Plain packs fallout

The announcement that the UK government has done a 'U-turn' on plain packaging has been met with a furore in the media. The essence of it seems to be that the UK government puts profit first every time and has clearly compromised its stance on health by listening to lobbyists in the tobacco industry and claiming that more evidence was needed on the effectiveness of plain packaging than Australia needed to implement it last year. Concern that the government expressed about 'jobs' has been translated in the minds of critics to simple 'greed'. The media has explained the government's decision by pointing at the tobacco-industry-linked lobbying activities of campaign manager Lynton Crosby.

I am writing this as someone with no love for Cameron's government and a thorough conviction that it will grab any excuse to make money at the expense of people's welfare. What stops me from joining in the furious response to the government's decision not to leap forward without further evidence from Australia is the conviction that tobacco control policies have little to do with health in the first place. The Cameron government inherited its commitment to tobacco control from the Blair/Brown days. In essence tobacco control involves top-down management of people's lifestyle choices and taking advantage of a massive power differential to influence these choices. It is not about health, but control – millions have been spent on tobacco control and smoking cessation without significant effects on smoking prevalence, and enormous damage has been caused to the hospitality sector especially in poorer districts with higher smoking levels, damaging the social fabric and creating increasing social isolation.

Tobacco control is supported at the highest international levels. This should suggest what is undeniable: big government attracts lobbyists, and the most powerful globally are pharmaceuticals and food because they have monopolised the markets that serve our daily needs. Lobbyists have created tobacco control, and little minnows like the tobacco industry are accused of lobbying in order to disrupt it. Pharmaceutical companies have a clear interest in the denormalisation of smoking: a theme pursued throughout this blog.

I am not suggesting that the tobacco industry should be able to write health policy – far from it. But the pendulum has swung too far the other way. In Thursday's debate in the Commons, Public Health Minister Anna Soubry declared that she would not allow tobacco industry to influence policy, a position supported in this document (pp. 4–5), which explains the significance of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

One of the most highly taxed products in the UK is thus marginalised from lobbying on its own behalf, in areas of policy that are the most pertinent and in which it is the most knowledgeable. It is not that what the tobacco industry has to say about health is necessarily gospel truth – of course its influence must be balanced by other points of view.

However, the playing field is far from level. Look at the hysteria when the health lobby doesn't get its own way. It must have been that Lynton Crosby! The underlying presumption created by the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and its allies is that the tobacco company is inherently untrustworthy and only out to make money and that those working for tobacco control are inherently trustworthy and incorruptible in spite of their financial interests in their work. (Isn't it funny how only one side is capable of being corrupted.)

This kind of innate bias in the proceedings is troubling – as troubling as if right and wrong had been decided in advance in the courts. No one has a monopoly on the truth, It becomes even more disturbing in the light of the excessive taxation on tobacco products. The government will talk to the tobacco company about its tax affairs, but on policy it prefers an arm's length approach.Taxation without proper representation is very bad form – especially exceptional taxation on a specific product.

Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control reflects this bias against the tobacco industry as it 'calls on parties to protect the development and implementation of public health policies from the vested interests of tobacco manufacturers'. This suggests that only tobacco manufacturers have interests that might conflict with public health, but almost every industry has an interest that might conflict with public health, including the pharmaceutical industry, on which many public health systems are based. Pharmaceutical industries have commercial imperatives and the industry itself is staggeringly big and influential, but we are expected to believe that because of the good that they do, they are incapable of deals with government that compromise public health.

I cautiously welcome the decision not to act on plain packaging, but there are huge problems with the discussion of tobacco and public health in general, so I'm not celebrating yet.

Netherlands retains smoking ban exemptions: Horecaclaim press release translated

PRESS RELEASE (follow link for original), 28 March 2013
 
The Supreme Court in The Hague held on Tuesday, March 26, 2013 that exemptions to the ban on smoking in small pubs are in conflict with the WHO Framework Convention on tobacco control (FCTC) and thus invalid. However, the State has the opportunity to appeal against this judgment, and it is very doubtful whether this Supreme Court ruling will be ratified. It  is also important to note that this statement in principle only applies between the parties in the action, namely the State and the Non-Smokers Association CAN. The last word has absolutely not been said about this case.

