Behind the masks: retailers lobby parliament against plain packaging

Members of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents are in London today lobbying MPs on plain packaging.

Delighted to see they have followed the example of French tobacconists who protested in similar fashion in November – see Plain packaging: now French tobacconists are in revolt.

NFRN national council suited, booted and ready for action #NoToPlainPacks #rally #DoH pic.twitter.com/oSqVUyySgI

— Chris Gamm (@ChrisGammRN) February 11, 2015

Update on Wednesday, February 11, 2015 at 14:10 by Simon Clark

Speaking to retailers today, Labour MP Gerry Sutcliffe said 100 Tory MPs and 12 Labour MPs are planning to vote against plain packs.

More to come?

@NFRN_Online have sent 100k letters petitioning plain packaging today #plainpacksrally pic.twitter.com/pRcCabcOoc

— Retail Express (@retailexpress) February 11, 2015

NFRN says NO to tobacco plain packaging. Find out why here: http://t.co/IEPzd6dMgI #plainpacksrally pic.twitter.com/f7X9AiU51K

— NFRN (@NFRN_Online) February 11, 2015

A doctor writes

It was reported yesterday that hospitals in Wales are considering on-the-spot fines for people caught smoking on hospital grounds.

BBC Wales quoted me as follows:

Simon Clark, director of pro-smoking group Forest, said the threat of fines "was absolutely abominable".

He added: "It seems extraordinary to us that NHS administrators would be spending time, and probably money, coercing people like this.

"Hospitals are very stressful places, not just for patients but also for visitors and staff.

"We can understand them not wanting people to smoke around hospital entrances, in which case the compromise should be a comfortable smoking shelter."

I was also quoted by Wales Online and the South Wales Evening Post.

Well, my comments prompted an email from a consultant anaesthetist:

I am writing with regard to the proposed enforcement of smoking bans in Welsh hospitals.

I have no objection to smokers subjecting their bodies to health risks. As a doctor of 24 years experience I used to approach young smokers with a blunt statement of the facts in order to persuade them to quit. Usually they were completely nonchalant about my efforts.

I still advise patients to quit when appropriate. But what I object to is the smokers in hospital grounds who seem to think that they are entitled to continue negatively affecting other peoples' health.

If they want to smoke, by all means carry on but away from those of us who do not wish to inhale the noxious fumes. It continues to amaze me what an inherently selfish self-centred bunch of people are those who smoke near staff and patients who cannot move out of range.

Personally it is no skin off my nose if smokers, drink drivers, base-jumpers wish to kill themselves, but just stay away from those of us who don't!!

I'll leave you to comment but before you do I suggest you read an interview with another anaesthetist.

I published it on this blog in 2010 but it was originally conducted in 2006. See: Dr Phil Button: the "lost" interview.

I'd also like to draw your attention to a passage in an essay by the late Lord Harris, former chairman of Forest. It's anecdotal but I have no reason to think it's not true:

Privately I have encountered Very Important Persons in the medical world who, in response to my earnest enquiry about 'passive smoking', have dropped their voices and looked around furtively before assuring me there was "nothing in it" except for a possibly adverse effect on serious asthmatics.

The full essay ('A Challenge to the Chief Medical Officer') appears as the foreword to a 2005 Forest report, Prejudice and Propaganda: The Truth About Passive Smoking, which you can download here. A decade on it's still worth reading.

And still the madness continues ...

Forest subscribers will shortly be in receipt of our February e-newsletter.

It begins:

Last month, to many people's surprise (including our own), public health minister Jane Ellison announced without warning that the Government would press ahead with plain packaging of tobacco before the election.

After a three year campaign (we launched the Hands Off Our Packs initiative in February 2012) it's hard to stomach when there is still no evidence that plain packs reduce smoking rates or stop children smoking.

As for the theft of an entire industry's intellectual property, we'll leave you to judge what message the Government is sending other industries – food and drink, for example – with this extraordinary act of highway robbery.

There's also the little matter that eleven EU member states have challenged the UK Government's regulations on plain packaging (and we've yet to see the Government's response). And let's not forget that the EU's own revised Tobacco Products Directive comes into force next year and it includes larger health warnings on the front and back of the packet. So why is the UK Government gold plating EU regulations?

Click here to read it in full. To subscribe to the newsletter click here.

"I'm a libertarian, but …"

I was on Fubar Radio this morning.

