Get ready for No Smoking Day (yawn)

Remember No Smoking Day?

In a crowded calendar it was once the biggest ‘health awareness day’ of the year. Today it struggles to attract even a handful of articles in the local press.

If I remember, No Smoking Day once had an annual budget of £600,000 which paid for a CEO, several members of staff and a variety of resources including promotional material.

A charity in its own right, it had its own logo, a dedicated website and a series of media friendly slogans.

Google 'No Smoking Day 2020' and not only will you not find a website, you'll struggle to find any details of this year’s event which takes place in just two days (Wednesday March 11).

It's not even clear who the organiser is.

After several years of declining interest the poisoned chalice was picked up a few years ago by the British Heart Foundation. Go on the BHF website however and the last reference to No Smoking Day is a press release issued on March 9, 2016.

Online No Smoking Day's biggest cheerleader seems to be Nicorette whose range of products includes patches, gum and lozenges. According to the Nicorette website (Get Ready for National No Smoking Day):

No Smoking Day was first held in 1984, coinciding with Ash Wednesday. Since then, it’s grown to become a major health awareness day, supported by a mix of public health and voluntary sector organisations, including the NHS and the British Heart Foundation.

The Health Assured website – which describes NSD as a 'significant day on the wellbeing calendar' – also credits the BHF as the organiser.

While it's true the old No Smoking Day URL (nosmokingday.org.uk) does indeed divert to the BHF website, what you find is not a page dedicated to NSD but a generic page about the perils of smoking.

All in all, a pretty poor show. Time, surely, to put this tired, decrepit event to bed, once and for all.

Opportunity knocks

I have written an article for Brexit-Watch.

Brexit-Watch was launched last month by the Global Britain think tank to ‘ensure the UK Government is fully aware of the opportunities and risks arising from the decisions it must take to complete Brexit by the end of 2020.’

Managing editor Brian Monteith is a familiar name to readers of this blog. A former spokesman for Forest in Scotland, he was a member of the Scottish Parliament from 1999 to 2006 and for many years has written a weekly column for the Scotsman.

Last year he stood for the European Parliament and was elected as a member of the Brexit party. In Brussels he was the party’s chief whip.

My article for Brexit-Watch is pretty much summed up by the headline - It’s time to take back control of our lifestyles.

It focuses on the EU’s revised Tobacco Products Directive and the need to challenge our controlling elite. I conclude:

Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union is a victory for democracy. Let’s not undermine it by allowing power to remain in the hands of a few unelected mandarins and activists who – with the help of a compliant parliament – are determined to dictate how the rest of us live our lives.

You can read the full article here.

Birthday

It’s my birthday today. I’m 61.

I’ve never been one for celebrating birthdays. I’ve no idea what I did on my 18th or 21st birthdays, for example.

I certainly didn’t have a party. I can’t imagine anything worse!

Before last year one of the few birthdays I can remember is my 30th when I was living in Camberwell, south east London, and some friends came round for dinner.

I remember it because one of the guests made an enormous cake with ‘30’ on it.

Becoming 30 also felt like a milestone, far more than 40, 50 or even 60.

Friends were starting to get married, buy houses, move out of London. The days of dinner parties and wild weekends (I’m kidding) were coming to an end.

Last year, for my 60th birthday, my wife booked an unexpected treat - an overnight stay at a Michelin-starred restaurant in rural Lincolnshire.

Now she says we should do something special every year because “it may be your last”, which is comforting.

Over the weekend therefore we had a couple of nights at The Crown in Wells-next-the-Sea on the Norfolk coast.

The small, dimly lit bar had a wood burner and leather armchairs. The dining room was lined with books and a feature of our bedroom was an enormous copper bath (which was in the bedroom not the bathroom).

Yesterday we visited Holkham Beach which is where the closing shots of Shakespeare in Love were filmed.

The Norfolk beach was used to replicate the shores of Virginia. I hope it was warmer for Gwyneth Paltrow because yesterday it was absolutely freezing!

Another one bites the dust

L’Ecrivain, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Dublin, is to close in the summer after 31 years in business.

I discovered L’Ecrivain a few years ago when I was looking for a restaurant where Forest Ireland could host a series of dinners for 10-12 guests plus speaker.

That meant a private dining room. There also had to be a comfortable smoking area close by.

I looked at several potential venues and none had what we looking for. There were plenty of private dining rooms but none of the restaurants had an adjacent outdoor smoking area. Some didn’t have a smoking area at all.

Then I found L’Ecrivain.

In addition to the main restaurant there were two private dining rooms but the one on the first floor also offered direct access to a covered smoking terrace with tables and chairs, perfect for pre-and after dinner drinks.

In fact, it was so comfortable that our guests frequently arrived early and stayed long past midnight.

I will remember those evenings - with guests such as Claire Fox, Chris Snowdon, Ella Whelan, Ian O’Doherty, Keith Redmond and Rob Duffy - with great affection.