Application for enforcement of the smoking ban in small pubs rejected

CAN’s claim that the Dutch State must enforce this decision was rejected in the court. The State is not obliged by the court to enforce a ban on smoking in small cafés. The court in its verdict stressed the broad discretion of the State in this regard.

European court

In recent years various, sometimes contradictory, verdicts have been decided in different courts. There is still no final decision regarding the smoking ban in small hospitality businesses.

Depending on the further course of proceedings between the State and CAN, Horecaclaim Netherlands will consider taking this case towards the European courts.

Advice and call to action for small pubs

Hospitality entrepreneurs should not be fooled by this verdict of the court in The Hague. As long as the State does not once again order the small pubs to comply with the smoking ban – which is not expected – pubs can still allow smoking on their premises. Those pubs that have not yet joined Horecaclaim Netherlands are invited to join the organisation, which was set up to claim damages for the economic consequences of smoking bans. Members benefit from the services of Horecaclaim’s legal team, which can provide legal support for appeal procedures when (unlawful) fines are imposed.

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.           

Destroying tobacco livelihoods

The Framework Convention for Tobacco Control this year threatens sweeping measures that will specifically affect production in Malawi so as to jeopardise their tobacco trade. What kind of grasping megalomaniacs would impose this kind of regime on people with no alternative livelihoods, in the name of health?:

During its meeting held in Geneva last week, the sub-committee has, among other things proposed that banning of minimum support prices and leaf auctions, restrict production by regulating the seasons in which tobacco can be grown, reduce the area allocated for tobacco farming, as well as ban financial or technical support for tobacco farmers. 

WHO also wants all bodies connecting governments with growers to be dismantled.

The tobacco growers association ITGA reported on this back in June, referring to articles 17 and 18 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (see sidebar):

Article 17 Provision of support for economically viable alternative activities 

Parties shall, in cooperation with each other and with competent international and regional intergovernmental organizations, promote, as appropriate, economically viable alternatives for tobacco workers, growers and, as the case may be, individual sellers.

Article 18 Protection of the environment and the health of persons

In carrying out their obligations under this Convention, the Parties agree to have due regard to the protection of the environment and the health of persons in relation to the environment in respect of tobacco cultivation and manufacture within their respective territories. 

Article 17 says nothing about strangling the industry without viable alternatives for the growers. The ITGA's position is that there are no viable alternatives, no research has been done, and the growers have been kept away from talks: evident in the proposal outlined above to dismantle cooperation between growers and governments.

Two organisations that might have an impact in this situation: the International Labour Organization, which is a UN organisation and so officially probably shares some of the anti-tobacco agenda, but also probably contains some very experienced people. And the IUF: 'uniting food, farm and hotel workers worldwide', is an international union. Could they at least express an opinion? It seems incredible that such outrageous interference with national farming activities should be allowed by a supranational body with no democratic mandate.

This story has just popped up too.

Does the World Health Organization want to kill tobacco growing in Africa?

Antonio Abrunhosa thinks so. He is the CEO of this organisation (International Tobacco Growers' Association) and you can see him in action here:



The Lagos writer of this piece, Torin Orugun, takes issue with the idea that WHO is out to destroy the tobacco industry. He cannot find any direct evidence that tobacco control expects tobacco not to be grown in Africa.

The motions on these topics are lengthy and involved and I haven't looked through them either to find evidence that WHO wants to kill off the tobacco industry in Africa. However the writer has accepted the view that tobacco kills, and that Articles 17 and 18, which concern the development of alternatives to tobacco growing, take into account the impossibility of  rushing this process. He quotes a local Framework Convention Alliance member who accuses the ITGA of being a tobacco front group (the ITGA, representing  several million farmers across the globe, has three staff including its chief executive. If it is funded by the tobacco industry it is not funded well), which wants to undermine the credibility of the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, using the farmers as a vehicle.

The case of the ITGA is that the people working on developing alternatives to tobacco in developing countries do not know about tobacco, and far from wanting to understand the experience of tobacco farmers, they actually exclude them from their discussions. Even government representatives from departments other than health are not really welcome. The delegations then hear criticisms of the contributions of the tobacco industry, including its participation in debt bondage and child labour (see link to Articles 17 and 18 above). This is disingenuous as it is a feature of poverty and characterises other industries as well. This website on child labour mentions tobacco only as one of many forms of child labour: there is no guarantee any form of agriculture replacing tobacco would be able to eradicate it. See also video at the foot of this piece.

