Excellent piece by Kara Kennedy in the Daily Mail today.
Like most opinion pieces on the Mail website it's behind a paywall but the headline gives you the gist:
Alternatively (and I strongly recommend this) you can pay £1.10 for a copy of the print edition.
Readers may remember that Kara was a panellist at an event Forest organised at the Institute of Economic Affairs in March last year. (See Smoking Gun: Prohibition and the Infantilisation of Britain.)
We invited her to take part after reading 'An ode to smoking' which she wrote for The Spectator World, the US edition of The Spectator, and she didn't disappoint.
At the time she was working as a staff writer for The Spectator but she subsequently went freelance, moved to Washington DC, and has since written for various publications including the Telegraph, Mail, Tatler, and the New Statesman.
She also got married and is currently seven months' pregnant, hence this introduction to her piece in the Mail today:
It has been 162 days since my last cigarette, not that I'm counting or anything. I won't and can't smoke until the baby I'm carrying is born in September, but already I know this doesn't mean I'm giving up.
Tongue-in-cheek (?) she adds:
I've asked my husband to deliver me a nicely wrapped packet of Newports as my 'push present'.
As it happens I wouldn't be surprised if Kara has smoked her final cigarette because a lot of parents quit permanently after they've had a baby.
Then again she may go back to smoking ‘no more than five or six’ cigarettes a day, and not even every day.
That will make her, like many people, a social smoker who smokes because she genuinely enjoys it, not because she's hopelessly addicted.
Either way it's her choice and any liberal-minded person ought to respect that.
Instead it’s anticipated that the new Labour Government will use the King's Speech tomorrow to announce that it will reintroduce a bill to ban the sale of tobacco to future generations of adults.
The policy won't directly affect Kara, 26, but it won't be long before people of a similar age WILL be prohibited from legally purchasing tobacco.
When this happens there are three likely outcomes.
One, fewer people will smoke.
Two, it will drive more smokers to the black market.
Three, it could make smoking cool again because, as Kara rightly points out, one thing many young people don't like is being told what NOT to do.
None of these outcomes are mutually exclusive so a generational ban could result in all three.
Anyway, credit to the Mail for publishing the article (a double-page spread, no less) the day before the King's Speech and a week after Cancer Research UK made the absurd claim that cancers caused by smoking have hit a record high - despite a huge fall in smoking rates since the 1950s.
It even includes a quote from me.
PS. Quelle surprise, today's ASH Daily News bulletin has just landed in my inbox and the anti-smoking lobby group has chosen NOT to include Kara's piece.
Instead they sent the following links to their subscribers:
More NHS cash ‘not feasible’, adviser tells Labour (The Times)
Hospital discharges limiting home care in England, councils say (Guardian)
Labour pledge on junk food adverts aimed at children may still face delay to 2025 (i)
Dad demands vaping ban after both his daughters hospitalised (Cumberland News)
And, from the USA:
Campaigners target Philip Morris' flagship heated tobacco US launch (Daily Mail)
It begs the question, why would they NOT want their subscribers (many of them politicians, civil servants, and public health sector workers) to know about Kara's article?
I think we know the answer but draw your own conclusions.
Below: Journalist Kara Kennedy at Smoking Gun: Prohibition and the Infantilisation of Britain last year. Photo: Stuart Mitchell
