No tobacco-related deaths in Scotland, says FOI

H/tips to Bill Gibson for making the FOI request, and Pat Nurse for reporting it.

The question, how many tobacco-related deaths and deaths attributable to passive smoking have been recorded in Scotland.

The answer: none. Or to use (Head of Tobacco Control Division) Mary Cuthbert's words:

  "We hold no information about actual deaths due to passive smoking. It is not possible to give precise figures on deaths resulting from tobacco use." 

I'll give you an interesting correlation. Tobacco is the only industry that has a global health authority demanding that it should be kept out of talks on health: all governments are under unrelenting pressure to keep the industry away from policy affecting its product. It is also the one commonly held responsible for all ailments affecting central organs and functions of the human body – the heart, the lungs and the respiratory system are destroyed by 'tobacco-related diseases'. Legislation has been brought in throughout the world to protect bystanders from the effects of tobacco smoke. And yet the government cannot say with any certainty how many people it kills, or how many people are killed by exposure to secondary smoke.