Rather hopeless endgame vision contrasted with the view from the ground

Yet again the New Zealand government has declared that commercial sales of tobacco in New Zealand will cease by 2025. The most recent edition of Tobacco Control actually contains a section called The Endgame, which includes this beauty: How smoking became history: looking back to 2012. Here's a taste:

Of course, designing viable and effective policies is a matter partly of logic but mostly of trial and error. The cap reduction proved too complex administratively. Bhutan banned the sale of tobacco products in 2004 - but almost no one noticed!13 New Zealand went for a ban in 2020, which went so smoothly that many countries followed suit with much shorter lead times. Those who had been worried that a country adopting a ban would need, like New Zealand, to have ocean on all sides were reassured when the smoking rate dropped below 10% even before the ban took effect: it turns out that so long as cessation assistance, including a variety of non-combusted nicotine delivery devices, is available, along with regular tax increases and a focused media campaign leading up to the ban, there is little residual demand for smuggled cigarettes. 

Singapore went ahead with a ban on sales to anyone born in the 21st century. This was adopted in 2012 near the time the World Conference on Tobacco or Health was held there. There is obviously no peer pressure for young people to smoke, and the few remaining older smokers get the pity they deserve. A few other countries jumped on the 1999 cut-off date; later arrivals have used dates early in the first decade.

Easy, isn't it? I am actually quite taken aback that the BMJ has taken to publishing this kind of futuristic nonsense in Tobacco Control, which is meant to be a professional journal. It shows complete blind faith in its ideals and no notion that anything resembling an unintended consequence might imperil its ill-thought-out plans.

Back in the real world, grocers point out that there is already an enormous amount of non-duty paid tobacco being sold in the street.

Website author of Tichtich discusses illicit tobacco and the supply chain in more depth:

What this study confirms is the weakness of official statistics on the number of people who smoke. These are compiled from official sales figures together with a reasonably sensible guess of the number of legitimate personal imports under EU trade rules (thee and me bringing back our 16 cartons) and a rough guess based on the number of seizures of illegal cigarettes. Before this investigation they put the figure for illegals at less than 5% for the UK as a whole. Clearly their statistics are wrong, hence much of the so called "progress" made with smoking cessation is little more than wishful thinking. 

As an aside, it also rubbishes the notion that smokers are loyal to a brand. We couldn't care less about the brand, it's the price/taste of the thing that matters. Furthermore, to avoid the diseased photographs or foreign script, an increasing number of smokers never carry their cigarette packets, preferring to use a cigarette case. These packs go for recycling along with the rest of our cardboard. Market penetration is actually far greater than even these figures indicate.  

Trouble is the folk employed to run up all this information are several steps removed from what goes on in real life. They're unlikely to frequent the less desirable areas of towns, they're not part of the smoker experience and they're less likely to strike up casual conversations with us outside offices, shops, railway stations and beer gardens. Those who do all these things are not only aware of whats going on with cigarettes and tobacco of questionable origin, we also know that official statistics on youth smoking are similarly wide of the mark.

I make no apologies for finding this version more credible.

Selective outrage at hosting of tobacco-sponsored trade conference

New Zealand has seen a row following the decision of Mike Moore's decision to host a tobacco-sponsored trade conference, with New Zealand MPs demanding his dismissal.

The event attracted sponsors Philip Morris, Chevron, Phrma and others, and its organisers, Washington International Trade Association, has other global sponsors, mostly powerful international corporations including Walmart, Microsoft Pfizer, and the US Chamber of Commerce. In other words it is a conference of some of the most powerful multinational business interests in the world. Demanding the dismissal of an ambassador for hosting a conference of such business interests is gesture politics. The rationale was as follows:

"Moore's attendance at this party is a slap in the face for all those who have worked hard to stop the tobacco companies killing thousands of New Zealanders every year, and an insult to those families who have lost loved-ones to the country's most addictive drug."

Isn't this just a little OTT? People work hard in all walks of life, and the business of smoking cessation is elevated as the supreme interest that must trump every other. Or does this work 'stopping tobacco companies killing thousands of people' refer to New Zealand health services, which treat everyone with heart, lung and respiratory conditions whether or not they are smokers? Presumably New Zealand has its equivalent of this document – showing that all tobacco ingredients are approved by its health department.

