consumption of nicotine, but if it was an accident it was also a Freudian slip.

Truth is, as far as government and the public health industry are concerned, the war on tobacco is a war on nicotine, and comments such as 'There is no safe level of nicotine consumption' make the direction of travel absolutely clear.

The UK Vaping Industry Association reacted furiously, as you might expect ('Health minister worryingly out of touch on vaping issues').

It amuses me, though, when vaping advocates, including the vaping industry, accuse politicians and public health activists of being 'out of touch' on vaping whilst accepting everything they have to say about smoking including, no doubt, the claim that that 'the directly attributable cost of smoking to society was around £17 billion a year'.

So forgive me if I don't share the UKVIA's angst.

Nevertheless, it is a little worrying when a government minister makes such a sweeping statement. It's like saying 'There is no safe level of alcohol consumption', or 'There is no safe level of caffeine consumption'.

Has she never heard the expression, 'the dose is the poison'?

Anyway, it's hard to see the Government rowing back with the likes of Andrea Leadsom in office. She may only be a junior minister but that's scant consolation given the PM’s key role in proposing a generational smoking ban.

The remarkable thing is that Leadsom could have been PM had she not shot herself in the foot with an ill-judged remark about motherhood making her a better candidate than Theresa May for the Tory leadership in 2017.

Thankfully we dodged that bullet but got the Maybot instead. Hard times.

Comments

[PJH]

"there is no safe level of nicotine consumption;"

so forthcoming bans on potatoes, aubergines, tea and tomatoes, then?

[Rose2]

Thank you for the laugh, Simon

No safe level of nicotine consumption, eh?
She must have a very rudimentary diet.

You are quite right, we clearly had a lucky escape.

[Pat Nurse]

I don't think we did have a lucky escape. May or Leadsom or Sunak. What's the difference? They are all controlled and puppets of the powerful anti smoker industry. Let's face it, they speak with the voice of ASH who we know often write the script for them.