The Pleasure of Smoking

Two months ago we invited smokers to complete an online survey devised by the Centre for Substance Use Research in Glasgow.

The response exceeded our expectations. Over 600 completed the survey and the results are published today in a new report, The Pleasure of Smoking: The Views of Confirmed Smokers.

As you can imagine the opinions expressed by most respondents don't fit the establishment's anti-smoking narrative so don't expect to hear them on the Today programme, one of whose guest editors this week is Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies.

Despite our best efforts it's unlikely too that you'll read about the The Pleasure of Smoking in your national newspaper. So it's up to you, dear reader, to help disseminate the report as widely as possible.

Here are the headline results:

The overwhelming majority of confirmed smokers say they light up because they enjoy smoking not because they are addicted, a new study has found.

A survey of over 600 smokers by the Centre for Substance Use Research in Glasgow found that nearly all respondents (95%) gave pleasure as their primary reason for smoking, with 35% suggesting that smoking was part of their identity.

Well over half (62%) liked the physical effect of nicotine, 55% liked the way smoking provided “time for oneself”, 52% liked the taste or smell of tobacco, and 49% liked the ritual involved in smoking.

Most of those surveyed (77%) expected to smoke for many years with only 5% envisaging a time in the near future when they might have stopped.

Although a majority (56%) felt that they were addicted to smoking, many described the habit as a personal choice rather than behaviour determined by their dependence on nicotine.

Asked what they liked least about smoking, 73% cited the financial cost while 54% objected to the stigma that is now directed towards smokers.

Asked what might prompt them to stop smoking in future, the most common reasons were becoming seriously unwell as a result of smoking or exacerbating an illness through smoking.

Anti-smoking policies such as smoking bans and plain packaging were not cited by any respondents as reasons to quit smoking.

Significantly nine out of ten respondents (91%) felt they were treated unfairly by government. Only 4% felt they were treated fairly.

More than half the respondents (59%) had used alternative nicotine delivery products such as e-cigarettes. Few however were persuaded to switch permanently from combustible cigarettes to e-cigarettes.

The full press release, including comments by Dr Neil McKeganey, director of the CSUR, is available here.

I will return to various elements in the report later in the week. There's quite a bit to chew over including the reaction of respondents to e-cigarettes.

To download The Pleasure of Smoking: The Views of Confirmed Smokers click here.

Update: Dick Puddlecote has commented on the report here (The much ignored pleasure of smoking). See also Grandad (When smokers answer back).

Happy Christmas

I saw this a couple of weeks ago and it made me laugh.

If you're on Facebook you can also view it here. Many of the 1.9k comments are rather touching.

Enjoy, and have a very happy Christmas. Normal service will be resumed on Tuesday.

PS. This is rather funny too (if you watch it to the end).

Eat, drink, smoke, vape ... and be merry

Currently on a train south of Dublin so I'll take this opportunity to unveil the 2016 Forest Christmas card.

Theme is 'Eat, Drink, Smoke, Vape – It's Your Choice' and the salutation reads 'Merry Christmas from Forest'.

The card has been sent to 300 people including MPs, journalists and parliamentary researchers.

H/T Dan Donovan for the design.

Tonight's the night

Looking forward to the Public Affairs Awards in London tonight.

As I explained a few weeks ago, Forest has been shortlisted for 'Party Conference Reception of the Year'.

The event was Eat, Drink, Smoke, Vape. We've organised better parties but it attracted 500 guests and word got round.

Vice reviewed it as follows:

What it was: Forest and the Tobacco Manufacturers Association – the fags lobby.

Why people might not like them: For pushing cancer sticks.

The image they wanted to portray: If you want to pay to slowly poison your body for little discernible gain, then that's your choice. Also, you can vape now, which is less cool – but if we talk enough about that maybe you'll forget the cancer.

What the party was like: Actually really good. An upper-middle market bar packed to the gills with free booze, mini burgers, pocket ashtrays (a weird plastic wallet thing you can carry around) inscribed with the words "Say no to outdoor smoking bans", and leaflets about how "A once benign nanny state has become a bully state, coercing rather than educating adults to give up tobacco."

Entertainment: It was advertised as 'Eat. Drink. Smoke. Vape.' so like all good parties there were no frills beyond the amount of inebriants you could stuff in your body.

What the entertainment should have been: The same but with the film Breathless projected onto one of the walls, because that's hands down the best advert for smoking ever made.