The other side of this issue of course is the damage done to people by the other sponsors of the trade conference, two of which are mentioned in this list – clearly compiled by someone with limited sympathy for the businesses involved. Chevron found itself in a US court over allegations about its activities in Nigeria. The point is that there is a list as long as the Australian coastline of issues that one could use as an excuse to boycott a trade conference. Tobacco companies are accused of manufacturing department of health-approved products that are said to be lethal and of providing work for children in countries with a heavy reliance on the tobacco crop, exposing them to possible pesticide contamination. Chevron is accused of dumping toxic waste in the Amazon and paying militias to defend their mineral interests in Nigeria, where they have allegedly shot protesters and other bystanders dead. I am not fully informed about either situation, but if I were protesting about anyone at the trade conference it would have been Chevron, rather than Philip Morris.

Many powerful companies abuse and/or neglect the powerless when they can get away with it, in the course of pursuing their business interests. It goes with the territory of intense competition and imbalance of power.

Yet more uses discovered for Champix

Not long after it was reported that Champix is being investigated for treating alcoholism, a further report in the journal Neurology claims that it aids the walking ability of patients with spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA3), a degenerative condition of the brain.

Some of the conditions are described below, featuring a Japanese girl afflicted with the condition from the age of 15:



According to the report, half the people in the trial were given Champix and half the placebo. Nausea was reported in some subjects.

The group of patients with spinocerebellar ataxia is far smaller than the group of people for whom this drug was primarily designed – smokers who wanted or could be persuaded to attempt to stop smoking using prescribed drugs. People with SCA3 are in an extreme situation (those wanting to give up smoking are not). Immense care must be taken with this drug because of the thousands of reports over the years of adverse effects. If Champix can be provided to these people without causing them to  lose the will to live, and it helps them, it could be a much better use for it than using it as a smoking cessation 'aid'.

It's a big 'if', because the authorities have not wholeheartedly recognised the strong side effects of Champix. It might be all too easy to put depression down to the circumstances of being afflicted with SCA3 – just as people experiencing adverse effects after taking Champix are presumed to be distressed simply because they are withdrawing from tobacco.

Hawaii lawmakers in action

If you have not already done so read how this ('Committee votes to reverse smoking ban') became this.

It is hard to see how a full vote in committee fails to result in even a vote in the Senate.

Tobacco, other vested corporate interests and democracy

I've often wondered why opposition to the smoking ban is not more vociferous, and felt that had it been tried in the 1970s it would not have worked in the UK. I have wondered if other processes in society have isolated people from each other in ways that have made mass protests more difficult, or seem more pointless.

I found a copy of George Monbiot's 2000 book Captive State, which describes 'the corporate takeover of Britain'. His book tells of how a wide range of projects, including the Skye Bridge, has been achieved by big business interests crowding out the protests of local inhabitants. Corporations have paid for the planning and public presentation of building projects on behalf of local councils. Support for local development projects has been made conditional on accepting the Private Finance Initiative. This meant that building projects, including the upgrading of NHS hospitals, had to be planned so as to make money for the builders, rather than to save money for the people and the local council. The book is quite clear that New Labour from 1997 did nothing to stop the corporate takeover of Britain and much to encourage it – the PFI was, after all, their brainchild.

A chapter entitled 'Silent Science' talks about how corporate funding has affected the scientific research agenda. Of particular interest is the following:

As big business infiltrates the research agenda, ever wider zones of public enquiry are placed off limits. In 1999, the government published a White Paper on public health called Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation. The only atmospheric pollution named in the report is radon. It also happens to be one of the only pollutants in Britain which does not result from the activities of large corporations: it is naturally occurring. The report warns us about the dangers of cancer resulting from 'exposure to radon gas in certain homes or excessive sunlight', but nuclear power stations are not mentioned, and nor are any other chemicals, even though the paper concedes that 'Pollutants in the atmosphere may cause cancer if inhaled or swallowed'. The language in which this warning is given is interesting: it creates the impression that breathing or ingesting pollution is something we can avoid. The paper informs us that the government hosted 'the largest ever Ministerial conference on environment and health in 1999. It fails to tell us that the links between cancer and industrial pollution were dropped from the agenda soon after the meeting began. [link added]

Isn't that interesting: although Monbiot does not mention smoking, he does point out that industrial pollutants are factored out of this discussion. The appendix of this document talks about tackling lifestyle factors, radon control and improved responses from the health service, as the way to improve public health – it is a clear prelude to present policies.

