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Wednesday
Feb262014

EU adopts TPD so why do we need plain packaging?

Update: Tough EU smoking rules approved (BBC News)

NEWS RELEASE Wednesday 26 February 2014

Campaigners question need for plain packaging of tobacco following adoption of revised a Tobacco Products Directive

The smokers' group Forest, which campaigned against revisions to the EU's Tobacco Products Directive, has questioned the need for standardised packaging of tobacco after MEPs voted to adopt a revised Tobacco Products Directive.

In addition to a ban on menthol cigarettes and ten packs, the Directive forces EU member states to increase the size of health warnings to cover 65 per cent of the front and back of the pack.

Simon Clark, director of Forest which ran the No Thank EU campaign, said:

"If health warnings are going to be even more prominent, dominating both sides of the pack, why on earth do we need plain packaging?

"At the very least the government should wait and see what impact the larger warnings have before introducing standardised packs which are opposed by so many people."

He added:

"Banning menthol cigarettes and ten packs is a serious attack on consumer choice that will do little to stop children smoking.

"The revised Directive is typical of the nanny state mentality that is prevalent not just in Brussels but also in Westminster."

Monday
Feb242014

There must be more to Cuba than cigars

This time last year I was sitting at Gatwick waiting to board a Virgin Atlantic flight to Havana.

I'd been looking forward to it for months and I was genuinely excited.

As it happens the 'trip of a lifetime' was a bit of a disappointment. From the uncomfortable nine-hour flight to the variable weather and unremarkable food, I returned seven days later a little underwhelmed.

Nevertheless I'll never forget that initial sense of anticipation and I look forward to returning to Cuba when the Americans have moved in and there is a McDonalds on every corner.

Cigar aficionados attending the annual Habanos Festival (which begins today) may not want the country to change but poverty and a totalitarian regime shouldn't be a tourist attraction.

See Your man in Havana: notes from a Caribbean Island.

Sunday
Feb232014

The Smokefree Formula – sing when you're quitting

The launch of a new quit smoking book was celebrated recently with a special event at University College London.

The SmokeFree Formula, "a revolutionary way to stop smoking" by Professor Robert West, is said to contain the "best available information" on electronic cigarettes, nicotine patches, prescription medicines, websites, smartphone apps, hypnotherapy, telephone counselling and much much more.

Speakers included Deborah Arnott, CEO of ASH; Dr Andy McEwen, director, National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (NCSCT); and Andrew Black, tobacco programme manager at the Department of Health.

There are nine launch event video clips. The one I genuinely like is the last one. It features a breezy little number – 'Don't Give Up Giving Up' – performed live with impromptu audience participation.

It's one of the few times I've seen tobacco control campaigners having fun so it's either a rare collectors' item or most of the people were just passing by and took advantage of the free drinks.

Enjoy!

PS. The Smokefree Formula is available from Amazon, Waterstones and WH Smith.

Saturday
Feb222014

Another nail in the coffin of free speech

I was chatting to a student over dinner last night.

She told me she had written a review of a play for her college newspaper and the director – a fellow student – had complained because it contained one or two mildly critical comments.

I am told there were accusations of libel but her worst crime was to suggest that some of the acting was a bit "wooden".

This, it was alleged, was a "racist" thing to say.

I haven't read the review but having spoken to the author I find it impossible to believe there is any truth in this.

She's a 20-year-old student reviewing a college play, for Christ's sake! She's entitled to express her opinion.

Or I thought she was.

Predictably the newspaper reacted by removing the review from its website. Instead of upholding the concept of free speech, the editor rolled over without a whimper.

If this catches on critics will have to think twice before expressing their views.

In fact, it's getting harder and harder to say or do anything without being accused of some heinous crime.

A couple of weeks ago I retweeted a mildly derogatory comment that someone had made about me on Twitter.

If I remember, my views on smoking in cars were described as "crazy".

I didn't comment, or complain (why would I?), I merely retweeted the tweet.

Philip Davies MP does this all the time. I like to think it's self-deprecating, although others may see it a sign of a rampant ego.

Anyway, the person who tweeted that my views were "crazy" responded by accusing me of "bullying" her because I retweeted her tweet!