If I was a politician, would I be convinced by this? Yeah, this was a convincing a case for freedom to chose. Almost as convincing as talking to a doctor about why you shouldn't smoke.

Seriously, that was a good review compared to the same journalist's comments on other receptions:

Heathrow and Gatwick Airports: Heathrow sponsored a party in the "sky bar" of a hotel that I failed to blag my way into, but if previous form is anything to go by, I'm going to assume [it was] "very boring". At both the Labour and Conservative conferences Heathrow erected an airport-style lounge, ie places people hate being, to promote themselves. I also briefly went to a Gatwick reception at the Labour conference, where people were crowding into a stuffy room to hear somebody mumbling quietly about airports. The booze had run out so I didn't stay long.

Association of British Bookmakers: The absolute classic, mate – a room full of people drinking wine and eating canapés. You get to take your picture with some Scottish football trophies, which would maybe be a big deal to some Scottish people.

British Association of Shooting and Conservation: A drab, half empty hotel room where people pawed at tepid goujons and talked about the best type of shotgun with which to murder wildlife.

See We did a bar crawl of the Tory conference's parties (Vice).

Venue for tonight's black tie event is the Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel in London and the host is Sky News' presenter Kay Burley. If we win it will be a miracle but whatever happens I will keep you posted!

Update: No, Forest didn't win Party Conference Reception of the Year. It won by The Enterprise Forum.

The other disappointment was the absence of Kay Burley. We got one of her lesser known colleagues which rather summed up the event which was enjoyable enough but lacked star quality.

On the plus side I rejoiced in the absence of those bombastic blasts of music organisers of similar events like to play every time someone goes to collect an award.

At the end of it all I'm not sure quite what to make of the Public Affairs Awards. The fact that anyone can nominate themselves for an award on payment of £150 (an offer I declined, btw) seems a bit weird, although I can see it's a good business model.

It's not clear what percentage of paid for nominations made it on to the shortlist and won an award but it must be quite high.

Apart from that, no further questions, m'lud.

The slow death of compassion in Britain's hospitals

I got a call yesterday from BBC Breakfast.

They wanted Forest's response to a report by the British Thoracic Society. Bizarrely however they wouldn't forward the press release because "it's embargoed".

They did however email the opening paragraph which gave the gist of the thing:

According to a major new report launched on Wednesday 7th December, NHS hospitals across UK are falling ‘woefully short’ of national standards on helping patients who smoke to quit and enforcing smoke-free premises.

As I understood it, the BTS want to"help" all patients who smoke to quit, not just those who are in hospital with a so-called smoking-related disease.

So I responded as follows:

"It's quite wrong to put smokers under pressure to quit while they are in hospital, especially if the reason they are there is not smoking-related.

"Being in hospital can be extremely stressful and having a cigarette is a source of comfort to many smokers.

"Enforcing smoke-free premises is a cruel and unfair way to treat patients who smoke.

"Nagging them to quit when they are at their most vulnerable also demonstrates a worrying lack of empathy.

"This is the opposite of health care. In the name of public health compassion is being replaced by zealotry and intolerance."

In the event I heard nothing more. Whether BBC Breakfast dropped the story I don't know. I watched the programme for a bit this morning but there was no mention of it.

Incidentally, it's perfectly normal to share embargoed press releases in advance, especially if you want comments from third parties.

The simple unwritten agreement is that you don't break the embargo, which I have never knowingly done. It's part of the media management game and I have no problem playing along with it.

The other rule concerns exclusivity. If the story is an 'exclusive' the journalist won't want you to release your response to all and sundry because that is also breaking the exclusivity, even if you embargo your response!

Yesterday the BBC told me the story wasn't an 'exclusive' so I emailed our reaction to the Press Association and every health editor and correspondent on the national dailies.

So far I can find only two reports.

The PA picked it up (Hospitals 'woefully failing' to crack down on smoking), and included a quote from Forest, but with the exception of Sky News the story seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

Nevertheless, coming a couple of weeks after Duncan Selbie, CEO of Public Health England, called for an outright ban on smoking on hospital grounds, there is clearly a concerted effort to see it implemented as part of the government's new Tobacco Control Plan.

Let's hope the Department of Health takes heed of Theresa May's bid to "restore fairness" in Britain. As I wrote on ConservativeHome in October:

If the Prime Minister really wants to stand up for millions of ordinary people who are sick and tired of being patronised by politicians and the professional classes, she must stop her government introducing further policies that will discriminate against the UK's seven million smokers. Enough is enough. It's time to stop this spiteful war on ordinary people who choose to smoke.