A few pages earlier we have this:

In December 1988, the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals announced that the universities they ran would no longer take money for cancer research from the tobacco industry. The companies' backing, they had decided, 'is not likely to be viewed as disinterested and will consequently damage the university's standing and reputation'. It seems astonishing that they had been taking this money in the first place. But while this, the most controversial source of industrial funding, was discontinued, the business sponsorship of other areas of research has expanded. Why funding from the corporate sectors should be 'viewed as disinterested' and not likely to 'damage the university's standing and reputation' has never been satisfactorily explained by the vice-chancellors. But I have been unable to find a university anywhere in the United Kingdom which does not accept corporate money for research in which the companies involved have an immediate interest.

This view is reflected today, with much corporate funding going largely unnoticed, while the idea that tobacco should be allowed to fund cancer treatments gives rise to hysteria. I am no apologist for the tobacco industry but I feel bound to point out that their donations to cancer research, other than giving them corporate responsibility brownie points, cannot be said to contribute directly to their own commercial advancement. On the other hand, Monbiot describes the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council's influence in university science, and in particular its aggressive stand in favour of genetic engineering. Its funding allows the recruitment of researchers  in biotechnology for major companies such as Glaxo and Unilever. Researchers are gagged, but effectively only if they want to rock the boat. The upshot is that the public interest becomes corporate interest, because the mega-corporations have the means to purchase it.

I am still not sure about Monbiot. He understands the dilemma that you can't control big business without running the risk of oppressing the powerless, but he is still trying to work out how it can be done. I feel that tobacco control bears many of the hallmarks of corporate influence on local life, including the contempt for local democracy implicit in arrangements like the Framework Convention on Tobacco and Health. One of the most important of these is blaming people for their health problems, when corporate interests are able to buy their way out of public scrutiny.

Safe levels: the riddles of exposure to particulate matter

Enjoy this new report from ASH Scotland's Refresh project, funded by a Big Lottery grant. 'Refresh' is a near-acronym made up of the words 'Reducing Families' Exposure to Second-hand Smoke', and the report guides people working with expectant mothers and fathers to the best way to reduce secondary smoke exposure.

Interestingly the report doesn't mention third-hand smoke, but it does insist that there are 'NO safe levels of exposure to second-hand smoke'. As ever, there is a rider to this: the World Health Organisation has set a 'safe level' of PM2.5 (fine particulate matter, which ASH Scotland claims to be constituted chiefly of smoke). The document says:

• The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends levels of indoor airborne fine particulate matter (PM2.5) should be below 25 micrograms per cubic metre of air (25 μg/m3) averaged over 24-hours. 

• The average PM2.5 level in a typical smoker’s home is four times higher than the WHO guidance limit.

• A typical car journey where one person smokes exposes non-smokers to levels of PM2.5 that are about three times higher than the guidance limit.

The document is poorly referenced: the first bullet point gives as its reference Bonn: The WHO European Centre for Environment and Health; 2010, but the other two don't give a reference. An intriguing omission, given the figures involved. Recently we were told that the levels of toxins in a car containing a smoker would expose a passenger to levels of toxins 23 times higher than in a smoky bar. This figure was quickly corrected to 11. 


Taken together surely we are being told that passengers are being exposed to 100 micrograms per cubic metre in a car, but for a smoky bar exposure is only 9 micrograms per cubic metre, well below the guidance limit.


All the figures are of course plucked from the air (where are the references?). It is impossible to define the level of fine particulate matter in 'a smoky car', 'a smoky bar' or the home of a 'typical smoker'. Too many variables are involved even to give a sensible average. It is stretching credibility to claim that exposure to smoke in cars is any greater than smoking in a bar, never mind eleven times greater. It is also hard to believe that somebody's home is smokier than bars used to be.

More on PM2.5 measurements here.

Here, find a resounding endorsement of ASH Scotland from the members of the Scottish Parliament.

Champix could be prescribed for alcoholism

Champix (Chantix in the US) has shown 'promise' as a treatment for alcohol dependency. This is light blogging for a few days, but the link is here, and no mention is made of reports of side effects including depression, suicidal ideation and actual suicides other than a link to another report that denies any such effects.

