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Wednesday
Dec022015

Greetings from Brussels

Brussels is still on high alert, it seems.

My hotel has two armed policemen outside and before you can enter you have to go through an airport-style security system.

Meanwhile the gala dinner I went to last night was forced to change venue and I was told to take ID to prove who I was.

The dinner – at the Cinquantenaire Museum (Royal Museums of Art and History) – was organised by Politico, a "political journalism organisation" founded in the United States.

Earlier this year Politico set up shop in Brussels and last night's event was to mark the launch of the first Politico28 list in Europe.

Based on the Politico50 model, which was launched in Washington last year, Politico28 lists 28 people from the 28 EU members states "who are shaping, shaking and stirring Europe".

If this seems a little self-regarding my mood wasn't helped when I saw that the UK nomination was Nicola Sturgeon. Worse, she was listed at number three, beaten only by Denmark's Margrethe Vestager and Hungary's Viktor Orban, "the small town rebel who helped bring down the Wall".

Sadly Sturgeon wasn't there to enjoy the moment. Nor, as far as I could tell, was the Irish nominee Panti Bliss (aka "the drag queen activist").

Even without Sturgeon's regal presence I'm told it was quite a high powered evening with a lot of influential people present, and in Brussels that's how events are judged. It's all about networking.

I think they'll have to rethink the format, though. Interviewing the great and the good on stage while guests are eating doesn't really work. The longer it went on the louder the background noise as guests chatted to their fellow diners.

Bizarrely (in my view) the evening was scheduled to end at 9.15pm and, on cue, it did. Everyone simply got up and went home with the exception of three or four hardcore smokers (and me) who stood outside in a covered courtyard until all the tables and chairs had been cleared away and it really was time to go.

Tuesday
Dec012015

Plain packaging: what do you think of the evidence so far?

Today is the third anniversary of the implementation of plain packaging in Australia.

Interestingly the Australian Government's long-awaited review on the impact of plain packaging is long overdue.

I can't be the only one who thinks that if there was clear evidence that plain packaging has been a 'success' (ie it has significantly reduced youth smoking rates in Australia, as advocates said it would) anti-smoking campaigners would be shouting from the rooftops.

What we do know, thanks to a press release issued by ASH last week, is that since the introduction of plain packaging in Australia in December 2012 youth smoking rates have fallen but only by a similar rate to those in England (where plain packaging will not be introduced until May 2016).

Anyone with half a brain, then, can see that plain packaging itself has had little or no impact.

But don't take my word for it. The Institute for Policy Evaluation has just published a report (commissioned, it must be said, by Philip Morris) entitled 'Three years of plain packaging for tobacco products in Australia - Have the expectations been met?'.

According to the IPE:

In December 2012, the Australian Government implemented plain packaging for tobacco products in order to curb smoking. But three years later, governmental data and related research show that neither the rate of smoking, nor tobacco consumption have declined as a result of plain packaging.

The percentage of smokers in the population (ie the rate of smoking) is the key smoking-related metric for evaluating plain packaging. The Australian National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS) indicates a decline in the rate of smoking from 15.1 in 2010 to 12.8 percent in 2013.

Tobacco control researchers have portrayed this decline as evidence of plain packaging’s effectiveness. However, the NDSHS data cannot validly be used to evaluate the (potential) plain packaging effect for several reasons. In particular, the data provide information on smoking rates in 2010 and in 2013, but plain packaging was introduced only in late 2012.

Unlike the NDSHS, official state-level data enable a comparison of smoking rates right before and after the implementation of plain packaging. These data show no evidence of a plain packaging effect and this finding is in line with existing empirical research.

The amount of tobacco consumed is another important measure of actual smoking behavior. Since cigarette sales (a common indicator of tobacco consumption) are not publicly available, researchers must rely on proxy variables (for example, tobacco clearances and expenditure on tobacco) or survey data (for example, NPPTS). Empirical evidence based on both kinds of data (proxy variables and survey data) suggest that plain packaging has not reduced (legal) tobacco consumption.

Three years after the introduction of plain packaging, publicly available data reveal that plain packaging has not reduced smoking rates or tobacco consumption. Even though the data were collected by different organizations, in different states, and in different ways, they tell a consistent story that does not support claims of plain packaging as an effective public health measure.

Given the huge discrepancy between the initial expectations of what plain packaging can achieve and the actual results after three years of experience with the measure, further research on the reasons for the ineffectiveness of plain packaging is needed.

Meanwhile our own government is blundering ahead with the policy (despite a legal challenge by the tobacco companies that is due to reach court next week) and from May 1 next year consumers will find tobacco sold in brown standardised packs featuring grotesque images on front and back.