Sadly, the network of like-minded groups I had hoped would coalesce around our Burning Issues dinners and work together never materialised, but that’s another story.

Talking of Dublin restaurants, I hear that Suesey Street, home of Forest’s Golden Nanny Awards in 2017 and 2018, has undergone some refurbishment and smoking is no longer allowed on the covered heated terrace.

When I say ‘covered’ I don’t mean in the British sense - with 50 per cent still open to the elements. I mean fully covered, which is why we chose it for our event.

We wanted guests to enjoy pre-dinner drinks in an area where they could smoke fully protected from the weather (the awards took place in November).

Thanks to the smoking terrace - which had its own log fire - Suesey Street stood out from the competition.

Now it’s just another restaurant with a covered outdoor area and smokers, I’m told, are verboten from lighting up.

To whom it may concern

I really appreciate the comments that were posted in response to my post on bad science.

They were well-argued, extremely articulate and I agreed with many of the points that were made.

However, having wrestled with this for several days, I have decided not to publish them because (without exception!) they made allegations that, legally, might be hard to defend and it was impossible to edit them without mangling the entire comment beyond all recognition.

When deciding what to publish on this blog I always go back to my days in print journalism when no reputable newspaper or magazine would dream of publishing some of the comments or allegations that are frequently found online without the approval of a lawyer, and I am not in a position to seek legal advice.

I know this blog has a small readership but I also know it is occasionally read and monitored by people within the tobacco control industry and I would prefer not to give them the opportunity to sue me!

Some will judge this unnecessarily conservative (or, worse, censorship) but as a student editing a student newspaper I was once sued for defamation. I learned a lot from the experience and have been very careful ever since.

So, apologies to those whose comments I have not published. Most made some valid points but – irrespective of the fact that similar claims may have been published elsewhere – several comments were potentially libellous (even if true!) and although the risk of legal action may be very very small, I'm not prepared to take that risk.

Sorry!

UK tops tobacco control index

Readers hoping that the UK might take a more relaxed attitude to tobacco control now we are outside the EU are likely to be disappointed.

Successive UK governments have generally gone above and beyond the rest of Europe when it comes to tobacco control so it’s no surprise to see the UK retain its number one ranking in a Europe wide survey.

The Association of European Cancer Leagues, currently hosting the 8th European Conference on Tobacco or Health (ECToH) in Berlin, has ranked 36 European countries according to their tobacco control activity in 2019.

The Tobacco Control Scale, published yesterday, quantifies the implementation of eight tobacco control policies including price, public place bans, ad bans, health warnings, consumer information, and treatment to help smokers quit.

Points are allocated to each policy with price (maximum 30 points) and smoke free public places (22 points) given the most weighting.

The UK heads the ranking with 80 out of a possible 100 points, with France and Ireland close behind.

At the other end of the scale, ‘Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg continue to disappoint with extremely poor scores.’ Tut tut.

As a pointer to the next Tobacco Products Directive (TPD3) it’s pretty clear which way the wind is blowing in Europe if not in Britain where tobacco control is way ahead of the game:

“Plain packaging for cigarettes exists now in eight countries and should be the standard for all countries in the European Region,” states Luk Joossens, the main author of the Tobacco Control Scale.

Eight countries (UK, France, Ireland, Norway, Turkey, Slovenia, Belgium and Israel) have adopted and implemented plain packaging legislation. Hungary will implement its legislation in 2022, and the Netherlands and Denmark have agreed to introduce plain packaging very soon.

Other recommendations include a Europe-wide ban on the display of tobacco products at the point of sale and a ban on smoking in private cars when minors are present.

Given these policies are already in force in the UK you can see how far ‘advanced’ we are.

Naturally, the report also includes an ill-disguised plea for more money to keep the anti-smoking industry in business:

A major concern is the lack of funding for tobacco control. No country spends €2 per capita on tobacco control, with only Iceland coming close. The TCS scores for spending are extremely low and we are seeing reduced funding in several countries.

Btw, I’m sure the UK deserves its place at the top of the table but it’s worth noting that the UK’s policies were assessed by none other than Martin Dockrell (Public Health England), Deborah Arnott (ASH), Ailsa Rutter (Fresh, formerly Smokefree North East) and Debbie Storm (ASH Scotland).

When you think about it, that’s rather like being asked to mark your own homework. Who could have predicted such a result?!

Plain packaging has failed but tobacco control is spinning a different story

As promised (see previous post), I’ve been keeping an eye on the eighth European Conference on Tobacco or Health taking place in Berlin.

Findings presented at the conference are being spun to suggest Britain’s plain packaging law has been a success.

According to a jejune report funded by the British Heart Foundation and published by the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Policy Evaluation Project:

After standardised packs with larger health warnings were introduced in England, smokers were more than twice as likely to notice health warnings on packs first before branding.

Of course they were. After plain packaging was introduced there was no branding on the pack so smokers were obviously going to notice the health warnings first.