Reports on adverse side effects are wide ranging. There are also less than flattering reports on its effectiveness as a smoking cessation therapy.

Chris Carter release following international appeal

The story is told here in the Spectator (dated 9 February). Click images to enlarge:

 (1)

 (2)

 (3)

(4)

Carter was released thanks to the online donations of money to pay an unpaid fine by people everywhere, like Nick Hogan under different circumstances nearly two years ago. Organisers included Bill Gibson of TICAP and Smokers' Justice. 

The judge declared there was that 'no certifiable public interest had been identified'. It would seem on the face of things that those donating their resources to Chris's appeal fund would disagree with this and find that several aspects of the case warranted public scrutiny.

NHS Borders attempts an outdoor smoking ban

This story is almost a month old.  It describes initiatives undertaken by NHS Borders to pursue more smoking cessation. One of those featured is a tobacco policy that bans smoking on NHS sites. The article reads:

Leading by example, NHS Borders recently approved a revised Tobacco Policy which aims to maximise health improvement for NHS Borders staff, service users and visitors by going beyond the legal requirements. 

The new policy prohibits smoking in the grounds of all the health board’s hospitals and surgeries, with only a few exceptions and harsh penalties for those who don’t comply. 

Under the Public Health Scotland Regulations 2006, failure to comply with the policy is a criminal offence. Individuals may be fined a fixed penalty of £50 for smoking in any no-smoking premises. The manager or person in control of any no-smoking premises could be fined a fixed penalty of £200 ...

 Am I missing something or is this nonsense? If a policy exceeds legal requirements, how can it be against the law to breach it?

You can access contact details for the Board of NHS Borders here.

Unwelcome Sunday guest

Tom Bruce-Gardyne writes.

On Sunday he receives an unsolicited call to his home from the local NHS clinic asking whether there are any smokers in the house. The clinic cold-calls his house on the off-chance that a smoker lives there who is willing to be talked into giving up smoking.

Madness!

The research juggernaut: anti-tobacco funding makes campus go non-smoking

The University of Texas at Austin is set to ban smoking throughout its 350-acre site. This is a new condition of the Cancer Prevention Institute of Texas, a significant research donor.

The ban on smoking is inconvenient (and it is hard to imagine it being effectively enforced in any event), but the message this curtailment sends out about the funders' research agenda is incontrovertible. A major funder can insist that all recipients force its students to forgo tobacco on campus – if you think this makes for an atmosphere that can foster an open scientific criticism of ideas (especially those critical of the anti-smoker agenda), I have a bridge I would like to sell you.

At least it's out in the open. The bias has always been there, but the research institutions are now powerful enough to flex their muscles and enforce behaviour change as a condition of receiving funding.

Getting cold for a good cause at 83?

This is a government health warning: 

Exposure to

 cold weather

 can seriously damage

 your health

This used to be fairly common knowledge, but a home for the elderly in Dunfermline plans to close its smoking room and turn it over to general use. Smoking will take place in a shelter in the grounds, subject to the usual legal restrictions.  The story is here. 

In line with government hopes and expectations, the home (Canmore Lodge) has waived the exemption that applied to residential accommodation when the ban came in. Andy Kerr, then Health Minister, said: 

Residential homes are where people live and have their home. We felt that, as long as there was a smoking policy in such places, people would have the right to smoke where it was deemed to be their home, just as others in the community have that right. There were obvious humanitarian and other reasons for that exemption.

Local MSP Helen Eadie has protested against the home's plans. It seems that some Labour MSPs did not realise what a Pandora's box they were opening by supporting the smoking legislation.

Note that this policy is introduced to a home that currently accommodates only two smokers. Among the reasons given is that they want the room to be available to more people. This goes beyond the requirements of the law, which allows designated smoking areas in exempted premises. Devoting resources to the construction of a legal smoking shelter is an appalling use of resources, including fees, whether privately or publicly paid to the parent company.

There are methods for dealing with secondary smoke exposure.

This is a frankly an abuse of power over vulnerable people who depend on others for their daily needs.   The relatives of the residents involved protest in the article, but they are clearly open to the suggestion that their elderly relatives would be much better off not smoking: a hypothesis that is clearly irrelevant to the absolute certainty that smoking in a warm room endangers health far less than smoking in a bus shelter that is 50 per cent enclosed.