I couldn't believe it.

She seemed quite young – in her twenties – so I had a dilemma. If I fought back it might seem that a middle-aged man in his fifties was picking on a girl 30 years his junior.

So after a short exchange of tweets in which I chose my words very carefully (one tweet contained the single word, 'sigh'), I backed off and let her have the last word.

The questions I am now asking myself are:

Am I cyber bully because I retweeted a tweet (about myself) without comment?

Is my new college friend "racist" because she described some actors as "wooden" in a review?

Who is bullying whom here?

If this carries on no-one will be able to express any opinion. We won't even be able to repeat other people's opinions!

It's mad.

Tuesday
Feb182014

Spare us the angst about 'smoking' coming back to TV ad land

This morning I had to be at the BBC studios in Cambridge at 7.20.

It's 20 miles from where I live and I was almost late because I set my alarm for 5.30 and woke up over an hour later.

Good Morning Scotland (BBC Radio Scotland) had invited me to discuss the new TV advertisement for Vype, an electronic cigarette manufactured by Nicoventures which is owned by British American Tobacco.

Some journalists have been getting a little over-excited. According to the Telegraph (a paper I have increasingly little respect for), 'Smoking is back on TV for first time in 20 years'.

Er, no it's not.

I've seen the ad and it is totally innocuous – two young adults running along a street before leaping up and being hit by a small explosion of vapour. (I can't describe it any better. You try.)

No-one is smoking. No-one is even vaping. You don't see any product until the very end when you see the packaging. At no point in the 30-second ad do you see anything that resembles a cigarette – not even an electronic cigarette.

Online the ad finishes with the slogan "Satisfaction for smokers". But that's the only reference to smoking and I understand the TV version says "Satisfaction for vapers" which will mean nothing to large parts of the population.

As it happens I've only seen the ad online. (Someone sent me the link via Twitter.) I was told it would be on television last night, after the 9.00pm watershed, and I spent a frustrating 90 minutes flicking to and fro between ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 in order to catch the ad breaks, and I didn't see it anywhere.

But back to this morning's discussion on Radio Scotland. My opponent was Alex McKinnon, director of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in Scotland.

I read on Twitter we were to debate the ethical issues but I kept my argument rather more prosaic. I expressed amazement that public health campaigners weren't embracing e-cigs, and ads like this, with open arms.

I said many people use them as a smoking cessation aid. They are not used by children (to the best of my knowledge), and there is nothing to suggest they are a gateway to tobacco use.

McKinnon talked about the safety of e-cigs so I said we should welcome Big Tobacco's involvement because, with their resources being put into research and development, the quality of the product was sure to be high.

I added that if Big Pharma was advertising e-cigarettes, just as they advertise nicotine inhalers and patches, no-one would have a problem.

The product wasn't the only thing McKinnon didn't like. The ad, he seemed to be saying, risked making vaping "cool".

I wanted to point out that if vaping was to become "cool" at the expense of smoking that would be a net gain for tobacco control, but it won't become cool if the marketing of e-cigs is over-regulated and heavily restricted.

Unfortunately we ran out of time, for which the producer apologised. No problem, it happens.

I suspect this is going to end up at the door of the Advertising Standards Authority because it only takes one complaint for the ASA to get involved.

Expect them to spring into action, especially if the complaint comes from an anti-smoking organisation.

In contrast, when we complain (about contentious government funded anti-smoking ads, for example) the ASA moves so slowly it's like watching a blind 90-year-old pensioner with rheumatoid arthritis on a drip.

But that's another story.

Update: ASH Wales has just tweeted:

A puppy has died after chewing on an e-cig nicotine capsule. Nicotine is really dangerous for pets! http://t.co/xUaKqkYlnh

Monday
Feb172014

Is it time for the CEO of ASH to get on her bike?

Further to my previous post, I've been thinking about the reason for Deborah Arnott's bad mood.

This is pure speculation but could it be the gradual marginalisation of ASH London within the tobacco control movement?

Think back to 2006 when Deborah and her then deputy Ian Willmore were happy to claim credit for persuading MPs to vote for a comprehensive ban on smoking in public places ('Smoke and mirrors', Guardian).

