Petition 01451, Public Petitions Committee hearing

At some point you will be able to see it for yourself, if you didn't already see it (it will pop up here at some point: there will also be a transcript). It follows directly after a petition on treatment for congenital heart patients. If you go to boil the kettle, you might miss it: they dispose of it in under a minute. They decided to refer the petition to the Health & Sport Committee.

The clerk of the public petitions committee also replied to my email yesterday, saying:

At this stage, the Note by the Clerk is essentially just the SPICe briefing.  It will be up to the Committee to decide tomorrow what action to take on the petition and that will include from whom to seek views.

 Clearly nervous about considering the merits of a petition so opposed to the Government's preferred direction of travel that they have handed back the chalice to the Health & Sport Committee.

(There was a write-up today from Magnus Gardham at the Herald. He includes a reminder that the Scottish Government wishes to make Scotland smoke-free by 2030. He is downbeat at the prospects of the petition being successful – but I did point out to him that the public petitions committee looked set to call on tobacco-funded interests to speak in our favour.)

Seeking assistance from the devil?

This has gone to all members of the Public Petitions Committee, for their information:

Dear [Public Petitions Committee Clerk]

I refer to the Note by the Clerk (http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S4_PublicPetitionsCommittee/Meeting%20Papers/Papers_20121127.pdf) in respect of my petition, 01451.

You point out that the Scottish Government does not seem prepared to consider reviewing the smoking ban, partly in the light of its adherence to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. You may not be familiar with Article 5.3 of this convention, which is set out briefly at http://www.who.int/fctc/guidelines/article_5_3.pdf. As follows: 

"in setting and implementing their public health policies with respect to tobacco control, Parties shall act to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national law”.  

In other words, groups associated with the tobacco industry are considered to be unreliable, constituting an automatic conflict of interest. For background notes describing opposition to smoking ban, however, your note relies almost exclusively upon sources funded by the tobacco industry (the TMA and Forest). You also suggest that TMA and Forest are suitable bodies that the committee could approach for their view of the petition.

I would suggest that the Scottish Government's commitment to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control would predispose it to distrusting and failing to take seriously any views presented by either the TMA or Forest. Is it possible to seek views that the Scottish Government would be forced to consider seriously on their merits and without prejudice? 

For example, you refer to a report by the University of Glamorgan (this may not be the same one but it is on a similar theme by the same author), in other words by an authority outside the normal range of those consulted by Scottish Government but one relevant to this issue as the paper is published within Building Services Engineering Research & Technology. 

Seeking views in support of the petition only from sources that the Government inherently rejects as untrustworthy is unfair to the petitioners. I would urge you to seek views from sources that are not associated with the tobacco industry as outlined above.

The clerk's note claims in a note to paragraph 19 that they have 'not been able to access' the research from the University of Glamorgan on the efficacy of ventilation, even though we supplied it to the Public Petitions Committee on disc. It seems they will do anything rather than ask us for information! – even admit that the Scottish Parliamentary Information Centre (SPICe) researchers can't find something.

The Public Petitions Committee meets at 10 am, Committee Room 1.

Petition 01451 update

Scottish Parliament Petition 01451, which closed 22 October, will receive a hearing on Tuesday before the Public Petitions Committee. As on earlier occasions, the petitioners have not been invited to give evidence.

The SPICe (Scottish Parliament Information Centre) Committee has briefed the Public Petitions Committee. I haven't found a reference for it yet but there is a note from the clerk to the committee based on the briefing here (PPC/S4/12/17/3).

The clerk's note makes a number of points. It notes that EU 13779 – the ventilation standard published by the European Commission four years ago that shows how to clean smoke out of buildings – doesn't have the force of law. (Our petition simply points out that removing smoke can be part of a coherent air quality standard.)

It flags up a UK Parliament document by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology on indoor airborne pollution pointing out that no government department has specific responsibility for this area. (This document seems to concern itself mostly with cooking fumes and ETS, and cites the famous Pellesque 17 per cent drop in heart attacks that allegedly followed the implementation of the Scottish smoking ban in evidence.)

In a section on passive smoke, it then lists evidence that passive smoke damages health, using all the usual sources.

It lists counter-arguments, sourced mainly from the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association.