The web site for the organisation is here. There are contact details if you wish to formally protest this decision. Incidentally I note that the section of their page entitled News Articles does not include any stories at all ...  what a shame they will really have to kick off with a story about allowing the elderly to freeze.

Press release, Freedom2Choose.

Framework Convention on Tobacco Control to slash travel help for least developed economies

Participation by leaders of less developed countries in all FCTC events will be more expensive after the next COP, according to this announcement following COP-4. Before travel assistance was introduced to delegates from poorer countries in 2000, participation by their leaders was very limited.

The announcement ends with a recommendation to lobby their government representatives for a reversal of this policy to ensure maximum participation of leaders of poor countries.

It is difficult to see how the FCTC can really be an immediate benefit to countries that struggle to afford an airfare to attend an international conference. There are more immediate demands on every health budget in the world than tobacco control: tobacco control is a blunt instrument hacking clumsily at a single factor among the myriad causes of non-communicable diseases.

More on Wales: vending machines ban goes live

I'm a week late on this but it's still worth including because of the debate between Simon Clark and the ASH Wales representative, Carole Morgan-Jones. Caught out early on by the BBC interviewer, who asks Morgan-Jones how she knows the quantities of cigarettes sold illegally through vending machines that need to be banned because they cannot be monitored, she fails to substantiate other than by saying 'studies done by the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies', and essentially suggesting that the policy is formulated on the basis of anonymous surveys. She then all but claims that radio controlled or other vending machines would not stop children buying tobacco because bar staff are too busy to check ID properly (this line of argument emerges at the end when time has run out). This is nonsense: anyone dealing with age-restricted goods has to carry out age verification.  The only real modification that radio controlled vending machines would have required would have been ensuring age verification awareness for personnel in hotels, launderettes, cafeterias and other outlets where machines were accommodated.

How to avoid trouble at the border

Courtesy of Nothing2Declare: to help you bring tobacco back from your holiday legally.

Front

Back

Please feel free to print and distribute to other travellers.

Welsh Government proposes smoking ban amendment

Although this proposed amendment exempts only television studios and indoor filming locations, it is notable that the proposal issues from the Welsh Government. Apparently it fears competition from England where actors are permitted indoor smoking if artistic integrity demands it. The consultation reads:

“The smoking ban has been a major issue for a number of productions that have been filmed in Wales, especially period dramas set in a time when smoking was commonplace. 

The creation of an exemption for performers could therefore benefit the Welsh economy by possibly bringing more productions to Wales.”

The story is here. Anti-smokers are up in arms – furious at the reversal of the zero tolerance approach that the Welsh Government simultaneously pursues in the matter of smoking in motor cars, and insisting that the power of suggestion should be enough:

Julie Barratt, director of the Chartered Institute for Environmental Health in Wales, said: “There is no suggestion that where a character is stabbed or shot that the artistic integrity of the performance requires they should be stabbed or shot or that for artistic integrity purposes a character shown taking drugs intravenously should actually be doing so – such activities are capable of being acted using props and special effects.

It is absurd to suggest that smoking is in theatrical terms the equivalent of an assassination: something you can't do for real. The point is that smoking should stopped from being viewed not only in polite society but in the theatre. The very reason for allowing an exemption would be to enable authenticity and realism in the theatre: insisting on allowing ASH Wales to undertake the artistic director's job in programming will do Wales no favours in the programming business. The ASH Wales spokeswoman says:

'We want to de-normalise and de-glamorise smoking so children do not see it portrayed as normal behaviour and something they should imitate.'

Denormalise and deglamorise? They want smoking to be seen as (1) abnormal,  (2) unglamorous and (3) only something that people do when their lives are so abject as to fall under the radar of televised drama? (or do they just want their own way – hang the cost?)

The proposal includes certain conditions that must be satisfied before smoking can take place, including the exclusion of all children and members of the general public from any room used for filming smoking. Somewhat absurdly the consultation questions ask whether children and the public are sufficiently protected from passive smoke. Perhaps we can expect answers from ASH Wales and the director of the Chartered Institute for Environmental Health in Wales that will detail the threats from third and fourth hand smoke (as well as the portrayal of smoking by both normal and glamorous people).

