The smoking ban: one year on

Kit

I thought the smoking ban was to save people from passive smoking not for getting people to quit. Did the government misled us again?

Bishop Hill

the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.

JS Mill

CS

Heaven forbid that we should curtail some people's social lives merely to save some other people's actual lives.

TrevorH

So have we the names and addresses of these 400,000?

what about the tax take - has that gone down? what about sales?

maybe they have - do we have the figures?

Carno

I don't buy this. If pubs are closing at 50 per day and stating "it's because of the ban" then am I to believe that all those who were going to the pub have stopped smoking and drinking altogether? The more likely reason is because the people of the country can’t afford them due to excessive taxation. Sounds like a fudge of the figures, a happy coincident, and yet another health organisation doing its best to make out that the ban was a good Idea. I don’t know how much revenue is lost but if 400,000 have stopped and were on 20 a day then at £5.00 a pack that’s £730million not to mention the revenue from the 600,000 closed pubs + the knock on affect throughout the industry. Stating that it’s saved 40,000 lives is bizarre. Hold on all 400,000 will one day be dead and by what measure is stopping smoking a guaranteed life saver? Amazing they can crap any figure they want at any time with nobody to question it.

RMH

Pubs were shutting down at a massive rate, will slow now as no one wants to buy houses or rather flats

Tom

Excellent point CS - what else can we ban?! Contact sports? Yachting? Moutain climbing? Driving? Crossing the road? Gosh this authoritarianism is exciting isn't it?

Canon Alberic

A prominent casualty are private members clubs, a notable example being The Colony which is in grave danger of closure. I'm rather suprised that The Spectator should lend its support to such silly authoritarian nannyism. The smoking ban has destroyed an aspects of British culture and I suspect future generations will lament its imposition. Fat and alcohol next, the case against both is equally "unarguable".

Verity

There are elderly people, too old to stand outside in the cold, who still smoke?

They've been smoking all their lives and they're still alive - yet "passive smoking" can fell robust young Ozzie barkeeps?

This is a government of liars. Smoking does cause lung cancer and heart disease in some people, but it's their own business.

The bogey is that great weapon of authoritarianism, the NHS. If the government were honest - I'll wait, tapping my foot, while you get up off the floor from laughing - they would tell the voters they were banning smoking because treating its effects was too expensive on the NHS.

The NHS is responsible for around 50% of the government's mandate to interfere in the private lives of the electorate. (I made that statistic up, to keep it in line with socialist government policy of quoting pretend statistics. I read that tractor production exceeded targets last month.)

Mike, Brighton

Yet another survey produced by a single issue pressure group in support of quell suprise, their aims.
So Cancer Research UK (supporters of the smoking ban) have found evidence that the smoking ban has caused both 400,000 people to quit smoking and an estimated 40,000 lives saved saved. Phew! Thanks Cancer Research UK.
Two small points that the MSM continually misses with such surveys
1) An already existing trend. Cigarette smoking was declining anyway. In what way has the ban contributed (if at all) to the decline in smoking rate?

I have looked at the published survey and conference notes (a who's who of anti-smoking groups) and the clincher statement is "Our best estimate of the background smoking cessation rate in England over the past 40 years in between 1% and 2% and our best estimate of the rate over the past year is between 2% and 3%. These figures have BEEN CALCULATED INDIRECTLY AND RELY ON CERTAIN ASSUMPTIONS" (my capitals).

So the stats have a large range within them, they have been inferred (calculated indirectly) and are based on anti-smoking group assumptions. To extrapolate this to 400,000 quitters and 40,000 lives saved is a travesty.

2) Sample Bias and survey size.
The survey was conducted by the BRMB so it looks like sample bias is not an issue, however they note that "because of the assumptions involved in the estimates and the sample size used to calculate these figures, THESE FIGURES MUST BE TREATED WITH CAUTION" (my capitals).

Even they cast doubt on their own figures....

3) Tell me how many surveys are published by single issue pressure groups whose findings contradict the aims of the single issue pressure group? None.

Go figure.

