The Health Bill is presently going through the Lords. Clause 19 bans shops from displaying cigarettes: “A person who in the course of a business displays tobacco products, or causes tobacco products to be displayed, in a place in England and Wales or Northern Ireland is guilty of an offence”.
It is a subject on which we are being heavily lobbied. Bodies concerned with health are busy arguing the case for the clause, arguing that it will reduce smoking among the young. Tobacco manufacturers and organisations representing shopkeepers argue that there is no evidence that it will have that effect, but that it will be expensive to implement and may put small shopkeepers out of business.
I was very interested in the response I got on the issue yesterday when I was visiting John Port School in Derbyshire as part of the Peers in Schools programme. I variously begin such visits by eliciting pupils’ views on issues which have been or are being considered by Parliament. The students were overwhelmingly in favour of the ban on smoking in enclosed public places. However, when I asked about banning cigarette displays in shops – and briefly mentioned the arguments on both sides – they were overwhelmingly against the ban.
We are likely to vote on the clause on Wednesday. I have not yet decided how I will vote and may not do so until I have heard the debate. I will be interested to know readers’ views on the issue.
First link, British Heart Foundation, part of the ‘Smokefree Coalition’. And as you say, dodgy.
Second link, debunked by the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7093356.stm
Third link, from Smokefree England? Oh come on, perlease. Paid for by the DoH.
Fourth link wasn’t peer-reviewed or published, according to an anti-smoker. http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2007/09/science-by-press-release-new-tobacco.html
Now comes the Ireland study, the results of which were disseminated widely to the public last week through the media, via press release (see page 69 of the media guide). However, the study was merely presented at a conference. All that I could find was an abstract. Apparently, there was no paper available for public review, no peer review, no publication in any scientific journal.
From the Helena ‘miracle’ through Pueblo and onto our shores, anti-smoking groups have found that cleverly placed lies work with gullible individuals.
It’s science by press release. All the previous ‘miracles’ have been thoroughly destroyed once examined properly, yet by then the object of the exercise has been achieved. It’s in the public consciousness, despite the fact that heart attacks take decades to build up and can’t be prevented in such a small space of time.
By far THE largest, and most prolonged, study so far found no impact on heart attack submissions whatsoever. http://www.nber.org/papers/w14790.pdf
we find that workplace bans are not associated with statistically significant short-term declines in mortality or hospital admissions for myocardial infarction or other diseases.
The basis of the research? 217,023 heart attack admissions and 2 million heart attack deaths in 468 counties in all 50 states of the USA over an eight-year period.
By proper scientists, with no conflicting interest, over a long period of time, and a huge data set. None of the studies you quote can claim the same. You’ve been conned, I’m afraid.
Maud Flavel (assuming your comment, which I received notification of, appears here – there seems to be a technical issue):
No-one is denying that there was a smoking ban under the Nazis. The point is, smokers were not sent to death camps by Hitler.
As I said, most people will consider the Nazis murdering Jews and people from other minority groups in their hundreds of thousands to be the worst thing they did. However, your group of extreme smokers blows the relatively insignificant fact that there was a smoking ban at the time out of all proportion, while ignoring the almost unimaginably worse things that went on.
What’s more, Hitler was a hypocrite. He claimed to similarly disapprove of alcohol, yet I believe photos exist of him with a glass of wine.
Also, Hitler believed in health and fitness. While it was part of his twisted idea of an “Aryan race”, that doesn’t mean that anyone who today likes to go down the gym is a “Nazi”.
Finally, Hitler also has the Volkswagen designed, and he enjoyed painting water colours. Do you also consider amateur artists and Beetle enthusiasts to be Nazis?
I’ll say it again: the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis were so evil that it’s hugely disrespectful to their victims to attempt to further a cause in the modern world by comparing your opponents to Hitler, just because they happen to share a single opinion he once had but for quite different reasons and in a very different world.
I suggest you do go and join Freedon2Choose as you’ll fit in very well there.
I think that freedom of choice should be given to every individual. The government is allowed to display what they want, but its the consumer that has to act if they want to buy it or don’t.