Busy day yesterday and not just because I was attending a family funeral.
Sod’s Law, minutes before we set off for West Mersea near Colchester, I was alerted to reports that the Irish Government was to consider raising the age of sale of tobacco from 18 to 21 at a Cabinet meeting this week.
The initiative – which appears to have the approval of Simon Harris, the new Taoiseach, was first reported two weeks ago by the Irish Examiner.
Surprisingly the story didn't make a bigger splash, although our response was reported in a follow-up piece by the same paper, and I also did a couple of local radio interviews.
Yesterday however the story was widely reported by RTE and several other newspapers, so we immediately issued a news release with Forest's reaction.
This led to requests for interviews from, among others, RTE, Newstalk, Today FM, and Virgin Media (the equivalent of ITV in Ireland).
Given the circumstances I couldn't do them all, but I did appear on RTE Radio 1 (from a car park near Stansted) with Professor Luke Clancy, founder of the TobaccoFree Research Institute Ireland.
Luke and I go back a long way - at least 20 years - when he was director of ASH Ireland and we went head-to-head several times on TV and radio.
That was before the smoking ban was introduced in Ireland in March 2004 and long before we established Forest Ireland in 2010.
Late last night I was also one of three guests who were invited to discuss the issue on The Tonight Show on Virgin Media.
The others were Senator Tim Lombard (Fine Gael spokesman on Agriculture, Food, Forestry and the Marine), and our old friend Professor John Crown.
You can watch the programme (it's the first item) here.
Needless to say my media appearances have not made the slightest difference and today it's been reported that plans to raise the age of sale to 21 have been approved by Cabinet.
A couple of points worth noting though.
One, during what was quite a heated interview on RTE (the presenter took umbrage with several things I said), I quoted Ireland’s Health Research Board on the subject of alcohol.
According to the HRB, one in three drinkers aged 15-24 has an alcohol use disorder which begs the question: surely a far more important priority for government is tackling misuse of alcohol among younger people?
In reply, Prof Clancy commented that raising the age of sale of alcohol could happen as well. You read it here first, folks!
Two, on the question of vaping, there seems to be a narrative developing in Ireland that e-cigarettes are a gateway for children to start smoking.
It was mentioned twice on The Tonight Show and when I challenged it and asked for evidence, Prof Crown chose to ignore my comment while Senator Lombard quoted research based on what sounded like anecdotal and therefore unsubstantiated evidence provided by pupils at a school in Cork.
Is that it?
I also recorded some soundbites for Newstalk to use in their news bulletins, and this morning I did two more interviews - on Limerick Today (Live 95), and the Michael Reade Show on LMFM.
At one point Reade said “people want” the government to raise the age of sale of tobacco to 21, which wasn’t the first time I’d heard this said in the last 24 hours.
It’s based, I believe, on a poll that found that 76 per cent of the general public (and 71 per cent of smokers) support raising the age of sale.
My point, when I challenged Reade, was that you can’t say “people want” something when almost 25 per cent don’t want it.
Perhaps I’m being pedantic but at the very least you have to qualify the statement otherwise the views of a significant minority are whitewashed from history.
See also - Smoking lobby group: ‘We should be trusted to buy cigarettes at 18’ (Newstalk)
Above: with presenter Kieran Cuddihy on The Tonight Show (Virgin Media). Below: all the guests featured on last night’s programme.