In a section on ventilation, it gives arguments against the use of ventilation (basically, against the use of piss-poor ventilation that has already been shown not to work).

It presents arguments in the petition in favour of using air-cleaning systems: Paragraph 19:

Those who support the use of ventilation systems also use the wider argument that identifying and measuring the components of ETS and assessing the exposure of non-smokers to them in real-life situations, present very great difficulties.  TMA (2004, p 8) stated that various substances that make up ETS are generally only present in extremely low concentrations, some below any meaningful measurement.  It contended that some of these are likely to be present in the air anyway, emanating from other sources and inseparable from the ETS contribution.  

It gives a brief history of parliamentary activity on the smoking ban, listing the two previous petitions. It then addresses the Scottish Government's view. The Scottish Government does not intend to review the smoking ban. It considers on the basis of studies carried out in the early stages of implementation that the smoking ban had proven health benefits. It does not want to reverse the tide of denormalising smokers, and it also wishes to adhere to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which recommends public smoking bans.

Finally the petitions clerk suggests that further information could be sought from interested parties, including ASH Scotland, NHS Scotland, Forest, the TMA, or the petition could be referred to the Health and Sport Committee.   

Inherent bias is overwhelming. The Scottish Government's plan for tobacco control will be published early in the New Year, and we get a hint of it here – the Government has announced a plan to make Scotland smoke-free by 2030. (John Watson of ASH Scotland says: 

"We know that 69% of smokers say they want to quit and we know that two-thirds of current smokers started before they were 18.

"If we achieve those goals, we are actually talking about a small number of willing adult smokers continuing to do that. That is their business, and we don't want them to be criminalised or stigmatised for doing that."

Is Watson unique in tobacco control, not to want to denormalise smokers? Or is he lying?)  

As usual, competing interests of the tobacco control lobby are ignored:

In its submission to the then Scottish Executive‘s consultation in 2004, ASH Scotland, presented details of research which led it to conclude that ventilation could not be accepted as a solution to the risks associated with exposure to ETS. 

ASH Scotland received a considerable funding boost in the lead-up to the smoking ban (£1m in 2005/2006 as opposed to £779K in 2004: FOI request result). Are we supposed to believe that this conflict of interest was immaterial? On this basis they decided that because a certain ventilation system was not fool-proof, no other air cleaning system could possibly work!

Petition 01451 calls for a review of the smoking ban in the light of EN 13779, which shows how an indoor air quality standard can accommodate smoking, and in view of advances in air cleaning technology which has to deal with toxins that are far more dangerous than secondary smoke.

The Scottish Government really does not want to consider our petition! Note the mention of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and note also that every single reference to arguments in favour of our petition is sourced by tobacco interests – that even those the petitions clerk suggests consulting over the petition are tobacco interests. (Article 5.3 of the FCTC advises against allowing tobacco industry interests to contribute to health policy. This will allow the Scottish Government to reject the evidence of these contributors solely because they are assumed to wish to 'undermine or subvert tobacco control interests'.)  They are setting up straw man arguments by only taking evidence from opponents they distrust as a matter of principle.           

£10 for twenty

If I am not mistaken they even charge a premium price for cigarettes at retail outlets on railway stations, and so learning that cigarettes are sold at £9.99 for twenty at Glasgow Airport is not surprising.

(As a side note here I could suggest the Scottish Government ban cigarettes being sold at such outlets because staff are too busy to deal with age verification. Just as they are doing with cigarette vending machines. Super-expensive tobacco obviously has some special allure for children that adults will never understand, so it's best to ban their sale from such outlets, just to be on the safe side.)

The leading paragraph says:

MAGAZINE shop WH Smith already has a pack of 20 on sale at £9.99 at their Glasgow Airport branch and it is feared the price hike could lead to a surge in the black market as crooks cash in.

There is growing awareness that making cigarettes  more expensive will drive customers in these hard times into the arms of smugglers. But Sheila Duffy appears to believe that there is no illegal market: all she can say is tobacco won't 'pay its way' against smoking-related costs to society even at that inflated price.

Hiking prices for tobacco reached a point of diminishing returns for the economy a long time ago.

E-cigarettes are bad because ... (Nathanson says)

This debate will run and run.