CS

***Excellent point CS - what else can we ban?! Contact sports? Yachting? Moutain climbing? Driving? Crossing the road? Gosh this authoritarianism is exciting isn't it?***

That's utter pish tosh poo botty and you know it.

It's a question of choice. If you choose to engage in contact sports, you choose to run the associated risks. Passive smoking is entirely different unless you subscribe to the selfish argument that, if people don't want to die of passive smoking, they can always never enter a pub, restaurant, cinema, bus, factory or office.

Curious how keen some people are on freedom of action when it comes to their right to do whatever they themselves want to do but suddenly see the virtues of authoritarianism when it comes to dictating what other people can do - drugs, sex, sexuality, etc.

***This is a government of liars. Smoking does cause lung cancer and heart disease in some people, but it's their own business.***

Not their own business when it comes to endangering the health of those around them. First we had people denying any link between smoking and cancer. Then they gave in to the blindingly obvious but decided that there was no link between passive smoking and cancer.

If you're sitting in a pub with a fag in your hand, it's exactly the same smoke going into the lungs of the person sitting next to you as is going into your own lungs. Except that the other guy doesn't have the benefit of a filter tip.

Be honest. Stop pretending that 2+2=5 and admit that you want to be able to do whatever you choose regardless of how it affects other people.

CS

P.S. If people wanted the right to have sex in the bar of your local pub, would you take the same attitude? Their decision, doesn't hurt me. I can always go to another pub if I don't like it.

Tom

CS, then the guy next to me is free to leave. If enough people leave, the landlord will get the hint and ban smoking voluntarily. If people don't leave then it means they are happy to run the risk (much smaller than you state by the way) of passive smoking in return for enjoying the pub. People forget that pubs could have voluntarily banned smoking. Some did but many more didn't becuase it was obvious that non-smokers weren't that fussed about passive smoking.

With regard to staff, no one made them work in the bar. Again, they were free to choose and if they didn't want to work in a smokey environment they are free to choose not to work there.

This is called freedom and its great. The government has no right to intervene in the decisions of consenting adults making informed choices.

PS. If a pub were to allow sex at the bar then you might find that many people would enjoy that and the bar would be successful.

john miller

Oh god the statistics.

No one has a clue how many people have stopped smoking.

The 40,000 is just 10% of the 400,000 wild guess.

To paraphrase Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Can everyone just stop making it up?

john miller

Oh and BTW, ask the association of funeral directors how many of their members have noticed a drop in trade.

Don't bother, I'll tell you

0

Fergus Pickering

400,000 people didn't quit smoking. 400,000 said they were going to. No lives will be saved. Some deaths will be postponed. Where do you get the statistic that 10% of smokers die of smoking. Did someone make it up? Tosh, all of it. I have smoked five cigars in thelast coupleof months. In otherwords I have taken up smoking again after 30 years because I reckin thoae cigars improve the quality of my life In fact I know they do. Other things that improve the quality of my life are alcohol and food. I drink too much and I eat too much. Good for me. Fornication comes next but that's REALLY too dangerous.

John

When you bother to look into it, the claims about the dangers of SHS are incredibly weak and have actually been thrown out of court.
It's a pity that many people still buy into the propaganda of vested interests and their paymasters in the drugs companies.

Gordon Muso

There's good reason to think that smokers cost the NHS less than non-smokers. Smokers die early, non-smokers live on to require geriatric health care. Almost(?) invariably they die too, at length. This is not about the NHS, it's about control. Why does the government control? Because it can. And if it can, it must.

J H Holloway

Spin.

The front of the Indy said '40,000 lives saved'.

In fact, it's just pressure group projection.

Gi'UsAFag,Mate

Basically, blatantly bogus boll*cks.

To CS: Obviously, its all about CHOICE. And personal responsibility. And self-determination. And freedom from unnecessary interference. And being treated like adults. And not allowing fascists to prosper. And being able to go to the devil in a manner of one's own choosing.

How long have non-smokers been going to smokey pubs? When did W Raleigh (or was it F Drake?)introduce baccy to England?

Maybe the government should ban your car. Or your non-essential electricity use.

