Delighted to report that Forest’s 40th anniversary dinner at Boisdale of Canary Wharf next week is fully booked.
Tickets were strictly limited and last week we reached capacity - almost 200 guests.
We considered giving every guest a Forest-branded Zippo lighter but at £36 each that was too expensive.
We looked at promotional ashtrays but suppliers repeatedly told us, “We don’t sell ashtrays any more.”
Instead we’re giving guests a 52-page photo journal featuring pictures taken at various Forest events over the last 15 years.
They include images of broadcaster Andrew Neil addressing 400 guests at the Savoy Hotel in London in 2007, and Hockney (again) with Greg Knight MP at a Forest reception at the Houses of Parliament in 2011.
There are photos from two campaign launches - Save Our Pubs & Clubs (2009) and Hands Off Our Packs (2012) - and other events including The Freedom Dinner and Smoke On The Water.
Most of the pictures were taken by Dan Donovan who has been part of the Forest family since 2007.
It was difficult choosing which photos to include because there were so many but on the lighter side the image below is one of my favourites.
It was taken at the Eurostar terminal at St Pancras where we were filming a video for Forest’s ‘No Thank EU’ campaign against the revised Tobacco Products Directive.
It’s not the most flattering (of me!) but it sums up, I think, why I'm still doing this job after 20 years.
Working for Forest is a serious business with a serious message but it can also be great fun and Dan's photo captures one of many funny moments.
Forest Unfiltered, a photo journal featuring the photography of Dan Donovan and others, will be available at our gala dinner next week.
At the same time an electronic version will be available for download via this blog and the Forest website.
Postscript to my previous post which included a tweet that described me as a "a smug apologist for deadly cigarettes".
Two people ‘liked’ the tweet and one of them was Martin Dockrell.
Dockrell is the Tobacco Control Programme Lead for Public Health England. He joined PHE in 2016 after seven years working for ASH.
I’m flattered he found a moment to 'like' a tweet calling me ‘smug’. Pot. Kettle. Black.
More revealing perhaps was the fact that an employee of Public Health England endorsed a tweet that accused me (falsely) of being an ‘advocate of deadly cigarettes’.
Advocate of choice and personal responsibility, yes. Advocate of deadly cigarettes (or smoking generally), never.
Instead of wasting any more words on Dockrell, however, I want to praise a public health campaigner I actually respect.
New Zealand's Dr Marewa Glover is a tobacco harm reduction advocate. I admire her because she has qualities that are missing in most tobacco control campaigners - empathy and compassion.
Unlike many of her colleagues - who justify every tobacco control policy on the grounds that it may ‘help’ smokers quit even if it means shaming and marginalising them or forcing them further into poverty - Dr Glover sees the bigger picture.
In 2016, after she spoke out against proposals to extend smoking bans to outdoor areas, I wrote:
I can't remember hearing another health professional talk about smokers in this way, treating them like human beings and expressing concern about "segregation", "shaming", marginalisation and so forth.
She has also questioned tobacco tax increases pointing out that "It’s just punishing, taking more and more in tax from people who smoke when current stop smoking help doesn’t work for them."
Let's be clear, Dr Glover is a smoking cessation campaigner so we will have our differences but unlike most of her peers she seems willing to listen to and respect all positions, including that of people who enjoy smoking and don't want to stop.
It didn't surprise me then that she gave me a name-check at the Global Forum on Nicotine in Warsaw on Saturday.
Speaking from the floor of a session chaired by the former director of ASH Clive Bates and entitled ‘If it’s time to talk about nicotine, what have we missed?’, she stood up and mentioned my claim that GFN is an ‘echo chamber’ that excludes smokers who don’t want to quit or switch to vaping.
She could have ignored it (like every other delegate and speaker!) but the fact that she raised it highlighted once again how fearless and open-minded she is.
As I say, I’m sure there are things we would disagree on but I like the fact that she is clearly driven not by commercial interests or some puritanical anti-smoking ideology but by a genuine desire to help not punish people if they choose a legal but less orthodox lifestyle.
Earlier this year Dr Glover was one of three finalists nominated for the New Zealander of the Year award and from what I know of her it was well deserved.