Halcyon days. Mind you, I've always wondered how that went down with other tobacco control campaigners. Perhaps they were too busy patting each other on the back to notice.

Since then - and I'm sure it's not my imagination - ASH's influence has waned. The campaign for plain packaging has been driven by Smokefree South West, Cancer Research and other bodies; the ban on smoking in cars with children was a triumph for Labour's public health spokesman Luciana Berger and the British Lung Foundation; and since the BBC's move to Salford, Forest spokesmen are far more likely to be sat alongside Andrea Crossfield of Tobacco Free Futures, formerly Smokefree North West.

The North East is ably covered by Fresh so one has to question the purpose of a 'national' London-based group whose role is duplicated by so many other organisations. Do we really need them all?

In Scotland the anti-tobacco crusade is driven by the far more dynamic ASH Scotland whose CEO, Sheila Duffy, is rarely out of the papers and probably never sleeps. (I imagine she's composing a letter to the Scotsman even as I write.)

Likewise ASH Wales - and associated campaigns such as The Filter - prove that anti-tobacco campaigns can have style and occasional flashes of humour. Compare that to the leaden, po-faced pronouncements favoured by Deborah Arnott's ASH.

As for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health, which is run by ASH, it seems very quiet. I don't even know who the new chairman is, the previous incumbent, Stephen Williams, having stood down when he became a junior minister last year.

On e-cigarettes ASH is hopelessly conflicted. Are they for or against? Who knows. A belated attempt to 'own' the issue at the recent E-Cigarette Summit backfired spectacularly with Deborah Arnott's extraordinary presentation, highlighted here by Chris Snowdon.

No Smoking Day is run by the British Heart Foundation and Stoptober is an NHS initiative, I think.

So what does ASH do that justifies its continued existence? I'm damned if I know.

Forest may not, ahem, be the most successful pressure group in the world but at least we have a unique selling point and don't cost the taxpayer a penny.

The same can hardly be said of ASH who, let us not forget, spend most of their time pushing on an open door.

"You want to stop people smoking? Come in, m'dear. How can I help?"

It's hardly challenging work, is it?

Perhaps - and I say this with great respect - it's time Deborah got on her bike and cycled off into the sunset.

As for her replacement - if indeed ASH has a future - I believe Clive Bates is available.

If I was a vaper I'd start a campaign to get Clive (re)appointed as soon as possible.

Now that would be fun, wouldn't it?

Sunday
Feb162014

Telling tales: Deborah Arnott, Nick Triggle and me

OK, this is what happened on Monday night shortly after MPs voted to ban smoking in cars with children.

I arrived at Millbank studios in London, a few yards from the Houses of Parliament, at 8.20pm.

I'd been booked to do three interviews - a live head-to-head with Deborah Arnott of ASH on the BBC News Channel, a recorded interview for Five Live's Morning Reports, and a late night discussion, also on Five Live, with tobacco control 'expert' Professor Robert West.

I sat in the small reception area on the first floor and chatted to the BBC's friendly meet and greet person.

Then Deborah arrived.

I opened the door for her and she swept in clutching a cycle helmet and a large bundle of what looked like wet weather gear.

I guessed she had come straight from the House of Commons and was on her way home.

Now, to misquote P G Wodehouse, "It has never been hard to tell the difference between Deborah Arnott and a ray of sunshine."

Like her counterpart in Scotland, her default expression is what anthropologists call "chewing on a wasp".

Nevertheless I expected a half smile - a satisfied smirk, perhaps - to mark what must have been a happy moment in Deborah's life. Labour shadow health ministers were said to be giving each other high fives. Surely Deborah could join in the fun?

Instead my presence in that small vestibule seemed to provoke some inner torment. I paraphrase but the gist of her sudden and unexpected outburst was:

"The people have spoken ... MPs have voted ... It's a victory for democracy ... You've lost ... Forest should shut up shop."

The latter was spat out with real venom, like a royal command.

We may not be best buddies but we've always been civil to one another. What was going on?

The BBC's meet and greet person, who heard it all, was as bemused and unimpressed as me.

"Deborah," I said quietly, "this is unprofessional."