Paul L

Oh but don't your clothes and hair smell so much nicer?

The reason pubs are closing is because people can't afford the prices.

Liz Brown

if passive smoking kills how come the population in Britian keeps rising (apart from immigration!)
Those 40,000(?) who no longer smoke will become a drain on the NHS as they will live longer and need geriatric care. The voluntary ban worked well as people had a choice - oops is that word still permitted? The Govt should stop wasting peoples time and money on this crap and leave us to live our lives in unobstructed peace or if hey want to persist in banning things, ban the Labour Government

John Ionides

Peter,

NO lives have been saved. 40, 000 deaths may have been postponed, but you have to balance that against the quality of life of those people.

Do we really want to live for hundreds of years, leading infinitely boring lives where anything that could remotely shorten our existence is banned by government diktat?

TGF UKIP

Masterful analysis by Brighton Mike. All these nannying pressure groups are staffed by bossy New Labour types with a tenuous regard for accuracy and integrity.

I do recall after the ban was brought in, there was a pretty widespread feeling among even non-smokers that the whole thing had gone too far and was a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

The interesting political question, though, now is - where are the Tories on this quintessentially personal freedom issue? As I recall they had a free vote on the ban so if Dave does win in 2010 will they offer a free vote to Parliament to reconsider in the light of the damage being done to working class and rural communities from the smoking ban? Or is this another freedom issue where DD is going to be THE voice.

Francis Mortyn

Observing the posts above leads me to shake my head and smile, reflecting that we have heard it all before.

Here in California smoking is clearly on the way out. The dire predictions about loss of liberty, closing of bars, etc., have proved specious.

Smoking on trains, buses and aircraft was banned long ago. Smoking is now ended on beaches and in parks. The outcome is very beneficial - a huge reduction in the cost of cleaning up.

Bus stops are now smoke-free, and the streets are noticeably cleaner. All public buildings enjoy a smoke-free zone of twenty feet around all entrances and windows. A new bill has just passed in the State Senate making it easier for landlords to ban all smoking in rental properties.

Only half as many people smoke today as was the case in the 'fifties. As smoking has declined, so has the incidence of smoking-related diseases. The lines on the graph track in parallel. The reduction of public health costs is striking. Doing away with that dirty habit is a win-win outcome for everybody.

A century ago, public spitting, hitherto accepted as "normal," was ended by a combination of a minimum of law with a lot of social disapproval. Smoking is going the same way. Quaint spittoons are now sold in antique stores for high prices. You might do well to stock up now with ashtrays to hold as an investment.

DonnyB

PS Some pubs here in Edinburgh do have sex on display , this is allowed but NOT smoking.

Frank Davis

"If you're sitting in a pub with a fag in your hand, it's exactly the same smoke going into the lungs of the person sitting next to you as is going into your own lungs. Except that the other guy doesn't have the benefit of a filter tip." - CS

It's not exactly the same smoke: it's diluted a thousandfold, and it's harmless - the science says so, when it's not being misrepresented.

You might as well say that when you're sitting in a pub with a glass of whisky, some of the alcohol that is evaporating from it is being inhaled by everyone else in the room, and getting them drunk. Or that when you're eating fish and chips, everyone else has to inhale whatever vapours it gives off, forcing them to consume something they didn't want.

If you can't stand being in the company of other people, if you can't tolerate them doing anything you don't like, then stay home yourself, not force them to stay home.

chas

Cancer Research should stick to reseaching cancer and not getting into bed with ASH and pharmaceutical companies.

Francis Mortyn

TGF IKOP says:
....................
"The interesting political question, though, now is - where are the Tories on this quintessentially personal freedom issue?"
........................

Well, sir, I am a conservative who insists on defending my OWN right to do as I please with MY OWN life. I do NOT ask others to bear the costs of my choices, especially when that choice is something so manifestly foolish as ingesting a toxic substance such as nicotine.