Many users of e-cigarettes enthuse about them because they wanted to give up smoking and found that e-cigarettes allowed them to do this. For this reason they are fully endorsed by former chief of Action on Smoking and Health Clive Bates, who supports e-cigarettes as a sane method of 'tobacco harm reduction' and criticises those who support only pharmaceutical methods of stopping smoking.

Smokers are suspicious of this benign approach to tobacco harm reduction, feeling that if generally accepted it will lead to more erosion of choice, as efforts are put into denormalising tobacco use in favour of e-cigarettes.

I see it as a prohibition issue. There is no need to make rules against the use of e-cigarettes, certainly not to ban them (where tobacco itself is not banned). According to an extraordinary BBC report,

A spokesperson for NHS Fife, which has banned staff from using them at work, said: "Potential fire and safety risks have been identified.

"The heating element provides a source of ignition similar to a traditional cigarette which could ignite bedding or clothing."

Why don't we just ban the sale of matches, lighters, gas refill canisters, candles, gas fires, ad infinitum? There is nothing dangerous about sensibly used e-cigarettes in a realistic environment (i.e. one where people don't have to use them covertly).

This one is the best though ...

Dr Nathanson said: "They are designed to look like smoking so what they do is they renormalise the concept of smoking, just at a time when we've all got used to the fact that smoking in the workplace is not normal nor allowed."

Dr Vivienne Nathanson said that e-cigarettes look bad because they 'look like smoking'. She should consider that the reason e-cigarettes have so quickly 'renormalised' smoking is that denormalisation hasn't worked as a strategy. Banning the use of e-cigarettes in the workplace because of their similarity with smoking has to be the most self-defeating ban imaginable.

Smoking liaison officer for NHS Tayside abused at work

I would not like to be in the shoes of anyone who is on the wrong end of abuse at work. But really, what is NHS Tayside doing, appointing somebody called a Smoking Liaison Officer to ensure that no one smokes on its sites in the face of reports that staff smoking on hospital sites is increasing?

Other hospitals have acknowledged that they can't prevent on-site smoking.

Workers who continue to smoke at work now risk committing the aggravated offence of being insolent to somebody who appears to have been appointed simply in order to ensure that they comply with a restriction on smoking in the open air, and to start disciplinary proceedings against any who refuse to do so.

Mr Marr added: ''Please note that the use of abusive language will not be tolerated, will be deemed as unacceptable behaviour, could be viewed as gross misconduct and will be addressed in accordance with the Dignity at Work Policy."

Where is any concern for the dignity of health care workers who like to smoke during the working day? Where were the unions when all this was being discussed? How does management get away with making such an inroad on terms and conditions of employment, imposed unilaterally?

All this could be avoided with the use of comfortable and well ventilated indoor smoking areas. But oh, no. We can't be seen to condone smoking. We prefer focus our resources on disciplining smokers.

Sainsbury bid to avoid health levy by not selling tobacco?

Sainsbury's has stopped selling tobacco in some of its Scottish stores in a bid to avoid a 'health levy', to be applied to stores that sell tobacco and alcohol. I don't see how this gets them out of paying the levy if they continue to sell alcohol.

Can anyone help?

Big Lottery money pays for smoking cessation

A recent motion in the Scottish Parliament

 *S4M-04716 Dennis Robertson: Congratulations to CVS Aberdeenshire Central and South—That the Parliament congratulates CVS Aberdeenshire Central  and South on receiving an Awards for All grant of £4,400 from the Big Lottery Fund; understands that the grant will be used to support an existing smoking cessation pilot project by training volunteer ex-smokers to befriend smokers and encourage them to participate in local alternative activities groups; considers that CVS Aberdeenshire Central and South received this award as it will help people to have better life chances and make communities healthier, and thanks it for the work that it does.

Smoking cessation would seem (officially) to be a national obsession, but do we see a return on increasing levels of resources committed to smoking cessation?

I have recently put a FOI request to the Scottish Government on the amount of money spent since 1999 on smoking cessation. The response is due by next Friday. I'll report it here.

Lebanese restauranteurs plan sit-in over smoking ban

Way to go!

Source of photograph (not that I can read the placards)