Orogun mentions the mechanism by which all parties to the Convention must work by consensus before motions are adopted, denies that there is any plan to ditch tobacco farming and quotes people who criticise ITGA for their lack of positive comment on the positive health impact of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. He seems to conclude that representation within the World Health Organisation is fair and effective, and that it is beyond reproach on the basis of its stated aims.

Much as I agree that it is not healthy for a single industry to control agriculture in any country, as tobacco is held to do in Malawi, it is also bad that an international body that is accountable only to its members (delegates who have limited personal experience in tobacco cultivation) should control policy in member countries of the FCTC in a way that denies participatory rights to those involved in the tobacco industry. If tobacco is too dominant, this is not a problem that should be resolved by people outside the country with a clear agenda to reduce tobacco consumption. The conflict of interest is overwhelming. The balance of a country's economic and social needs should be tackled from within.


5 minutes 30 seconds in, report of an Argentinian tobacco project that has led the way locally in eliminating child labour. Source

Showing that tobacco growers are also critical of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

h/tip the Foresteirann blog for this small story. Tobacco growers, through their association the International Tobacco Growers' Association, issued a statement at the end of the ITGA's African regional meeting at the end of May. The declaration expresses opposition for the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, pointing out that it was not meant to eradicate tobacco farming but its implementation has been characterised by a failure to consult adequately with growers.

You can watch the CEO of the ITGA, Antonio Abrunhosa, in televised debate here.

WHO anti-tobacco campaign contravenes its constitution

This is the constitution of the World Health Organization.

• Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. [...]
• The achievement of any State in the promotion and protection of health is of value to all. [...]
• The extension to all peoples of the benefits of medical, psychological and related knowledge is essential to the fullest attainment of health.

Just for starters. 'Complete physical, social and mental wellbeing' is arguably incompatible with a denormalization agenda policy towards the social act of smoking. Denormalizing smoking is (beyond argument) part of the World Health Organization's agenda (see WRPO Blue Ribbon Campaign at this link).

Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco and Health is arguably at odds with the statement that promoting and protecting health 'is of value to all'. Article 5.3 states that governments 'need to be alert to any efforts by the tobacco industry to undermine or subvert tobacco control efforts and the need to be informed of activities of the tobacco industry that have a negative impact on tobacco control efforts'. If public health is a matter of common public concern, there should be no call for sidelining people from the public policy process by reason of their employment. (Like this.) 

On 'medical, psyhological and related knowledge', I have found a paragraph on tobacco labelling, published by The Union. 

To date, several countries have stopped requiring quantitative emission information from packages and instead require descriptive information about toxic constituents in smoke and their effects on health. Preliminary research suggests that this information is more meaningful to consumers and less likely to result in misperceptions about the relative risk of different cigarette brands. Further work is required to examine what types of descriptive product information are most useful to consumers. The extent to which information about additives or design features (such as filter ventilation) might serve as effective consumer messaging is also unclear, mainly because these approaches have yet to be explored. Several suggestions of approaches to descriptive product information that may be effective are discussed in section 2.

The idea is that quantitative emission information misleads people into thinking that some brands of tobacco are less toxic than others. Customers could be persuaded to change brands rather than doing the right thing, namely quitting the habit. The received wisdom is that instead of being misled by quantitative emissions, customers should be given generalised information. In my view, this kind of information is already all over the packet. Ingredient information is just that. What customers do with it is entirely their business. It is proposed that instead of quantative information they are to be given just more health advice. This is not compatible with the provision of full information.

This post came from a remark by Greg Burrows on Facebook:

After reading the World Health Organisation's Constitution, I believe with their methods prescribed in tobacco control they are fundamentally in conflict with their own constitution in regard to this statement: "The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition."

The definition of social condition is the state in which a person finds themselves in a particular society.

I am not a lawyer but to my mind the whole emphasis or goal of WHO FCTC has been to force their version of what our (smokers) social condition is, whether we like it or not, this is against their constitution.

I agree entirely with Greg that the spirit of the WHO has been abandoned in the current public health drive directed at smoking. It seems to me that the constitution of the World Health Organization was written at a time before the organization was dominated by ambitious, globalist campaigns.