Read her profile and she sounds like any other public health campaigner. The reality is rather different and although the jury may be out on her association with the PMI-backed Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, I am keeping my fingers crossed that she will bring some common sense and humanity to the global campaign to ‘eradicate’ smoking.
That means helping those who want to quit but respecting those who choose to smoke even when offered the option of alternative nicotine products.
It also means speaking out, as Dr Glover has done, against measures designed to marginalise and punish smokers.
Unfortunately, in tobacco control circles, she's pretty much on her own in that regard. But credit to her for being a rare voice of reason.
I’ve been embroiled in a rather weird Twitter spat, not of my instigation.
A few weeks ago I was told that someone called Peter Beckett had responded to one of my tweets (congratulating former Forest spokesman Brian Monteith on his election to the European Parliament) with this:
He worked for the e-cigarette company Juul but we barely spoke so he made very little impression on me.
Anyway, here he was, having a little dig at Forest, so I replied:
Peter, your tweets are protected. If you comment on or reply to my tweets it’s polite to tag me. Not sure why you would describe us as cigarette lobbyists. We campaign for choice & defend the interests of the consumer, smokers & vapers. What do you do? @peterbeckett@JUULvaporpic.twitter.com/MHHMxM5p6l
Owing to the protected status of his tweets it was difficult to fully engage because I had to rely on one of his followers sending me screen shots of his replies.
Consequently our exchange quickly fizzled out and I thought no more about it until yesterday when, out of the blue, he had another go at me.
This time it was in response to my tweeting a link to an excellent article by Claire Fox. (Claire, as you know, has been elected to the European Parliament as a member of the Brexit party and the article was about her first day in Brussels. I urge you to read it.)
This article should be read by all the smug EU apologists I meet whenever I’m in Brussels but they won’t care because most of them are on the gravy train too. https://t.co/HdsBN9OV3I
This time I saw it because his tweets are no longer protected so I immediately replied:
Hi Peter, how lovely to hear from you (again). Can you confirm that the cigarette manufacturer Altria owns a 35% stake in the company you work for? @JUULvapor
Forest has never advocated smoking. We’re advocates of choice and personal responsibility, hence our support for adults who make an informed choice to smoke, vape or do neither.
So there we have it. I barely know the guy. I don’t follow him on Twitter (although he follows me) yet on two separate occasions he has described Forest as “cigarette lobbyists” and accused me personally of being a “smug apologist for deadly cigarettes”.
Did I mention he works for the e-cigarette company Juul, 35 per cent of which is owned by the cigarette manufacturer Altria?
But that’s OK because Peter has never advocated smoking.
At least we have one thing in common.
Update: Peter has responded to my post by telling me 'we've met several times over a number of years. The first was I think four years ago ...'
I genuinely don't remember. Sorry.
Update: He’s unfollowed me again.
Update: And now his tweets are protected (again) which is why you can’t see them properly in the post above!
The Global Forum on Nicotine is meeting in Warsaw as I write.
Everyone can come and no-one is prohibited from speaking, say the organisers.
That may be true but attending a conference as a delegate does not give you the same platform as a panellist or speaker.
If you’re lucky you may catch the moderator’s eye and be invited to ask a question towards the end of a session, if it hasn’t over-run.
Or you may be allowed to make a very short point before your fellow delegates rush for the exit and a well-deserved ‘comfort break’.
What is beyond argument is that being in the audience is not the same as being a panellist or speaker.
Anyway, in response to the ‘no-one is prohibited from speaking’ message, I tweeted:
‘No-one is prohibited to speak.’ Maybe not, but when was the last time someone representing confirmed smokers (those who don’t want to quit) was invited to speak on a panel or give a keynote address? #gfn19https://t.co/G26Ei2W5b7
It was inspired by an email I’d received from one of the organisers of GFN who took me to task for writing and tweeting a “lot of inaccurate stuff” about the conference.
He then invited me to attend GFN but as a delegate not as a speaker.
I replied in what I thought was a friendly and constructive manner. I made several suggestions and even proposed we meet for coffee and a chat.
That was two years ago. I am still waiting for a reply.
Meanwhile, despite insisting that ‘We are the only event that brings together a wide range of stakeholders who otherwise might never meet each other’, the Global Forum on Nicotine continues to ignore a rather important stakeholder - the millions of consumers who enjoy smoking and don’t want to switch to vaping.
