Considerate smokers

The Times reports:

Most smokers are “very considerate” when lighting up, the chief executive of Imperial Brands, the UK tobacco market leader, has said amid government plans to clamp down on outdoor smoking.

According to Stefan Bomhard, “Most smokers are very considerate … so I don’t think it will make any major difference in their numbers.”

I agree. In fact, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve said something very similar.

Back in 2013, for example, in response to an initiative inviting smokers to sign a pledge to keep their homes smoke free, or promise that smoking would be confined to one room in the house and never in front of children, I argued against the need for the campaign, commenting that:

“Most smokers are considerate to those around them, especially children.”

I made the same point, time and time again, prior to the introduction of legislation banning smoking in cars carrying children.

Times had changed, I said, and the overwhelming majority of smokers wouldn’t dream of smoking in a car if a child was present, so why the need for yet another law?

To the best of my knowledge, since the law was introduced, not a single person has been prosecuted for lighting up in a car with a child on board.

The anti-smoking lobby will say that proves the law has been successful in deterring people from smoking while a child is in the car.

I would suggest that so few adults were smoking in cars carrying children before the ban, the law made almost no difference.

Similarly, smoking in children’s playgrounds, a practise banned in Wales despite there being very little evidence that more than a handful of smokers still did it.

In 2020, in response to a request by the chief medical officer in Scotland for retailers ‘to put up notices warning people not to light up or vape outside shops’, I responded:

“Most smokers are considerate and use their common sense when lighting up outside shops or in queues.”

I could trot out lots of examples like this, and I’m not alone.

July 2011, in an article in the Independent (Is smoking still defensible?), journalist Nick Duerden wrote:

What most people fail to realise about smokers, [musician Joe] Jackson points out, "is that we are considerate people too, just like the rest of society". In other words, they don't, as a rule, go round blowing smoke into children's faces and rarely, if ever, light up where they shouldn't.

Despite this, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill will give government the power to extend the workplace smoking ban to outdoor areas including outside schools and in or around children’s playgrounds.

Frankly, if this is designed to force smokers to change their behaviour then it’s a waste of time because the vast majority of smokers changed their behaviour - without the need for legislation - many years ago.

No, the only reason the Government intends to make it illegal to smoke outside hospitals and schools is because politicians are addicted to legislation, and smokers are an easy target.

It’s virtue signalling of the worst kind because the impact, as Stefan Bomhard rightly says, will be minimal, but they’ll do it anyway and boast that it’s made a significant difference when it comes to ‘protecting’ children’s health.

The Times’ report also includes a quote from Forest concerning the threat of a ban on smoking outside hospitals in England:

Forest, the tobacco industry funded smokers’ lobby group, has said a smoking ban outside hospitals was “cruel” because it could be a comfort to patients, visitors and staff “who want a quiet, stress-free moment”.

ASH has responded to this in their Daily News bulletin:

Quitting smoking, at any time, is beneficial to your health. Tobacco industry funded organisations like Forest make the argument that smoking outside hospitals is a source of relief to patients. However, the evidence is clear that the opposite is true, with smoking trapping people in a cycle of addiction and withdrawal and worsening mental health and wellbeing.

They don’t get it, do they? This is not about the long-term, it’s about the moment. A patient who may be stressed and in need of a comforting cigarette. Likewise a visitor who has been given bad news about a patient. Or a member of staff who has had a long, possibly distressing, day caring for sick or dying patients.

Personally, I can’t think of anything less likely to improve the mental health of a heavy smoker in that moment than to be told “You can’t smoke” anywhere on the hospital grounds - and may even be fined or punished in some other way.

Needless to say ASH chose not to link to this recent article (I’m a doctor – Labour’s plan to ban smoking outside hospitals is a ridiculous show of nanny statism) by Professor Karol Sikora, ‘a leading cancer specialist, who worked as a clinical director in the NHS for more than 25 years’.

According to Prof Sikora:

When it comes to hospitals, we have to be liberal about smoking out of sheer empathy for the patients – many of whom are at the end of their lives. There’s no doubt that smoking is bad for you, so I’m not suggesting that we should encourage people to do it. But for many patients it’s a lifeline – a practice that brings comfort and relief at times of deep distress.

Of the two I know who I’d rather listen to and it’s not ASH.