Update: I missed this earlier but the Mail Online also ran the PA story about the BTS report. See Hospitals 'woefully failing' to crack down on smoking. Includes my quote.

Defending the indefensible?

I've spent a fair bit of time over the last few days defending the indefensible.

Well, that's what it felt like.

Scotland has just caught up with England and banned smoking in cars with children. Someone had to put the case for the opposition and once again it fell to Forest.

I was quoted in most Scottish newspapers (Sundays and dailies) and I also did several TV and radio interviews.

The most uncomfortable moment was on BBC Radio Scotland when I went head-to-head with Jim Hume, the former Lib Dem MSP whose bill led to the new law.

We had a bit of a barny that finished with an awkward silence. After what felt like several seconds of dead air presenter John Beattie, the former Scottish rugby union international, stepped in and said, somewhat frostily, "I think we've taken that as far as we can."

I enjoy an argument but Hume's attitude genuinely pissed me off. He had every right to feel pleased with himself (if banning things turns you on) but every time I spoke I could hear him laughing, sighing or chuntering in the background.

I didn't say anything but I thought, "What a prick."

He even tried to suggest that I'm in favour of smoking in cars with children when I've made it clear many times that Forest doesn't condone it. We're simply against excessive regulations.

Later Beattie asked if I accepted that children were at risk if exposed to tobacco smoke in a car.

Fair question.

The gist of my answer was that the dose is the poison, to which I added that few if any children are exposed day after day, year after year, to smoke in someone's car.

At that point Hume started tut-tutting as if I'd said something incomprehensibly stupid or wicked. I was glad, frankly, when the 'discussion' came to an end.

Before that I took part in a phone-in, also on Radio Scotland. One by one a number of dour, crabby Scots came on the line to support the ban. One or two urged the authorities to go further and ban smoking in all vehicles.

As regular readers know, I grew up in Scotland. I went to university in Aberdeen. My wife is Scottish. We spent our wedding night on Skye. My children were born in Edinburgh. I support a Scottish football team.

I've visited every corner of Scotland from Stranraer to John O'Groats. I've been to Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles. I go to Scotland as often as I can. (I'm going next week, as it happens.)

However I no longer recognise the country I grew up in. Paternalism runs deep in Scottish society (think lairds and crofters) but in the Sixties and Seventies it was largely benign. Those with prohibitionist or puritannical tendencies (like the Free Church of Scotland aka the "Wee Frees") were at the margins and a source of humour not fear.

There were restrictions (you couldn't take your drink outside the pub, for example) but nothing that made drinkers (or smokers) feel like second or third class citizens.

Devolution has helped change that. Politically and culturally Scotland is now run by an authoritarian, sanctimonious elite that seeks to exercise every power they have to force people to change their ways.

The media has bought in to this (the relationship between government ministers and political journalists in Scotland is nauseatingly sycophantic) and it's encouraged a puritanical minority to speak out.

Those of a more moderate persuasion have gone to ground and in the last few days Forest has been a lone voice opposing what we believe are "unnecessary and patronising" regulations.

In fairness to the media they haven't baulked at publishing or broadcasting our views so I've no complaints on that score.

What disappointed me was the complete silence from so-called libertarian groups and campaigners who have clearly decided that this issue (smoking in cars with children) is too hot to touch so they've kept quiet.

The same, btw, is true of smoking in children's play areas. We don't condone it but we don't condemn it either. What we're against are excessive regulations instructing people how behave in public and private spaces.

Some people seem to think you can pick and choose the battles you fight. It doesn't work like that. By staying mute you are effectively endorsing the regulations and by doing that you are inadvertently giving the green light to further legislation.

Talking of which, on Monday the Scotsman's front page led with the BMA's demand for a ban on smoking in ALL private vehicles to protect "vulnerable adults".

The BMA has been calling for a complete ban on smoking in cars since 2011 but I can't remember hearing that phrase in this context before. It's always been about "vulnerable children".

It shows how tobacco control loves to move on even before the impact of new legislation can be reviewed and analysed.

Again, Forest was the only voice of protest although one or two editorials did imply it might be a step too far.

Hopefully there will be more voices opposing an outright ban. I wouldn't bet on it, though, especially in Scotland. 