Teenagers, I am sure, will simply ignore the packs in the same way they ignored graphic health warnings when they were introduced a few years ago. (After all, if picture warnings worked we wouldn't need 'plain' packaging, would we?)

Anyway you can download the full IPE report here.

See also Plain packaging is three years old today (Catallaxy Files).

Sunday
Nov292015

Ferne McCann lights up I'm A Celebrity

So Susannah Constantine was the first celebrity to be voted out of 'I'm A Celebrity'.

What I had forgotten, when writing about the programme and its proud history of celebrity smokers a couple of weeks ago, is that Susannah is married to Sten Bertelson who launched Death cigarettes in the Nineties.

The brand ("choose Death for an honest smoke") enjoyed a brief moment of infamy. It was doomed to fail but Bertelsen and his business partner BJ Cunningham gave the then Chancellor Kenneth Clarke a good run for his money when they later tried to sell, to UK consumers, cigarettes purchased at a lower duty in Luxembourg.

(See They've got the Chancellor fuming. The article is dated October 2011 on the Independent website but it must have been published in the mid Nineties.)

Anyway, did anyone notice that Susannah was the only contestant using an e-cigarette?

The good news is there is still one nicotine addict holding the flame of liberty aloft (so to speak) – TOWIE's Ferne McCann who has helped light up the show (no pun intended) since she belatedly entered the camp with Geordie Shore's Vicky Pattison.

Anti-smoker Duncan Bannatyne has kept a fairly low profile so far. His Twitter account tells anyone who will listen that he's keen to do a Bushtucker trial but the public aren't voting for him, possibly because he's a little dull and would almost certainly do the trial without fear or fuss.

It was Lady C I think who described Bannatyne as vain but ironically he is probably benefitting from the endorsement of the much younger McCann and Pattison who seem to like him.

Whether McCann will like him quite so much if he complains about her smoking remains to be seen.

If Bannatyne wants to be King of the Jungle (and I'm sure he does) he may just have to grin and bear it. Picking a fight with the good-hearted McCann (or her habit) wouldn't go down well with the voting public.

Then again, why would you complain about someone smoking a cigarette when you've been sitting next to a burning camp fire for two weeks?

Whatever else he may be, Bannatyne isn't stupid. I suspect common sense (and self preservation) will prevail.

Saturday
Nov282015

It's official, I'm a smoker

Nervously awaiting my afternoon flight from Dublin to Stansted. Predicted weather conditions - strong, gusty winds.

Earlier this year, also at Dublin airport, my plane was forced to sit on the runway for 30 minutes while the pilot waited for the wind to drop to a 'safe' level. The flight itself is one I don't want to repeat in a hurry.

On a completely different topic my financial adviser suggested recently I should switch my life insurance policy from one company to another.

No idea why but that's why I have a financial adviser.

He also suggested I should significantly increase my monthly pension payments if I want to have any sort of life after I 'retire', but that's another matter.

"They may want you to have a health check," he warned.

"OK," I sighed, and signed the application form.

So far I haven't been summoned for a check-up but the (new) company has seen my medical records and last week an enthusiastic young man rang to ask a few questions.

The first one, needless to say, was "Do you smoke?"

"No," I said. "Well, maybe the very occasional cigar on special occasions."

On Thursday I received a text from my financial guru.

"Are you a smoker?"

"No," I texted back, "but I told them I smoked one or two cigars a year."

"In their eyes that makes you a smoker," he replied.

So it's official. The director of Forest is a smoker. Hurrah!

Friday
Nov272015

Voices of freedom

Just boarded a train at Cork, destination Dublin.

Spent last night in the affable company of John Mallon, Forest's spokesman in Ireland. A few drinks may have passed my lips so I'm feeling a little delicate.

Before it's too late I want to congratulate Conservatives for Liberty for organising an excellent event at the House of Commons on Wednesday night.

Billed as a "lobby evening" to promote the moral case for choice and responsibility there were six speakers – five Conservative MPs and the IEA's Chris Snowdon. They were each given ten minutes and a short Q&A.

The five MPs were Chris Philp, Lucy Allan and James Cleverley from the 2015 intake, plus John Redwood and David Nuttall.

David is a familiar face at Forest events (shortly after he became an MP in 2010 he put forward a 10-minute rule bill to amend the smoking ban) so I was pleased to hear him attack the Brighton consultation on extending the ban to beaches, parks and squares.

Cleverley was humorous yet robust but Snowdon got the biggest laughs with a speech that mocked recent public health scares – cheese as addictive as heroin and so on.

However the real revelation – because I had never previously heard her speak – was Lucy Allan, Conservative MP for Telford. Unapologetically libertarian, she was fun, fearless and admirably honest about her long-term parliamentary prospects.