More on the blatantly one-sided plain packaging consultation

Over the last two days, even more reasons to feel this whole consultation arrangement falls far short of a transparent and all-inclusive consultation.

1. The study commissioned as an 'independent academic review' is not only authored entirely by tobacco control professionals, but as DP points out, it relies on a collection of studies that are not only specifically tobacco control studies and funded as such but nearly half of them are authored by the authors of the so-called independent review.

2. (h/tip Xopher, from his own consultation response)

Previous consultations have been criticised as quoted below :

 “The Government has been accused of fixing the outcome of public consultations on health policy after it emerged that reviews were flooded with block votes from groups funded entirely by the taxpayer.”  

“…….. said the disclosures summed up Labour's "cavalier" approach to consulting the public.” 

…… said: "It will come as no surprise to us if the Department of Health has funded organisations that provide the responses to consultations that the Government is looking for.” 

"The public are understandably cynical about the way Labour consults the public - it's time we had a Government that treats the public and their views with the respect they deserve." 

Can we be assured that this consultation will be impartial and free of the above criticism? I hope so since these are the words of Andrew Lansley MP who in his current Government role has a full oversight of Health Department activity and as an elected Member of Parliament is duty bound to uphold democracy in this Country. 

What's the difference between being in Opposition and being in Government? Quite a lot, it would seem.

Of course Action and Smoking on Health (and now ASH Scotland) both know that there are reasons the public cannot be trusted with fully open consultations. Action on Smoking and Health recently published its tobacco company stooge list, which included the CBI, major trade unions and everything in between. Sheila Duffy today publishes an opinion piece in the Scotsman, explaining why Scottish ministers should fully implement Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Article 5.3 of the FCTC recognises the “irreconcilable conflict” between public health and tobacco industry interests and requires governments to engage with the industry only so far as is absolutely necessary to organise effective regulation. 

If Scottish ministers were fully to implement Article 5.3 that would mean agreeing to transparency in all contacts with the industry. 

It would involve a policy of disinvestment of public money from tobacco shares. It should require a special declaration of any tobacco interests from any individuals and organisations engaged in public health policy discussions.

In the real world where the rest of us live, the world is full of interests that can endanger health if left unchecked. It is not only bad products but corrupt practices that contribute to poor public health outcomes. For example from the US (just to illustrate) an executive from Monsanto has undue power in the FDA. This is of no concern to the Sheila Duffys of this world because they are still in the nursery where food is good for you and tobacco is bad for you.

Sheila also has a go at defending the current consultation process but does not begin to address the issues. One suspects that she does not really understand them.

Over the last month a joint UK and Scottish Government consultation on requiring tobacco to be sold in plain packaging has been met with industry-funded opposition, scaremongering stories and misleading information.

There is nothing misleading in what Dick Puddlecote, the Hands off our Packs Campaign, I or anyone has said in pointing out that the Department of Health wants to listen only to tobacco control and they attempt to make a virtue of this one-sidedness by invoking article 5.3 of the FCTC.

Lansley's Health Department ensures tobacco control rules the day on plain packaging

Thanks to Dick Puddlecote for this. You can access the evidence, a pdf of the Impact Assessment, from this post.

The Department of Health will appoint three panels of ten internationally-renowned experts in tobacco control for the provision of 'subjective judgments on the likely impact of standardised packaging'. The reason given for this is 'the lack of quantifiable evidence on the likely impact of standardised packaging, given that no country has yet introduced this measure'. Because of this there is a need get people to give their judgement on the issue.

In any sane mind, the absence of quantifiable evidence on the likely impact of a measure would be a good reason to exercise caution. Instead, the Department of Health has used this lack of evidence as an excuse to empower experts who all take exactly the same view of the issue as they do. Humble mortals cannot be trusted to reach a reasonable view in the absence of quantifiable evidence, but these experts can!  

It gets better. Discussing the qualifications of these individuals to be included, the document reads:

The latter two requirements suggested by Hora and van Winterfeldt (impartiality and lack of an economic or personal stake in potential findings) are considered impractical in this area, and so instead we will include a description of the participants’ employment and expertise for transparency.