Smoking is NOT a right, as many courts' findings have made abundantly clear. Smoking is a personal HABIT, comparable with spitting, picking your nose, masturbating, biting your nails or farting. You may do it in private, where your act does not impact others, all you like - but my face is not available to you for ANY of your bodily wastes, including your exhaled smoke. If you impose ANY of your wastes on me without my consent you are committing assault.

You do NOT possess some "right" to impose on others the costs that ensue from your choice - costs such as secondhand smoke.

The smoker has no more "right" to impose his bodily waste on others than a nose-picker has some "right" to flick his wastes on people around him.

To impose your waste smoke on others without their consent is an act of assault, and it is a proper function of government to intervene to prevent it. That is a CONSERVATIVE point of view.

Familiar Clown

I don't see why we can't have speakeasies up and down the land, as they did in the 1920s under US prohibition.

Just think of the fun, moving from a boring half-empty squeaky clean pub bar, through the hidden door into an establishment full of smoke, succulent food, live bands, floor shows and striptease. The mind boggles. And bribing the coppers would be a pushover.

salieri

Good question, TGF, and one that touches on an exposed nerve.

There's quite a long list by now of specious, meddlesome, punitive and downright repressive measures which, whatever our personal persuasion, are just waiting to be revoked. Does Cameron have the cojones to undo them and say, to hell with the PC legions and all their tyrannical mischief?

I'm waiting to be convinced but fear the answer is neither now nor after election.

As for patently bogus and self-serving statistics, such as an "estimated" 400,000 ex-smokers in the last 12 months, 10% of whom are now expected to die of something else, note this: the "researchers" extrapolated the figure of 400,000 - including those who would have quit anyway, without governmental diktat, but presumably not those it has driven to start smoking again in protest or despair - from 32,000 interviewees.

A 1,250% projection. This has all the scientific rigour of the scare which "revealed" that 2/3 of us will die of obesity.

Bah, humbug.

Frank Davis

"Here in California smoking is clearly on the way out."

Of course it is in the People's Republic of California.

Nicholas

Francis Mortyn, your posts and what they represent make me want to start smoking a clay pipe. The trouble with people like you, and thank God you are in California and not here, is that after smoking there will be something else for you types to ban. And so it goes on.

The same barmy puritan zealots getting their knickers in a twist about imaginary second-hand smoke are going to be crusading about alcohol, in fact already are, and what we choose to eat, all dressed up as being an unacceptable a burden to the NHS - which is rich, really, considering there is more chance of dying in hospitals here because they are so filthy.

Don't mix up being a conservative and being a puritan, old chap. Our ancestors from the Age of Reason must be thumping the tables in the Great Coffee House in the sky at the illiberal absurdities being imposed on the free men of England by a bunch of small-minded nannies and nincompoops.

Elfed Roberts

Believe it or not, Francis Mortyn, Kalifornia is not a model for the rest of the world where Kalifornia is regarded as the home of cranks and extremists. In fact, God save us from "Kalifornification".

Bans on public smoking, or any other prohibition, simply open up the criminal market for such products where they usually flourish.

Is smoking on the way out in Kalifornia? How do you know? Because black market tobacco seems to be a growing industry there too, along with the rest of the USA.

I was interested to discover from a personal contact, that even in San Quentin Prison, tobacco now comes in, in tins. Can the visitors bring it in in such a way? No, as they are too carefully vetted. So who supplies these tins? Only one answer: the prison staff.

I wonder when people will grow up and realise that most prohibitions do not bring benefit to mankind but its opposite. As a means of control they simply don't work either which no doubt explains why the tobacco share values for BAT and Imperial in the UK are up not down.

Derek French

Cancer Research UK seems to be a rather anomalous Title.

Their accounts at the Charities Commission show an annual intake of over £700m a year but I can't remember a single news report of any results from any of their 'research', can anyone else?

I do, however, see their name on every single report of bans in the past few years, of everything from smoking, through to alcohol, and onto fatty foods. They have a 'Tobacco Control' section, and 'Alcohol Control' section and probably a 'Bikini Control' section.

They do have a lot of adverts at mega-expensive prime-time mid-Corrie slots on ITV to get more funds though so they can't be classed as invisible in the fund-raising stakes.