Allan has a majority of 700 and her attitude seemed to be, "I may only be here for one parliament so let's make the most of it."

That includes standing up for people's right to make responsible decisions about their own lives, deciding for themselves what's right. "I don't want to live in a country where we have codified personal choice," she declared.

Conservatives for Liberty can be very pleased with the evening. A full house was proof that liberal values are alive and well in the Conservative party. Unlike the CfL event at the party conference in Manchester there were no free drinks to entice people to come.

This was a proper political meeting on an issue that divides society but unites many individuals who don't want their lives governed by an authoritarian bully state.

Encouraging too that three of the new intake were so forthright in their opinions and happy to pin their libertarian credentials to the mast. I hope others will have the courage to come forward and join them.

Wednesday
Nov252015

Message to government: stop splashing the cash on 'public health'

The Chancellor will shortly announce the government's latest Spending Review.

Reports suggest Public health spending 'under threat' (BBC News) which can only be a good thing.

We've been arguing for a long, long time that funding the likes of ASH – a political lobby group in all but name – is a disgraceful and ineffective use of public money.

It's shocking that ASH receives public money and even more scandalous that local councils give more dosh to their doppelgängers around the country.

People (including the prime minister) complain that frontline services are being cut yet councils still give handouts to Smokefree South West and other anti-smoking lobby groups.

SFSW shares an office in Bristol with Public Health England. What's the point of SFSW when PHE is making exactly the same noises about smoking cessation? The same is true of many more anti-smoking groups.

I suspect a great many smoking cessation services could have their funding cut with few people noticing the difference. How successful are they? Are there any figures?

E-cigarettes seem to be the most successful smoking cessation tool around (according to vapers, anyway) and they're driven by the private sector.

And let's put a stop to all those dreary conferences public health campaigners spend so much time attending. Seriously, it's a wonder Linda Bauld and Deborah Arnott are ever at home.

I'm delighted £200m has already been removed from this year's council public health budgets. Let's cut those budgets even further and make councils think twice before spending finite funds on unnecessary anti-smoking initiatives such as signs designed to stop adults smoking in outdoor public places.

Some matters should be beyond the remit of local councils. Smoking outside is one of them. It's also none of their business if adults choose to smoke at all.

I'll be watching the Chancellor's statement with interest. Fingers crossed.

PS. See also Council spending on Public Health is being largely wasted (ConservativeHome).

My old friend Harry Phibbs writes:

£160 million is spent by councils on smoking cessation. For Leeds City Council the programme included someone dressing up as a kangaroo and going round a shopping centre telling people smoking was bad for them.

Some of the money meant for smoking cessation has been diverted into political lobbying (in contravention of the rules that Council funds should not be spent in that way).

For example Public Health Action/Smoke Free South West has been paid over a million pounds this year (from Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Plymouth, Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, Torbay and Wiltshire councils). The organisation is quite open about its lobbying activities – for instance in support of plain packaging. Similar concerns arise with FRESH North East and Tobacco Free Futures.

My own council [Hammersmith and Fulham] is spending £924,000 on anti-smoking campaigning and activity of various sorts. I suspect those who quit would have quit anyway.

Well said, Harry. If one London council is spending almost a million pounds on anti-smoking initiatives, how much money is being spent nationwide? I think we should be told.

Monday
Nov232015

Director's cutting comment

The director of A Billion Lives has posted this comment on another blog:

It seems that many pro-smoking (sic) advocates would like to hurt our film because they are delusional veterans of a lost war. Lost.

It's laughable to me that they are still fighting. It reminds me when they found Japanese soldiers on an island many years after WWII was done. They were still on alert, waiting for orders. They were still at war.

You can read it in full here (scroll down). No further comment, m'lud.

Update: Ouch! Documentary filmmakers of a sensitive disposition should look away now.

The rest of you should pop over to Head Rambles where you can read Grandad's take on A Billion Lives. Click here.

Further update: Want to "Learn more about the statistic that 165,000 kids die each year from second hand smoke"? Then visit the film's website where you can also "Learn more about the statistic of a billion deaths predicted this century".

The good news? "Despite all this death and suffering … Truth is coming."

And here's another quote from director Aaron Biebart:

"The bottom line is that people are harmed by cigarettes. Pro-smoking (sic) groups can debate the numbers all day, but we're really more focused on helping the vast majority of smokers who'd like to quit."

Hang on, I thought A Billion Lives was all about exposing the lies of public health. I'm confused. I guess I'll just have to wait and see the film.

Monday
Nov232015

A billion comments

Some interesting comments here, on Dick Puddlecote's blog and on Twitter in response to yesterday's post about the trailer for A Billion Lives, a documentary about vaping.