The consultation document and other related documents are here (English and Welsh). It does not specify that you need to live in Wales to fill it in (an address box is included).

The Scottish Government should take note: if this is approved, we could lose programming opportunities to Wales as well as England!

Angela Harbutt (Liberal Voice) crosses swords with Lord Faulkner

Further criticism of Lord Faulkner's article yesterday comes from Angela Harbutt, new entrant to the world of professional campaigning who is now working on the hands off our packs campaign. Angela's voluntary campaigning has produced blog posts like this in the past.

She takes issue with Lord Faulkner's view that tobacco companies have undue influence with politicians by pointing at the raft of recent legislation restricting smoking, and points instead to the disproportionate influence of tobacco control.

If there is a need for transparency – it is a need for government to come clean on just how much public money is being spent on Tobacco Control and just how far the tentacles of Tobacco Control have reached into government health policy. It might not be a bad idea to also get a truly independent body to evaluate how effectively this money has been spent. In August 2010 Eric Pickles MP announced that the government was going to stop "government lobbying government". This must surely apply to Tobacco Control.

She points out that like many of us in the population, her campaigning has so far been voluntary.

What drove me to campaigning? A richly funded and politically active health lobbying industry that has agitated constantly to price out of reach, limit access to, or otherwise bully people into ending consumption of, things deemed undesirable or unhealthy.

She has accepted payment from Forest to undertake a campaign against plain packaging.

Perhaps not surprisingly, her piece was published with Lord Faulkner's response immediately below.  It has since been edited, but the original read as follows:

For Angela Harbutt to compare "Big Tobacco" to organisations devoted to improving public health is laughable, but hardly surprising from someone who admits to being funded by FOREST, an organisation set up by the Tobacco Manufacturers Association to promote the interests of the tobacco industry.

Leaving aside the point that Angela Harbutt has not been paid for her previous five years of campaigning, rendering the point he makes inaccurate, Lord Faulkner somehow also has the belief that Forest was started as a tobacco industry front group. Its actual funding from tobacco companies is listed on the front page of its website. Simon Clark of Forest wrote to the PoliticsHome website pointing out the error, and clearly His Lordship has no evidence for his belief (other than that it is received tobacco control wisdom): hence the corrected version.

All that is left to Lord Faulkner after his attack on Angela Harbutt are (1) the somewhat pointless supposition that not smoking would save many hundred thousand lives, (2) the assertion that it is important that universities participate in studying the causes of disease (is that what happens in universities party to the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, which seems to have a loaded name) and (3) the suggestion that tobacco is the only consumer product that kills when used as intended. That old chestnut – never mind the fact that alcohol, salt and now sugar are catching up fast.

Does that mean that the health lobby will be fighting within itself for resources soon? That will show them as the one-trick ponies they are.

EDIT: background to latest edit of Lord Faulkner's response.

Spot the tobacco industry front group (article 5.3 again)

Lord Faulkner of Worcester makes no secret of his enthusiasm for tobacco control. In this article he sets out to 'smoke out tobacco companies' influence'.

Like many advocates of smoking bans he sees tobacco as unique in its bad health effects. In spite of an increasing public health focus on drink, salt and now sugar, tobacco trumps all in its capacity to blight lives. However, as people point out increasingly, notwithstanding the UK government's professed concern for health it faces millions in fines for exceeding outdoor pollution limits set by Europe.

Because tobacco has uniquely damaging effects on human health, public health departments take an interest in tobacco. They do the same with alcohol, salt and now sugar. Output from the really big corporations, which include military–industrial corporations, remains outside the interest of public health: systemic impacts on public health including bad housing quality, chronic employment insecurity, sales of school playing fields and the more direct effects of industrial and post-industrial pollution are all conditions that we must live with: health improvement means the modification of lifestyle factors.

Needless to say I take Lord Faulkner's factoid that tobacco kills one in every two smokers with a very large pinch of salt. This stupendous figure justifies his proud description of Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control: after describing the behaviour of lobbyists, he goes on:

Tackling such entrenched and profitable vested interests is never easy. That is why Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention is so crucial. It clearly states that when political parties are setting and implementing public health policies related to tobacco control, they shall ‘act to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national law.’ 

What makes tobacco so unique?