Perhaps it's time to ask them how many lives they have saved with the 'Cancer Research' that they purport to carry out.

lynda duguay

Strange that some would want to ban something; when the people who don't want to be around smokers only needed to ask the owners to put up a sign saying "smoking not allowed". British law is based on allowing everything these people would rather turn British law on its ear by creating laws so that everything is prohibited until the gov't allows it. Why wouldn't a sign that says smoking allow or smoking not allowed (which preserves owners private property rights) not work??

Oh wait that wouldn't create the smoker free world, or create polarization of the public. It also would mean that politicians would actually be seen to be doing what they are doing now; nothing. I alway thought property rights meant something to the British; guess not.

TGF UKIP

Salieri, being fair to Dave, if my memory serves me right, the personal freedom agenda was one he was running with 12/18 months ago - Pete Hoskin or one of the other Speccie hacks may be able to confirm this or otherwise.

I do note, however, that it is entirely missing in his speeches and interviews now. Being the Cameron cynic, I freely confess to be, I would assume that this is because it is not deemed to be not a focus group issue.

Verity

Frances Mortyn: "but my face is not available to you for ANY of your bodily wastes, including your exhaled smoke. If you impose ANY of your wastes on me without my consent you are committing assault."

Please, Francis, the next time you sneeze, could you please be standing next to me so I can sue you for assault? And for good measure, I'll call the police and have you arrested for assault because you are not allowed, by some arcane law that you have made up, to pollute the air around me which belongs to me, because I have so declared it -but not to you.

Francis, I personally own all the air around me within, oh, I dunno, around 50 yards in any direction. If I don't like the smell of your soap or deodorant, watch it, Francis, because I am calling the cops for assault.

What a prat.

seb

Most forms of death cost the UK government something. Longevity, too, is expensive. With growing worries that funding a population of healthy old folk could bankrupt the government, why the rush to persecute smokers? And why do the British tolerate such puritanical busybodies spoiling all of life's little pleasures?

tOM

Francis Mortyn is partially right, you should be allowed to smoke in a private place. A pub is a private place, it belongs to the landlord not the public.

Augustus

Cheap, lingering perfume, especially in a restaurant, is far worse than the odd whiff of a good sigar.

Fergus Pickering

Surely there is no doubt that smoking is beneficial to society. Smokers die early and never get their pensions. Typically, they pay IN for thirty years and never get a payout at all. Their cost to the NHS os minimal compared to old non-smoking people who are always getting ill with this and that. And think of all the tax smokers pay. They should be encouraged.

Jonathan Bagley

Francis Mortyn's is a common opinion. Francis, how do feel about a group of people getting together and starting a smokers' club staffed by themselves? That is now illegal in the UK. If you think it should remain illegal, would you not agree that the logical consequence is that that you should be able to walk into any non-residential building in the UK and demand it be changed into a non-smoking bar. Do you follow my argument. I am not being facetious. My other question to Francis, and anybody else, is why did very few non-smoking pubs open before the ban when it is now clear that a large proportion of the population hate smoking, and a great many hate the company of smokers. Market forces generally takes care of these situations. For example, Caffe Nero allowed smoking (and played pleasant music). The other chains didn't.

Elfed Roberts

Another interesting one relating to taking in other people's waste products is what happens in eating places.

We all regularly shed small flakes of skin. In an eating house these flakes of skin not only float about in the air for us to breathe, but also land on our food so we consume them. This, of course, makes us passive cannibals. Disgusting habit then, public eating. It should be banned!

anthony Williams

CS is appropriate its a gas, the smoke exhaled by a smoker is 98.7% water vapour, the other 1.3% are various toxins that fall well short of the recognised level of danger to anyone You breath in at least 200 times that amount in every breath you take walking down a busy road.
This Country now has a very large older population the over 60's they were all brought up in conditions that were smoke filled ( even hospitals allowed smoking,) yet they thrived I do not think the next generation will do so well, we are being healthified to much everything has to be so clean and sterile, no wonder allergies are on the increase and superbugs abound.