In reality there was nothing else to look at apart from the name of the brand in a standard generic font. It doesn’t mean smokers consumed fewer cigarettes or quit smoking, though.

In addition:

After the plain packing laws were introduced, 53 percent of smokers didn’t like the look of their cigarette packs, compared to 16 percent before.

Naturally! The colour of standardised packs was chosen to be as off-putting as possible. Take away the branding and what are you left with? A drab green pack featuring a large image of a diseased lung (or similar) and very little else.

I’m astounded that, post plain packaging, the percentage of smokers who ‘didn’t like the look of their cigarette packs’ is only just over half.

For plain packaging to be considered a success surely that figure should be far, far higher? Then again, perhaps it shows how unimportant the design of the pack is, relatively speaking.

Either way it has no bearing on consumption and health because there is a huge difference between not liking the look of the pack and not smoking.

As we said time and time again, it’s not the pack that matters to most smokers, it’s the sticks inside it.

Finally, here’s the third reason the report gives for declaring plain packaging to be a success in the UK:

In 2018, support for standardised packaging among adult smokers in England had increased from 32% before the law to 44% after the law was fully implemented in 2017.

To be clear, plain packaging, like the display ban, was never a major issue for most smokers.

There was opposition, naturally, because many smokers felt that it insulted their intelligence and was part of the Orwellian process of denormalisation.

In practice though standardised packs have made no difference to the overwhelming majority of smokers who quickly adapted to their introduction by largely ignoring the new design.

All the popular brands are widely available and if you want to buy them you simply ask for them by name. Who cares what the pack looks like?

Yes, the new packaging is aesthetically another step towards what David Hockney calls the “uglification of England”, but graphic health warnings on branded packs had desensitised smokers years ago, robbing standardised packs of any significant shock value.

It helped too that plain packs were introduced gradually, so I’m not sure if ‘support’ is the right word. The reality is that most smokers simply don’t care about plain packaging because any fears they might have had before their introduction have not been realised.

The elephant in the room - conveniently ignored by the ITC report - concerns smoking and health.

I have yet to see any credible evidence that smoking rates or cigarette consumption in the UK has fallen as a result of plain packaging, and without such evidence it is impossible to claim that it has had a positive impact on health.

If there was evidence do you think tobacco control campaigners would have kept quiet about it? Of course not.

Instead, the best they can come up with is the weak argument that consumers noticed that the health warnings were more prominent following the introduction of standardised packs, and didn’t like the new packs as much as the old ones.

And that’s pretty much it.

Meanwhile, if there are still people who don’t believe that plain packaging has failed, consider this:

While welcoming the findings, Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health, said that the UK needs even stricter regulation if it wants to be smoke-free by 2030.

At present, she noted, more than one in seven adults are still smoking.

“Regulation needs to go further,” she said. “It’s time to put health warnings on the cigarette sticks as well and make cigarettes as unappealing as the packs they’re sold in.”

Translation: plain packaging, like the display ban and larger health warnings, has not worked. To achieve our goal we need more radical regulation.

Serious question: would she be saying that if plain packaging was working as intended? No. Standardised packs have failed and no amount of spin can hide that very simple fact.

Forest barred from tobacco control conference

The eighth European Conference on Tobacco or Health is taking place in Berlin this week.

Organised by the Association of European Cancer Leagues, ECToH is said to unite ‘over 600 influential advocates, researchers, academics, non-governmental organisations, civil society, scientists, healthcare professionals and public officials working on all aspects of tobacco control from around Europe.’

One notable exception from that list is the consumer. Guillaume Perigois, director of Forest EU, tried to register to attend the conference but received this response:

Dear Guillaume

Thanks for your email and your interest on the ECToH 2020.

Unfortunately, I must inform you that tobacco companies and supporters are not allowed to participate.

You can also read this on our website.

It is not possible for you to visit the ECToH 2020 in Berlin.

Kind regards,

The link, btw, takes visitors to a page that reads:

IMPORTANT: Those who have any affiliation with tobacco or e-cigarette industry (current, in the past, or have future plans) or their lobbyists, either professionally or on a personal basis [my emphasis], will NOT be permitted to the ECToH.

This includes, but is not limited to, individuals who have ever accepted any sponsorship, grant or any other form of support, whether financially or otherwise; or entered into any form of association with the tobacco or eCigarette industry, including but not limited to tobacco companies, eCigarette companies, manufacturers, distributors, retailers and tobacco- or eCigarettes, and related industry-funded research bodies, such as the so-called ‘Foundation for a Smoke-Free World’.

ECToH’s policy is aligned with the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Article 5.3: There is a fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the tobacco industry’s interest and public health policy interests.

Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on anything that might be of interest.

A couple of things have already caught my eye. One, findings that claim that plain packaging has been a success in the UK; and, two, a report that ranks 36 European countries on tobacco control. (Spoiler: the UK, France and Ireland lead the way with Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg continuing to ‘disappoint’.)

More to follow.