The industry is desperate to get the ear of politicians, warning of the dire consequences of better health policies, undermining the evidence presented by doctors and scientists. It does this by providing a little advice here, a little hospitality there and some very generous speaker’s fees.

Isn't this what lobbyists all do?

And to reach those who won’t talk directly to the tobacco companies themselves, they use front groups often without making explicit tobacco industry links and funding. Most recently they funded retailer groups like the National Federation of Retail Newsagents and the Tobacco Retailers Alliance to argue against putting tobacco out of sight in shops,

The NFRN is seen here explaining its acceptance of tobacco industry money in order to campaign against the legislation. The Tobacco Retailers' Association acknowledges support from the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association at the foot of its website. Forest (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco), the only tobacco-funded campaigning group for tobacco consumers, carries a disclaimer on its website:

Forest is supported by British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco  Limited and Gallaher Limited (a member of the Japan Tobacco Group of Companies). The views expressed on this or any other Forest-affiliated website are those of Forest alone.

People like Lord Faulkner seem incapable of believing that an organisation receiving funding from tobacco companies can retain an independent view. Payment from the tobacco industry implies that the groups concerned don't even have an independent view – they just want to put forward the view of their suppliers, even though independent retailers represent a sector in their own right – a sector that is struggling.

To ensure the implementation of Article 5.3, he wants Andrew Lansley (Health Minister) to ensure the publication of all dealings between the tobacco industry and government officials. As for organisations he imagines are in receipt of industry funding:

“Smokers’ rights groups” and retailer front groups will continue to claim they have a right to be heard. Perhaps so, but they should no longer have the right to hide from Parliament the payments and briefings they receive from tobacco corporations. The tobacco companies will still have the right to discuss how they comply with government health policies. They should no longer be the arbiters of what those policies should be.

I have a tip for Lord Faulkner. He would find it much easier if he simply accepted briefings from the tobacco industry. Then he would not need to worry about whether independent retailers (or Forest for that matter) were giving him the tobacco industry perspective covertly. Or perhaps it is easier to reject tobacco companies' views and dismiss everyone else as 'useful idiots'.

Consulting mosquitos

Yet again the Dutch come under fire for their lax attitude to tobacco control, because they have rolled back the tobacco campaign and withdrawn the funding for smoking cessation campaigns.

Chief among the complaints of the anti-smoking campaigners is the attitude of Anne Mulder, Public Health spokesman for the Liberal Party. He admits that the health department 'does hold meetings with the tobacco lobby':

'It's a legal product, I think it's right I speak to everyone and that's what I'm doing. I don't have any problem speaking to the lobbyists. If you want to make policy you have to speak to people on all sides then make your own decision.'

The inevitable objection (see earlier example):

'If you want to control malaria you don't invite the mosquitoes to negotiate with you on these issues. This is so illogical. It is absolutely irresponsible what they're doing, it's not a health policy not at all.'

The mosquito is a very poor example to illustrate why relevant interests should not be consulted over policy. Politicians don't control malaria, nor do they prevent disease. They legislate on policy. If you want to control malaria as a medic, you go to war with the mosquito and if you need the support of the law then other considerations might become relevant. The fact that mosquitos cannot speak for themselves has absolutely no bearing on the propriety of consulting all relevant parties to issues on which laws are being passed. (Sheila Duffy also had a go a few months ago when she blogged,
 'Malaria kills people, but mosquitoes don’t have PR agencies and expensive promotions budgets,' a consideration that is absurd as well as irrelevant.)

In consulting with tobacco companies the Dutch are flouting Article 5.3 of the WHO's Framework Convention for Tobacco Control. This measure seeks to 'protect' health policy from tobacco industry influence – because the FCTC is the first global multilateral treaty of the World Health Organisation. It should worry people that the WHO believes tobacco should be the subject of its first multilateral treaty, or that the tobacco industry is the only one supposed to be a threat to national public health policies, and whose influence must be resisted.  (More here.)

Miscellaneous on tobacco control

1. Front page view of local rebel (local to Northern Ireland that is) on his way into prison. There will be a further report of his release shortly.

2. Court of Session turns down Imperial Tobacco's case against the Scottish Government claiming that the tobacco display ban is unconstitutional. Imperial may yet appeal but no final decision is yet made.

3. 'More smokers expected to die outside pubs this winter.' Speaks for itself.