You might have thought the views of this substantial group would be of some interest and relevance to advocates of tobacco harm reduction but apparently not.
Before I’m dismissed as a Luddite and horribly unfair to GFN, read my 2017 post in full. I’m actually quite respectful and describe the conference as a ‘huge success’ - see GFN: I would if I could but I can’t.
Anyway, while vaping advocates have been chewing the fat in the heat of Warsaw I’ve been doing my bit by appearing on BBC radio ridiculing a call by England’s Chief Medical Officer to restrict the use of e-cigarettes to vapers’ homes and gardens.
You can add it to the many other interviews I've done defending or supporting vaping on the BBC both at home and abroad.
Thanks to David Newell (a vaper) for posting it on YouTube.
England’s Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies was in the news a few days ago.
Discussing e-cigarettes she told the Commons science and technology committee that vaping was “clearly much safer than tobacco smoking” and “If they help people stop ... I’d encourage [smokers] to use them.”
Bizarrely however she added that vaping should be restricted to people’s homes and gardens because she personally didn’t like having to breathe in “white clouds” of e-cigarette vapour.
Given the time of day (6.55am) I think I was quite robust.
If I sound a bit bleary-eyed and breathless however it’s because my alarm didn’t go off at 6.00 and I only woke up when the BBC rang me to do the interview. Two minutes later I was live on air!
Update: David Newell has uploaded the interview on YouTube here.
The Queen’s Birthday Honours were published on Friday night and still nothing for the current CEOs of ASH and ASH Scotland.
Fiona Andrews (Smokefree South West), Andrea Crossfield (Tobacco Free Futures) and Ailsa Rutter (Fresh North East) have all received recognition in recent years but Deborah Arnott and Sheila Duffy are still waiting for their invitation to the Palace.
Someone suggested to me that Deborah may be holding out for a peerage (he wasn’t joking!) but they aren’t mutually exclusive to the best of my knowledge.
Given Prince Charles’ well-known aversion to smoking you would think he would welcome the chance to pin a medal on these titans of tobacco control but the waiting continues.
I’ve been writing about this every year for six years and some of you must think I’m obsessed. I’m not, just curious.
Sweets, crisps and sugary drinks should be in plain wrappers, like cigarettes, to help combat preventable diseases.
That is one of the proposals in a report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a left-leaning think tank, which says the plain packaging would put unhealthy snacks on "a level playing field" with fruit and vegetables.
Is anyone surprised? Probably. In my experience the general public rarely wakes up to this sort of thing until it actually happens.
We did try to warn people, though.
In February 2012, a week before the launch of the Hands Off Our Packs campaign, our researcher Amul Pandya wrote:
There is ... a significant danger that once the precedent has been set with plain packaging, similar legislation will be extended to other areas.
For instance, Dr Simon Chapman, the chief proponent and figurehead of plain packaging in Australia, has publicly stated he would like to see graphic health warnings on alcohol products.
“Plain packaging is designed to denormalise a legal product and millions of adult consumers. What next? Alcohol, fizzy drinks and fast food?"
And in May 2016, responding to the news that tobacco companies had lost a high court battle over plain packaging, I made a similar point:
“If you don’t smoke but enjoy alcohol, sugary drinks and convenience food you should be concerned by this judgment because the health police are coming for you too.”
The IEA's Chris Snowdon was another who warned repeatedly of a "slippery slope". Tobacco companies also made the point that other products would be at risk once public health got a taste for plain packaging.
A key argument used in the tobacco industry media campaigns in many countries is that if plain packaging for tobacco is introduced, it sets a precedent for other consumer products, such as soft drinks, alcohol, or fatty foods. The argument is that plain packaging is a step too far towards a “nanny state” and will lead to reduced product innovation across all sectors. In this way, the tobacco industry tries to get support from the other industries in opposing the policy generally.
This argument is often put forward in campaigns and media articles by third-party organizations, posing as independent voices but which receive funding from the tobacco industry.
For instance, in the UK, the 'Hands Off Our Packs' campaign, run by Forest, strongly pushed this argument forward. The Institute for Economic Affairs, a libertarian think tank, hosted events and published papers opposing plain packaging, using the slippery slope argument. It was an issue regularly cited in media articles about those that oppose plain packaging.