Think of the children (and more BBC bias)

Tomorrow smoking in cars carrying children will be banned in Scotland.

It's pretty much identical to the legislation that was introduced in England last year.

Yesterday I recorded interviews for Radio Clyde, Global Radio and Sky Radio.

Tomorrow I'll be on BBC Radio Scotland.

Today I'm quoted by Scotland on Sunday, the Scottish Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Times Scotland.

Several people have queried why Forest bothers to fight such legislation. The reason is simple - it's unnecessary and wrong.

It's also a stepping stone to far more intrusive regulations - a ban on smoking in all private vehicles and, eventually, a ban on smoking in the home.

If smoking in cars was a significant risk to children's health it would have been prohibited a long time ago, years before smoking was banned in well-ventilated adult friendly pubs and clubs,

Or so you would have thought. Instead we're now led to believe it's on a par with child abuse, or worse.

At the very least seven million people are branded as ignorant, selfish and inconsiderate when, by and large, the opposite is true.

The overwhelming majority of smokers don't smoke in a car with children because they know that it's inconsiderate at best.

Nor do the overwhelming majority light up in children's play areas or by the school gates.

Health isn't the issue - they're outside, for heaven's sake. The principal reason is that, without legislation, most smokers have decided that it's probably inappropriate and and have changed their behaviour voluntarily.

(Personally, I think common sense should come into play and smoking in play areas should be governed by circumstances, a bit like driving fast on a clear open road or one that is heavily congested.)

Anyway governments and local authorities seem determined to brand every smoker as a potential threat to the nation's children.

Children, we are led to believe, are so vulnerable that even the sight of someone smoking will lead to a lifelong addiction.

This is not unlike the Scotland I grew up in, except the 'curse' was alcohol. In those days every pub in Scotland has frosted glass so children couldn't see adults drinking.

For the same reason customers weren't allowed to drink outside.

We've moved on from that. Now it's smoking that's cast as the morally degenerate behaviour we must save our children from.

Update: BBC News (Scotland) has a report about the car smoking ban (Ban on smoking in cars with children to come into force).

Interestingly, even though we sent the Scottish newsdesk our response on Friday, the BBC has ignored it.

Consequently at 6.30 this morning I was on the phone to the BBC in Glasgow and have just sent this email:

Smoking in cars with children: concerned at the shockingly one-sided nature of your report on this story despite the fact that we sent you our response on Friday.

Forest has been quoted by the Press Association and several newspapers including the Scotsman, Scottish Mail on Sunday and, I believe, the Sunday Times Scotland.

Your report quotes not one but FOUR supporters of the legislation and not a single opposing voice. Great journalistic standards. Well done.

The online newsdesk team get in at 9.00am, apparently. Let's see if they update their report.

Here's the Press Association report (with a quote from Forest): Ban on smoking in cars with children present to come into force.

Ditto the Mail Online: Ban on smoking in cars with children present to come into force.

The Sunday Mail and The People have also quoted Forest while the Dundee Courier reports, 'Law to protect youngsters branded "pointless" by smokers' group'.

The BBC? Nothing.

Update: My phone call to the BBC has resulted in their report being updated but why didn't they include an opposing voice in the first place, and why should I have to call them at 6.30 on a Sunday morning to make that point?

Update on Sunday, December 4, 2016 at 13:33 by Simon Clark

No surprise.

I've had a call to say the British Medical Association is using tomorrow's milestone to demand a ban on smoking in all private vehicles regardless of whether children are in the car.

To put this in perspective the BMA has been calling for this since 2011.

I've responded as follows:

"What the BMA is proposing is creeping prohibition.

"Banning smoking in all private vehicles, regardless of the presence of children, is completely unjustified.

"There's no evidence that smoking while driving is a road safety issue. The only reason to ban it is to make life as awkward as possible for adults who choose to smoke.

"We don't condone smoking in cars with children, which is inconsiderate. Adults however have a choice and if the driver is smoking we can choose not to travel in the same vehicle or we can speak up.

"If drivers are on their own there's no reason at all to ban smoking in cars. It's a private space and the BMA should butt out."

The BMA isn't alone, of course. A complete ban on smoking in cars is also on ASH's wish list.

Let's be honest, they won't rest until smoking is prohibited everywhere.

Fancy that!

British Heart Foundation need 100 healthy smokers for clinical trial. So they admit healthy smokers exist?! https://t.co/M1kXD71eJt

— Forest (@Forest_Smoking) December 1, 2016