Francis Mortyn

Responding to:
Jonathan Bagley, July 2nd.

... how do feel about a group of people getting together and starting a smokers' club staffed by themselves?
........................

I would defend their right to do so. In fact, I would defend the right of anyone to do anything at all, at their own expense, in private.

What I oppose is any attempt by them to impose the costs of their personal choice on unconsenting others.

Anybody should be free to smoke any substance they like in the privacy of their homes or in private clubs formed for that purpose. There was a time when San Francisco had opium dens, and a desirable development today would be the creation of nicotine dens, like the Amsterdam marijuana coffeehouses and the needle parks in New York. Likewise, Tijuana, Mexico, has a red light district where women can rent out their bodies without harassment. As to gambling, we here are close to Las Vegas, where anybody can easily go and gamble at any time since gambling has never been illegal in Nevada. More choices means more freedom.

Problems with cigarette smokers arise because of the perception that it is socially acceptable to surrender to your addiction in public. The cigarette manufacturers even advertised it as if smoke is pleasing to others and good for your health. Hollywood was paid by tobacco companies to portray smokers, and from Marlene Dietrich to Humphrey Bogart the films of the '30s present an image of smoking as glamorous. This was no accident; it was by design, planned by advertising agencies.

It was once acceptable to spit near other people. In the US Congress, there was a spittoon in front of every seat. I personally witnessed an old man in Mexico clearing his throat and expectorating a juicy gob of phlegm on the wooden floor in a public building right in front of me. In the London underground, I saw the tile walls of old stations displaying prohibitions on spitting, hardly necessary today. That dirty act in public - spitting - is no longer socially acceptable, and the signs are now superfluous.

In Belgium, I watched a man pissing in public without embarrassment while waiting for a train to pass. I can't imagine this happening at Charing Cross even if he claimed that a ban on doing this in that place is a restriction of his freedom.

Spitting, farting, and picking your nose are acts you may find necessary in private, but seldom appropriately imposed on others. Smoking is going the same way.

As the Rede of Wicca states, "An it harm none, do as thou wilt."

If you want to inhale or ingest anything at all, at your own cost, away from me, "do as thou wilt." But picking your nose then wiping your finger on my suit, or urinating on my front door, or dumping your waste exhaust smoke in my face - don't try it. I will object and intervene.

That is NOT depriving you of some imaginary "right," it is self-defense. To pursue your personal pleasure by forcing me to put up with the consequences is a form of rape. My lungs are NOT available to you for your toxic waste disposal site and I will NOT meekly let you use them as such without my consent.

Jonathan Bagley

Francis, thankyou for your response. It is the ban on private smoking clubs I object to the most. I'm sure there would be far less smoking in the street if these existed. Connected with this is a new tactic of the anti-smoking industry: that of quoting opinion polls which claim that x% of people agree with the smoking ban and/or wish the ban to be extended. Nevermind that many of them wouldn't agree if the question was specifically about private clubs, there seems something not quite right about asking people whether they wish to control the private behaviour of others. As a political and historical ignoramus I cannot attempt a more detailed analysis, but I think it may end in tears.

chris

Francis, you are not compelled to enter any privately-owned place that allows smoking. If a majority of bar patrons wanted non-smoking bars, they would exist without government interference.
I just came back from Bavaria, where the bar community has found a way to defeat a particularly intolerant smokig ban: many bars are now "private clubs." For the princely sum of one euro, I bacame a member of the 1. Regensburger RaucherClub" and was even served my first beer as i filled out the form. Other than that, it was just like a good old-fashioned "real" (i.e. smoking) bar.

Elfed Roberts

I take it then Francis you agree with me that public eating should be banned then. Yes, I know it was once acceptable to do this in public but now we know it involves passive cannibalism then it's a disgusting habit and people should do it in the privacy of their own homes in the same way that you said masturbation should be confined, and, in accord, as that sentiment is, with the John Banzhaf playbook on smoking behaviour. What a pity Mr Banzhaf is not a better model for healthy living himself being positively overweight... He probably engages in passive cannibalism as well.