I was talking to presenter Mark Dolan about outdoor smoking bans and he began by saying, "I'm a libertarian, but …"

Well, I knew what was coming, but it was worse than that.

The reason Mark supports smoking bans is because he's an ex-smoker and seeing people smoke tempts him to relapse so it's better (for him) if we banish smoking completely.

Another self-styled libertarian who not so secretly enjoys smoking bans is Alexandra Swann, the former national deputy chairman of Conservative Future who defected to Ukip and then resigned her membership of that party because of their "anti-immigration rhetoric" (as if this was something new!!).

Alexandra is also a columnist for Breitbart News where her "libertarian" views on smoking were clearly a surprise to editor James Delingpole who admonished her (on Twitter) before curiously deleting his tweet.

Anyway, it's good to know that libertarianism (or liberalism, as I call it) is in such safe hands:

Bristol smoking ban. As a libertarian I have to hate it and yes it's joyless & illiberal but secretly, if I lived there, I would enjoy it.

— Alexandra Swann (@AlexandralSwann) February 2, 2015

"Your heart is that of a smoker's"

I'm thinking of compiling a book that contains some of the insults smokers, and those who defend their habit, are subjected to.

The intolerance is staggering and I blame tobacco control campaigners and the politicians who indulge them.

When you get government-funded campaigns with slogans like 'If you smoke you stink' allied to allegations that smokers are killing those around them it's hardly surprising some people think they've been given the green light to abuse smokers, verbally at least, or make moral judgements.

Sooner or later a psychopath will assault someone found smoking in a public space and use 'provocation' as his defence. In the meantime expect plenty of tut-tutting, stern glances and pained requests to "put that cigarette out".

Anyway, here are a couple of tweets that came my way after my appearance on BBC Points West on Monday, and my rejoinder to one of them.

I've had far worse ("I hope you and your family die of cancer", for example) but these are the ones that stood out for me.

@simonclark_ @exiledenglander @DeadTeamPlaying @Forest_Smoking You are honestly just the worst person.

— PowerofCBM (@PowerofCBM) February 4, 2015

.@PowerofCBM @exiledenglander @DeadTeamPlaying @Forest_Smoking Wow, so many bad people in the world but I'm the "worst". #perspective

— Simon Clark (@simonclark_) February 4, 2015

@simonclark_ @exiledenglander @Forest_Smoking But you have no morals, and your heart is that of a smoker's. You have sold your soul

— Chris Dukakis (@DeadTeamPlaying) February 4, 2015

Bristol's "voluntary smoking ban" on BBC Points West

This was broadcast on BBC Points West last night.

Note how advocates of a "voluntary ban" on smoking in outdoor public areas talk about the "success" of similar schemes in children's play parks as if kids' play areas are now the template for all future public smoking policies.

At this rate smoking will eventually be banned anywhere a child might conceivably be present.

Still on the subject of Bristol's "voluntary ban" (an oxymoron if ever I heard one), this morning I was on BBC Radio Ulster with Andrew Dougal, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Chest, Heart and Stroke Association.

Dougal kept banging on about someone he knew, who has severe asthma, being stuck behind a smoker in what I took to be an all-seated sports stadium.

Apart from the fact that few if any all-seater stadiums still allow smoking, what does that have to do with smoking in a public square where people are at liberty move around and if you don't like being exposed to the tiniest whiff of smoke you simply walk away?

In the context of an open air park or square, Dougal's example had no relevance whatsoever.

He spoke of being "enveloped" by smoke if someone lit up outside, a claim that was so ludicrous one of the presenters picked him up on it.

Last but not least, Dougal insisted that under the Bristol scheme smokers still had "freedom of choice" whether to light up or not.

He used the expression as if it was his trump card, ignoring the fact that Smokefree South West hope the policy will give non-smokers the confidence to walk up to smokers and ask them to stub out their cigarettes.

The truth is, tobacco controllers will twist and bend their arguments to suit their purpose. They have no shame.

H/T David Newell (@dnglos) for posting the BBC Points West report online.

Vaping will NOT be banned in Bristol squares

Currently en route to London from Bristol.

This morning, following an interview on BBC Bristol, I headed up to Millennium Square, one of two outdoor spaces in Bristol where smokers are being asked not to light up.

I arrived shortly before eleven to find the place largely deserted - apart from a few journalists and cameramen - and very cold.

Workers were in the process of placing notices on street lamps asking smokers not to light up.

Smokefree South West, which is behind the initiative, was represented by Kate Knight who busy conducting a series of interviews.