Moments later, live on air, Ms Crosspatch continued to denounce Forest and our links with tobacco companies, which she is perfectly entitled to do, of course.

It did however eat into the short time we had to discuss smoking in cars and I wondered whether it was a planned strategy or something she decided to do there and then.

Her bitterness towards Forest seemed to cloud any personal or professional satisfaction she must have felt about the vote and when the interview finished she marched off without another word to me.

Now, I would normally keep such incidents to myself but Deborah's behaviour crossed a line and it's not the first time she's acted like this off air.

I've heard similar stories from others who have experienced her unbridled wrath.

Does she think she's morally superior? That's how she behaves.

Is she unhappy that Forest attracts so much media coverage, even when we're swimming against the tide of political opinion?

Is she still smarting that the Hands Off Our Packs campaign gave Tobacco Control such a good run for their money? (And we're not finished yet!)

Winning battles is no longer enough for Deborah and her ilk. They want the entire battlefield to themselves.

Like the global warming lobby who want climate change sceptics banished into outer darkness, Deborah won't be happy until Forest is similarly silenced.

Later, on Five Live, Robert West also had a pop at Forest and our tobacco company connections (which couldn't be more transparent or legitimate).

In the context of the discussion it made little sense to bring it up but he seemed programmed to say it.

Which brings me to the next day (Tuesday) when something rather odd happened.

In an article headlined 'Is a complete ban on smoking next?', BBC health correspondent Nick Triggle described Forest as the "industry lobby group".

Now, you might think that happens all the time but you'd be mistaken. 'Smokers' lobby group', 'pro-smoking group' ... we get called various things but this was the first time I can remember Forest being called an "industry lobby group".

Given that it's not true - we represent the consumer not the companies - I was determined to get it changed. So I emailed Triggle and copied my email to one of his colleagues who I know as fair and reasonable.

Forest, I told him, is not an "industry lobby group". We receive donations from tobacco companies but we do NOT represent the industry or the tobacco companies.

I waited 15 minutes then called this same person on the news desk. He told me the matter had gone to his editor but added, "Nick feels strongly about this."

So I sent another email:

The Tobacco Manufacturers Asociation represents the industry. Forest does not.

I find it extraordinary that just because Nick Triggle feels strongly about this he is allowed to peddle his own line regarding the nature of Forest.

Oddly enough the line is very similar to that used by our direct opponents on the BBC last night.

I am certainly not aware of BBC News previously describing us as an "industry lobby group". Why now?

Result? 'Industry lobby group' was changed to 'tobacco lobby group' which I can live with although it's not strictly accurate.

But it's better than 'industry lobby group' which is wrong, regardless of what Nick Triggle "feels"!!

It's probably coincidence, but isn't it odd that the day after Deborah Arnott and Robert West made a point of highlighting Forest's links with Big Tobacco, the BBC's online health correspondent should refer to Forest as the "industry lobby group".

A more cynical observer might conclude the two things are related. Surely not?!

Saturday
Feb152014

Think of the children, say tobacco control campaigners. Stop exploiting them, then!

I'm back from Ireland.

The least said about the return flight the better. We were told to expect turbulence and that's what we got. I wasn't the only one breathing a sigh of relief when the plane touched down.

The purpose of my latest visit was the fourth and final hearing on plain packaging by the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) Joint Health and Children Committee.

Earlier hearings featured NGOs, doctors and retailers, among others. For this hearing the Committee had invited representatives from the tobacco companies and Forest Eireann.

Yes, Forest Eireann. Quite a coup for a group set up less than four years ago. A tribute, I would say, to our representative in Ireland, John Mallon, and the work we've done as a team.

Many years ago I was invited to address the Health Select Committee in Westminster. I remember it being a daunting prospect so I thought I'd better offer John moral support.

I'm not sure he needed it. If he was nervous he hid it very well.

I was going to watch the hearing from the public gallery but at the last moment I decided to watch it online on my laptop in my hotel. This meant I could tweet and write/send a press release to the Irish media while the hearing was taking place.

It began at eleven o'clock. Participants were invited to give a five-minute opening statement which had to be submitted to the Committee 48 hours in advance.

