George Osborne’s smoking ban is deluded

Former Chancellor George Osborne has become the latest British politician to call for a smoking ban. The architect of the sugar tax wants the UK to follow the lead of New Zealand, which will prohibit anyone born after 2008 from purchasing cigarettes. 

‘You basically phase it out. Of course you’re going to have lots of problems with illegal smoking, but you have lots of problems with other illegal activities,’ Osborne said. ‘It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try and ban them and police them and make it less readily available. I thought that was a compelling public health intervention.’

You have to admire his flawless logic. Prohibition has proven so successful for recreational drugs; so successful that even senior politicians have admitted to using Class A substances. So successful that it fuels international criminal gangs and knife crime across London’s streets. It’s also not like Britain’s police are struggling to tackle violent crime and need more distractions.

Osborne is talking about creating a two-tier society. Anyone born after an arbitrary date would be treated as if they were a child. In the not-too-distant future, a 31-year-old could be forced to bum a cigarette off a 33-year-old. 

This would, of course, not impact Osborne who was last photographed smoking just a few years ago. But it would mean over time a loss of £10 billion a year in tobacco taxes, much of which could end up lining the pockets of criminal gangs, while other taxes would have to go up.

In the past, anti-tobacco crusaders would at least give a nod and a wink to J. S. Mill’s harm principle: ‘The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.’

Advertising bans were meant to protect children, while banning indoor smoking at pubs was to prevent second-hand smoke in enclosed locations. Politicians have consistently exaggerated ‘harm to others’ to justify interventions across all sorts of activities. But at least there was a philosophy of intervention, with a nod towards limits on state power over individuals in cases where the activity did not impact others. 

Many will shrug with indifference at demands to ban cigarettes. It’s not a healthy or wholesome habit. A relatively small and shrinking proportion of Brits continue to light up. We should remember, though, that for some smokers there is some joy in the ritual. Not all smokers want to quit, despite the universal knowledge that the product is unhealthy. But the mark of a free society is accepting and tolerating that not everyone can, should or does live the same. It means, against our judgemental instincts, accepting the freedom of others to make decisions about their bodies so that we can do the same. 

This was a revolutionary idea when J S Mill wrote in the 19^th century, but subsequent history has shown that it has served us well when followed and lead to disaster when ignored. The alternative is a world where there is limitless state power. All that matters is a belief a certain behaviour is wrong. In this world, the space for individual choice or personal freedom entirely disappears. George Osborne says that ‘anti-nanny state Conservatives’ are ‘not worth listening to’. Perhaps we could say the same about former Chancellors of the Exchequer trying to ban things they don’t like.