I was there at the request of BBC Points West but I soon found myself being interviewed by ITV News, the Press Association and a local digital channel whose name I have forgotten (although I remember the name of the reporter, Rachel Clark).

The most bizarre interview was with the BBC. Kate Knight and I were asked to 'debate' with one another, and the cameraman would film it.

We kept going until neither of us had any arguments left. We were then asked to do the same on plain packaging.

This went on for several minutes but if they use more than ten seconds I'll be amazed.

Anyway, I must explain that headline. It's true, smoking in Millennium and Anchor Squares are now subject to a "voluntary ban" but vaping is exempt.

I know this because I rang up Smokefree South West a few minutes ago to check and it was confirmed. Vaping is OK.

To all my vaping friends, just thought you'd like to know.

Think of the children! Bristol bans smoking in two outdoor public spaces

Bristol will today become the first UK city to ban smoking in major outdoor public spaces.

According to Smokefree South West:

Two central Bristol squares popular with families are set to become the UK’s first major public outdoor spaces to go smokefree when a new voluntary pilot smokefree zone launches next Monday (2nd February), to coincide with the 2015 South West Be There Tomorrow advertising campaign.

The pilot, which will come into effect in Millennium and Anchor Squares on Bristol’s harbourside, follows a major report last year by former health minister Lord Darzi that suggested London and other UK cities should move to make major parks and public places Smokefree.

Top international cities including New York, Toronto and Hong Kong have banned smoking in key outdoor locations, but Bristol has become the first city in the UK to pilot a voluntary no-smoking ban in a major outdoor area using positive, colourful signage.

Fiona Andrews, director of Smokefree South West, which initiated the pilot, says: “This is an exciting initiative that we hope will have a lasting impact on not just Millennium Square and Anchor Square, but the wider region and potentially the rest of the UK. These city centre squares are often full of children playing and this pilot will provide a smokefree environment for kids and their families to enjoy.”

Councillor Daniella Radice, Assistant Mayor for Public Health, says: “In this year that Bristol is proud to be the European Green Capital, I am excited to see how this pilot can change people’s habits and make Bristol an even more enjoyable place to live and to visit.”

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am currently in Bristol to do some interviews on the subject. This is Forest's response:

Campaigners have criticised a pilot scheme designed to stop people smoking in the open air.

Millennium Square and Anchor Square in Bristol will become the UK’s first major public outdoor spaces to go smoke free following the launch of a voluntary scheme on Monday 2 February.

Simon Clark, director of the smokers' group Forest, said it was an example of "creeping prohibition".

He said: "Smoking is banned in all enclosed public places. Now campaigners want to ban it outside. This is creeping prohibition.

"Extending public smoking bans to outdoor areas is illiberal and unwarranted. Smoking in the open air harms no-one apart, perhaps, from the consumer and that's their choice.

"Tobacco is a legal product. Smokers contribute £10 billion a year in tobacco taxation alone. They must be allowed to light up somewhere without harassment."

Be in no doubt, this is the start of a long campaign to prohibit smoking in all major outdoor spaces in the UK.

If compliance isn't one hundred per cent expect a campaign for national legislation. Failing that, local tobacco control campaigners will ask local councils to introduce by-laws so that smokers can be prosecuted.

The crucial phrase is "popular with families". Ultimately, any outdoor space frequented by adults and children will be a target for prohibition.

That means parks, squares and beaches.

By why stop there? High streets, car parks, residential roads, they are all vulnerable to this sickening tide of regulation disguised (initially) as "voluntary" but in reality nothing of the sort.

By the time all those 'No Smoking' signs have gone up, giving the green light to every busybody to tut-tut, wave their hand in front of their nose or worse, few if any smokers will risk being shamed or shouted at.

Violence? Quite possibly.

Meanwhile it's interesting that this initiative is being driven not by the local council but by an unelected NGO, Smokefree South West.

I don't know how many people Smokefree South West employs but not enough, it seems, to handle their own media affairs.

Yes, this taxpayer-funded organisation is using a PR company, Spirit PR, to arrange interviews on its behalf.

Meanwhile, in addition to Smokefree South West, tax payers are also funding Smokefree Bristol.

Smokefree Bristol describes itself as an "e-cigarette friendly" service. Does that mean vaping is still allowed in Millennium and Anchor Squares?

I'll try and find out.

Update: The BBC, Guardian and Sky News has comments from Forest.