Imperial Tobacco UK also deployed the slippery slope argument in an anti-plain packaging YouTube video advert in Britain — 2020 Vision (above).
The advert misleadingly suggests that by 2020 all products perceived to be unhealthy will be sold in plain packaging. The advert was promoted through the distribution of leaflets on petrol forecourts.
Hilariously this is part of a page that attempts 'to counter' (ie dismiss) these arguments.
As for the Institute for Public Policy Research, what can I say? As long ago as April 2007 I wrote:
Writing in the latest issue of Public Policy Research, the IPPR magazine, Observer columnist Jasper Gerrard says that Britain should consider raising the legal drinking age to 21. Failing that, he suggests making 18-year-olds carry smart cards "which record how much they have drunk each night and making it an offence to serve more alcohol to anyone under-21 who had already consumed more than three units". (Full report here.)
Can Gerrard be serious? Sadly, I think he is. Nor is he alone. His proposal is similar to one put forward by a doctor in Scotland who last year suggested that people should be limited to three units of alcohol when they go to the pub. The idea was dismissed as ludicrous and impractical but, thanks to Gerrard, the idea has resurfaced but with one significant 'improvement' - the smart card. Of course the idea is still ridiculous - and worryingly authoritarian - but others will no doubt repeat it in the hope that it gets taken up by campaigners and politicians who are either on a mission to 'protect' us from ourselves or will do anything to justify their existence.
I finished by urging readers to 'keep an eye on the IPPR':
Earlier this month Simon Retallack, the organisation's head of climate change, called for tobacco style health warnings to be displayed on holiday ads, warning people about the possible damage that flights and cars will do to the environment. What next? A ban on short-haul flights? Weekend breaks abroad? Or perhaps we'll be issued with a smart card that monitors how far we've travelled by car or plane and prevents us from going any further once we've reached our 'limit'.
Ian Hunter, who I saw play Birmingham Symphony Hall six weeks ago, is 80 today.
Born in 1939, he was already 35 when he appeared on German TV with Mott the Hoople in 1974 (above).
The song is Mott’s most successful single, sales wise, but watch the audience's reaction. It's priceless.
The irony is that before the band achieved commercial success with 'All The Young Dudes' in 1972 they were best known for the exuberance of their boisterous fans:
Recently-discovered letters have revealed that Mott the Hoople were one of the bands responsible for the Royal Albert Hall’s infamous ban on rock and pop concerts in 1972.
The behaviour of their fans at their concert on 8 July 1971, their first and only at the venue, was so enthusiastic that thousands of pounds worth of damage was caused to the venue.
Writing to Mott's record company ahead of the concert, an already nervous Marion Herrod, secretary and lettings agent for the Royal Albert Hall, commented:
I was rather alarmed to hear on the radio this morning a description of the group ‘Mott the Hoople’ ... as being one at whose concerts the audience habitually participate and one which often causes a ‘riot’.
In response, John Glover of Islands Records, wrote:
... the report you heard on the radio about the group was greatly exaggerated. ‘Mott the Hoople’ usually get a very good reception at all their concerts [but] as far as we know there have never been any riots or damage caused to any of the places where they have appeared.
Following the concert, Herrod wrote again to Glover:
I am sorry but in spite of your assurances that there would be no trouble at last night’s ‘Mott the Hoople’ concert, some members of the audience in Second Tier boxes became so enthusiastic and jumped and stamped around so much that the ceilings in two boxes in the Grand Tier below fell in. It is for reasons like this that we here do not like concerts at which the audience stamps and dances.
I also recommend an interview with Hunter that appeared in the Guardian last year. It includes a typically laconic anecdote plus some sage advice:
“I don’t have a stereo. People are horrified. They come to stay and they expect a stereo. When I was in London I went to Johnny Depp’s house and he’s got a complete wall. Massive speakers and a huge screen and it’s going on 24 hours a day. And I said, ‘Can you turn it down a bit?’
And the advice?
“If you’re lucky enough to have a passion – most people aren’t – grab it. And that’s what you do for the rest of your life. It might take a while and it might not be easy. But grab it and you’ll be happy. Fuck the money. That’ll come or it won’t. But you’ll be doing what you want to do and that’s what life is supposed to be.”
Wednesday, June 19, 2019 at 11:57 