The CEOs representing PJ Carrolls (owned by BAT), John Player (Imperial) and JTI went first. After a short break for a parliamentary vote, John gave Forest Eireann's opening statement.

Then it was time for members of the Committee to ask questions.

We had prepared for a forensic examination of Forest's position and a flurry of thoughtful questions. What we got was a series of grandstanding statements by politicians who had little interest in what the companies or Forest had actually said.

Their primary goal was to attack the companies with a series of blunt instruments. There were a handful of questions but most of them were of the 'How often do you beat your wife?' variety.

The tone of the hearing was set by a tweet by an Irish Times journalist who wasn't even covering the story. According to Ronan McGreevy:

The merchants of death are in front of the Health Committee today.

Meanwhile Health and Children Committee member Jillian van Turnhout ‏demonstrated her neutrality by tweeting:

#PlainPacks are good as Tobacco industry is clearly targeting children. Delighted to support @IrishCancerSoc

I'll come back to that tweet – and the accompanying image – later.

But first, what are we to make of comments such as this by fellow Committee member Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD:

“At the end of the day, I have no other way to say it to you, but you are representatives of an illness industry and that is the bald fact of it ... it’s time for payback with all respect.”

See: ‏Tobacco bosses told in plain packaging debate: 'You represent an illness industry, it's payback time' (TheJournal.ie)

So regardless of the merits (or otherwise) of plain packaging, it's "payback time". How mature.

Not to be outdone, the most outspoken Committee member was Mary Mitchell O’Connor who later tweeted:

"Mitchell O’Connor excoriates tobacco industry in plain packaging debate" - Read my press release here ...

It began:

Fine Gael Dun Laoghaire TD and Member of the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children, Mary Mitchell O’Connor, has today (Thursday) slammed the tobacco industry after its representatives appeared before the Committee today to argue against the introduction of plain packaging for tobacco products.

You can read it in full here. Rarely have I heard a politician so determined to hog the limelight at the expense of her colleagues.

We replied with this tweet:

@mitchelloconnor The ego has landed.

John was a by-stander to most of this. Sitting alone, with the tobacco company execs behind him, it was transparently obvious he wasn't a mouthpiece for the industry.

And no-one said he was. Quite the reverse. Members of the Committee (who were perfectly friendly when the cameras weren't on them) seemed to warm to him and I got the impression that some liked and respected him.

Towards the end of a session that over-ran by 30 minutes, John was even given the final word. He made the most of it, explaining how his own children had dabbled with tobacco before making an informed decision to quit.

Plain packaging, John assured the Committee, would have made no difference either to him or his children.

Finally, let's return to that tweet by Jillian van Turnhout:

#PlainPacks are good as Tobacco industry is clearly targeting children. Delighted to support @IrishCancerSoc

It was accompanied by a picture of four children, none of whom can be older than ten, holding placards with slogans including 'Help save our future. We want plain packaging'.

Ugh!

Seizing upon a similar image, Eoin Bradley, a "former politico now working for the Irish Cancer Society", later tweeted:

Big Tobacco sent an army of suits to Oireachtas to fight #plainpacks. Lucky our own army was outside. @IrishCancerSoc

Bradley's tweet included a link that can be viewed here if you're on Twitter. If not here's a screen grab of his tweet with the relevant image:

A similar if not identical photograph was published on page two of the Irish Independent on Friday.

I rang the paper and asked if I could buy a copy of the image for use on this blog. (I wanted to highlight what could be viewed by some as exploitation of children in a political cause.)

The assistant news editor was adamant. "Absolutely not," she said. "We don't even know what the child's name is."

The underlying message, which I completely understand, is that it would be inappropriate for them to sell an image of a young, unidentified child for use on the Internet.

It hasn't however stopped others from tweeting links to similar images which are now freely available for all to see.

So the next time you hear tobacco control campaigners attacking tobacco companies for targeting children (an accusation they strongly deny), remember these pictures and the cynical tactics employed by advocates of plain packaging.

PS. The Indo did give me, free of charge, a picture of John Mallon on his way in to the hearing. It was taken by the same photographer who took the picture of the child with her placard. Enjoy!