Carl Philips is someone I respect enormously because he strikes me as a genuinely independent, open-minded and pragmatic commentator and his analyses are invariably thoughtful and well worth reading.

Occasionally he gently scolds me for something I've written but here's what he had to say about the forthcoming film:

The title alone has made me wonder. It seems to imply that every one of the world's one billion smokers' lives would be improved - nay, saved!! - by vaping. Seems like rather a stretch, to say the least.

The whole "lives saved" concept is rather tenuous even apart from that. You could say the same thing about olives: About one billion people alive today have their lives saved!! - which means extended by some amount - by the existence of olives (because they are a healthier source of oil and calories than what they usually substitute for).

That seems about right to me. Nevertheless Dick Puddlecote made a spirited attempt to justify the "billion lives" reference and of course I'm never going to argue with DP (in public at least) so I suggest you pop over to his blog and decide for yourself (A Billion Lives, My Take).

What DP and I agree on is the fallacy of the claim, repeated in the trailer, that 165,000 "kids" die from passive smoking every year. Even Clive Bates, a leading advocate of e-cigs and a former director of ASH, is sceptical about that. (See his comment on DP's post.)

Again, I'm not in total agreement with Clive's response because having found the source of the claim he then declares, "The filmmakers can't really be blamed for relying on a statistic originally published in a prestigious medical journal like The Lancet."

Hmmm. If you're producing a film whose central thesis concerns the "lies" being perpetrated by the public health industry against e-cigarettes, it makes sense to double-check or treat with suspicion other statistics emanating from that source.

I'm surprised too that Clive considers The Lancet a beacon of probity – see The Lancet attacks UK health agency’s claim that e-cigarettes are 95% safer than tobacco.

As you can imagine many vapers and other advocates of e-cigarettes were furious when they read that. Can you imagine if someone had then said, "The media can't really be blamed for reporting an article originally published in a prestigious medical journal like The Lancet."

I'm not having a dig at Clive, btw. On several issues (including, it seems, the global impact of passive smoking) our views appear to be edging closer together. I doubt they'll ever converge but at least we're moving in the right direction (ie we can now have a drink together without arguing).

My point is the producers of A Billion Lives would be making a huge mistake if they accept, with questioning them, public health statistics about passive smoking (or smoking itself) while attacking the PH industry for its often negative attitude to e-cigarettes (especially in the States).

Meanwhile another commenter wrote:

The intent of the film isn't to attack smokers or their rights, it's to damage or destroy the withdrawal of choice being pursued by pharma, tobacco companies, PH, ideologists and greedy politicians. I think that's something that everyone here can agree on?

The intent may not be there but why say 165,000 children are dying of passive smoking each year unless you believe it or it suits the film's agenda? Hearing it from the mouth of the director himself is especially galling.

Repeating a tendentious statistic like that is hugely damaging to smokers and their rights because if it was true it would be used to justify even more anti-smoking regulations. The present smoking ban would seem trivial in comparison.

Anyway, I'm told that particular stat won't appear in the film so let's leave it there.

As for people's right to choose to use e-cigarettes without undue interference from the state, I'm already there. And so is Forest. But what about people's right to smoke?

I appreciate A Billion Lives is about vaping but I hope it recognises, even in passing, that choice applies not only to those who want to vape but also to those who choose to smoke and don't want to quit or switch to e-cigarettes.

Unfortunately, such is their enthusiasm for this 'miracle' smoking cessation aid, some ex-smoking vapers seem to forget that smokers (who pay a huge amount of tax on tobacco) have rights too.

Have they also forgotten the trope involving the little old lady who doesn't want to cross the street but is nevertheless helped across by a Samaritan-style passer-by:

'Helping Granny Across There Street'.

Sound familiar?

Finally I notice the debate about A Billion Lives has annoyed one or two people. Some have taken exception to the likes of DP and me querying the "165,000" statistic in case our comments undermine the 'real' purpose of the documentary.

Another dismissed the discussion as "boring" although, amusingly, instead of closing it down the remark provoked even more comments.

It strikes me that many activists live in a bubble and unless they hear exactly what they want to hear they stick their fingers in their ears and mumble, "Boring" or "Not interested". Their intolerance of alternative opinions and their sensitivity to even the mildest criticism or 'negative' remark ends up defining them – and not in a good way.

Thankfully there are others who are far more tolerant of contrary opinions and are willing to accept that the fight for a genuinely liberal society goes way beyond smoking or vaping but has to include both.

Liberals (in the truest sense) are a broad church and we're never going to agree on everything. We all have our likes and dislikes. What matters, as I've said many times before, is that we're united on the underlying principles of choice and personal responsibility.

Now, if only someone would make a film about that.