Having a personal stake in the issue is no reason for excluding people from the panel. This is an outright admission that tobacco control personnel do have a stake in the issue. But if having a stake in the issue is now acceptable, where are the experts from actual tobacco companies? Or any of the long list of tobacco control stooges?

Well, one reason for their absence of course is that Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention of Tobacco Control says that these people's views have to be kept out of the process. Another is that suitability for inclusion seems to include a string of publications, as evidence of expertise. Publications are one of the chief products of the tobacco control industry: funding of this area seems to come from a bottomless wallet.

The Department of Health document uses the word 'transparency'. In plain view, they have shown us how clearly they have stacked the issue in favour of the policy they want, and have already spent thousands of pounds promoting.

Write to your MP about this. This is Monty Python territory. It's a reserved issue and will affect the whole of the UK. I have just written to my MP about the authorship of the so-called 'independent academic review' of evidence on the plain packaging issue. When he responds with a reply from Lansley I will take it further.

The Department of Health Consultation is here. Please respond in full. I can only agree with DP here:

... I still think it's important to respond to it in some way, preferably in detail. It doesn't take long and the more responses ignored, the more rigged the process is seen to be. They airbrushed out 25,000 from the tobacco display consultation, even after lying to parliament in the preparation. Our job is to keep being awkward and making them jump through ever more corrupt hoops.

More scribblings from the ASH Scotland CEO

Sheila is keeping well busy these days, and in the pages of the Caledonian Mercury continues her crusade against the tobacco companies. Scotland is pictured as the heroic small country fighting against the evil tobacco that causes most of the country's premature deaths. She champions the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, congratulating the Scottish government for distancing itself from the tobacco industry (much like its sister organisation has done, characterising everyone up to seven degrees of separation from tobacco companies as tobacco-smeared).

Tomorrow, she informs us, is the next court appearance for tobacco companies fighting the vending machine ban. Lies and trickery characterise these tobacco manufacturing demons who will not go gently into extinction when threatened by wee Eck and the mighty tobacco control arm of the Scottish government.

Enough. 'The tobacco industry is a public pariah,' she tells us, quoting Yougov. Has anyone done a survey about what percentage of the population believes tobacco control?

ASH compiles a list of people whose views on plain packaging cannot be taken seriously

It's here.

This is where article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control will take us. Everyone is ridiculous except tobacco control.


And they forgot this blog! (Must try harder.)

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.

Indonesia resists smoking ban

Indonesia is used for shock value: anyone can buy tobacco there. It has failed to ratify the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, although I find it hard to believe that countries that have ratified the treaty don't have child smokers in their population. (The first (and youngest ever) child smoker I saw was a boy of about 12 working in a restaurant in central Turkey. Admittedly this was several years before Turkey signed the FCTC. But I suspect that it happens in many, many places.)

The tobacco lobby appears stronger in Indonesia than it is here. Indonesia has tobacco farmers. A group supporting them have publicly demonstrated about threatened smoking legislation and complained about the strength of pharmaceutical lobbyists:  

[...] the 100 Percent Love Indonesia Coalition, which claims support from tobacco farmers and plantation owners across the country, said the decree was issued to support the marketing of products such as nicotine gum, inhalers, patches and other nicotine substitution products. 

Authorities in Indonesia remain reluctant to pass laws on smoking, allegedly because of potential harm to the tobacco operations in Indonesia. There is (of course) dispute about whether legislation would damage tobacco interests or only protect people from secondary smoke exposure. A tobacco control advocate claims that other countries with tobacco plantations have successfully passed tobacco control legislation with hurting farmers, but this may be similar to claims over here that the Irish smoking ban didn't hurt pubs.

The current bill against smoking, says Chairman of the Legislative Body Ignatius Mulyono, is biased towards the anti-tobacco lobby.

Ignatius was adamant that the risk to farmers and workers was not negligible. 

“All the parties have looked at the bill together and they believe it will threaten farmers,” he said. “If other countries have applied such regulations, that doesn’t mean we should too.” 

He said he fully supported protecting the public from the dangers of smoking through advertising bans and designating smoke-free areas, but said those policies should be developed with due consideration for the welfare of farmers and workers.

Doesn't that read like a normal politician? one who considers that his role is to serve the public? He will consider a bill that will give due consideration to the livelihoods of those whose livelihoods depends on tobacco.

Transparency and the lobbying process

This eminently reasonable view emerged from response to a result consultation from the Irish government about the regulation of lobbyists, reported here.

The principles of good governance are compatible neither with calls for exclusion of any relevant stakeholders, nor with the existence, de facto, of a privileged status of any stakeholder in the debate. Where public policy is made having regard to only one side of any debate can sometimes lead to unintended consequences. Fair and equitable access to all stakeholders, who wish their views to be considered, can guard against this and allow Government/Regulators to make a truly informed decision. 

The response comes from John Player. Unsurprisingly it refers to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control's Article 5.3, which seeks to exclude tobacco industry involvement with any policy decision. It is hard to see such an exclusion as fair. Not only is it short-sighted in policy terms, but it complicates needlessly the relationship of employees of the tobacco and related industries with their elected representatives.

I haven't reached a view about the need for regulating lobbyists, except if it must be done it should be even-handed. In particular the special pleading that the purpose of some lobbying is 'self-evident' and there is no need for regulation in such cases seems quite wide of the mark. Regulation need not be onerous, but if it is required of any lobbyists it should be required of all of them. It appears that many people fail to understand the importance of transparency in relation to lobbying. The ingredients of tobacco are a very small part of the tobacco lobbying issue, even though they are frequently treated as the only important issue (more on this here).

In relation to tobacco, a further point has been made in a Montreal Court where Imperial Tobacco and two other companies are facing liability trials for allegedly causing disease in smokers. The point is that all ingredients in tobacco are regulated (UK version here), and government must logically share any liability for damage, as the tobacco companies are simply playing within the rules. The more tobacco companies are excluded from policy discussions, the more persuasive such an argument becomes. (It may not win. Did you know this: 'A recent Supreme Court of Canada decision ruled that the federal government cannot be a third-party defendant in a British Columbia department of health lawsuit against the tobacco companies because its actions were policy decisions, which are immune from liability.' [emphasis added] Immune from liability? Nice work if you can get it.)


It is an unusual step for a newspaper to feature a tobacco company's submission in full. There is a link to further submissions to the consultation, but it appears to lead you to another story about lobbying instead. 

FCTC centre stage in the Netherlands

FCTC cannot be ignored any longer in the Netherlands.

In your dreams.

Dutch chastised again for neglecting tobacco control

Let this be a lesson. Countries that don't fulfil their obligations under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control will be repeatedly admonished by the Framework Convention Alliance and its supporters.

EU seeks again to harmonise policy on tobacco

EC Commissioner John Dalli announced yesterday his desire for plain packaging and for tobacco to be made to look unappealing. He refers again to the revision of the tobacco products directive, upon which there was an EU public consultation last year, showing most citizens to be opposed to Europe-wide regulation on tobacco. The section on Consumer Information (section 6) included discussion of plain packaging. In the section recording responses of government representatives, it read:

While most Member States were in favour of all proposed policy options for improving consumer information, plain packaging proved to be the most controversial. Almost half of respondents supported the introduction of plain packaging alongside the other recommended changes, but several indicated that the solutions to these problems should be more carefully analysed. 

The other categories of respondent are NGOs, industry and citizens. Let us hope those 50 per cent of government representatives who oppose the plain packaging dig in their heels when it comes time to revise the tobacco products directive as John Dalli intends to do by the end of this year:

Besides attractiveness, there are two other key issues that I consider essential for the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive. First, I am reflecting on possible ways of regulating access to tobacco in a more stringent manner to limit the exposure of minors to tobacco products. Second, I am considering how to address new types of nicotine products on the market, such as electronic cigarettes. This is the general framework in which I plan to propose a revision of the Tobacco Products Directive by the end of this year.

It is not clear that he intends to take into account the results of last year's consultation. In fact he tells us that 'consultations are ongoing', although he does not specify who has been consulted since the report was published:

Over the past ten years or so, the EU has consistently shown strong leadership in global tobacco control. We should be proud of our achievements in the international arena, and seek to build on them. The revision of the Tobacco Products Directive needs to demonstrate the EU's continuing momentum to keep up this level of leadership and to take it further. I know that many Member States are keen to live up to their commitments under the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. However, Member States cannot make progress in areas such as labelling and ingredients without further harmonisation at EU level.

Leadership in tobacco control takes priority over democratic accountability.

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.

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.

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.)