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!

Scots urged to ban smoking in cars

Apparently Welsh parents are being given a period of grace to see whether a public education programme will change people's behaviour. The British Lung Foundation wants Scotland to follow the example of Wales.

Since there is (we are told) no safe level of secondary smoke, a delay in implementing the most severe restrictions is somewhat strange. The emphasis is on children after all. Not legislating immediately is endangering millions of children's respiratory systems forever, isn't it?

A delay suggests that the government recognises the sensitivity of legislating activities in private space. Many people who feel the government is pushing its luck defining pubs and restaurants as public spaces would be pushing their luck by extending rulings into a private car.

This could be a recognition that banning smoking in cars would be more a political gesture than an effective measure to protect respiratory health. There are unquestionably threats to children's respiratory health in this country, but it is very doubtful whether banning smoking in cars would be more than tinkering at the edges.

Welsh Government awaits guidance from MHRA about whether to continue recommending Champix

The Welsh Government has acknowledged unease about funding Champix following reports of cardiac incidents in people taking it. It is awaiting advice from the MHRA. The study claiming that Champix was responsible for an increased risk of heart trouble found only a small elevated risk. I hope that the Scottish Government will follow suit – not specifically because of the heart attack risk, but for other reasons:

• because there is increasing anecdotal evidence of bad side effects including suicidal ideation and actual suicide. Court action is pending.
• because what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. There is no safe level of secondary smoke, because of the potential effects of inhaling it. There is no safe level of Champix either, because it can lead to terrifying symptoms and behaviour changes that have proved fatal to people taking Champix and their loved ones.
• because there is no reason to fund smoking cessation, certainly not on the scale that it is currently being funded  Wanting to smoke is a state of mind, not an illness.

It is telling that heart problems can make authorities act when the other symptoms have not seemed to worry them. “We are talking about a fairly unhealthy section of the population anyway . . . one in two will die because of smoking," famously said Ailsa Rutter of Smoke Free North East – a shocking equation of long-term morbidity in middle or even old age with the traumatic consequences that smokers have experienced often within weeks of starting a course of Champix – by no means universally experienced in either case. 

Reports of the success of Champix as a quitting aid are quite possibly exaggerated. 

Imperial Tobacco attacks Welsh tobacco control policy

This has been reported on at least three blogs already but top prize to The Big Yin for calling his piece Welsh Rarebit. For rare it has been over the last few years to see tobacco companies leading from the front.

Yet here it is: Imperial's reply to the Welsh tobacco control consultation. Forest dubs it winner of its Plain English Award, and not without reason: it is clearly set out and structured:

• Good  –there is a tobacco control policy aimed at reducing youth smoking
• Bad – it has been incompetently conceived and designed
• Ugly – Welsh tobacco policy relies disproportionately on ASH Wales, raising the question whether improper pressure is being applied by 'the anti-smoking lobbying industry'.

Imperial Tobacco demands transparency in tobacco control, not only regarding the interests and involvement of tobacco companies but of all bodies involved, mentioning specifically ASH Wales and the pharmaceutical industry. The document consistently commends the aim of reducing youth smoking, but maintains that the strategy is wrong. It is wrong in describing smoking as a cause of health inequalities, and rebukes the tobacco control policy for simplistically trying to force a change in behaviour rather than trying to understand the reasons for such behaviour.

It is also wrong because it attacks the legal market in tobacco:

In many communities, where smoking rates are well above the national average, a high proportion of smokers will be sourcing their tobacco from illicit sources and criminal gangs ... Attempts to limit the availability of tobacco from legitimate sources will be undermined by an increase in the supply from organised criminal gangs who will welcome the broadening of the market share.

Addressing also civil liberties, property rights and the self-defeating method of denormalisation as a means of persuading adults to give up smoking, this consultation response makes good reading.

As The Big Yin points out, Imperial Tobacco is not the first tobacco company to start openly opposing official policy. There is so much to be done, and I hope this kind of document will now surface frequently – my way of saying Up With This Sort Of Thing.

China and Wales attempt the impossible

It is widely agreed that the smoking ban in China, implemented yesterday, will not be enforceable, and according to the Telegraph, no penalties are payable for breaches. In this vast country, smoking still features in cultural exchanges and economic deals, and smoking is not widely understood to be a health risk.

China has failed to live up to its treaty obligations under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. This is an attempt to comply – the outcome remains to be seen.

Wales has banned smoking in the grounds of some of its hospitals. Actually it intends to outlaw smoking in the grounds of hospitals:

The ban at hospitals run by Cardiff and Vale University Health Board is the first step in a move to outlaw smoking in all hospital grounds in the region.

This is a move that the Welsh section of BMA has wanted for many years. The rationale, according to Dr Andrew Dearden, chair of the BMA's Welsh Council, is that 'smoke was putting people's health at risk in the very place they visit to get better.'

"The BMA in Wales has campaigned for smoking to be banned on all hospital grounds. In fact, we called on the assembly government to change the law to ensure hospitals were included in the smoking ban legislation, which came into effect two years ago today,"

 he said, even going so far as to declare that:

"This wasn't done, and now, more than ever, it seems absurd to have smoking outlawed in places such as pubs and restaurants. But in hospital grounds, where people go to be cured of illnesses, it isn't."

Hospitals throughout the UK have been rebuilding smoking shelters after failing to realise their dream of smoke-free medical facilities. Apparently oblivious to this widespread failure, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board insists that a diplomatic approach is the answer: 

Dr Sharon Hopkins, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board’s director of public health, said: “We want to do this through cultural change, not through finger-wagging and fines."

Bringing outdoor smoking in hospital grounds within the scope of a public places smoking ban will not stop people wanting to light up. If it is enforced (what a waste of resources that would be!) it could deter people from turning up for treatment.

China and Wales will both discover that smoking bans leave you with as many problems as you started with and them some. Counting the cost of enforcement will be one of the first disadvantages.

Welsh schoolchildren's anti-smoking animation

I wonder what lessons they are missing out on in order to create the time for this 'animation'?

http://www.itv.com/wales/anti-smoking-animation26279/?

For a start, they could try learning what an animation actually is: I suspect this would be a far more enlightening exercise than getting children to chant 'We have a right to be healthy'.

Wales hospital criticised for tobacco mess on surrounding streets. Watch them not learning

A Swansea hospital has been criticised for not providing smoking facilities for its staff and patients following growing litter problems since it banned smoking from its site in 2009. There is no acknowledgement on the part of the Trust of any problem with this outright ban, which involved moving smoking bins off the premises to the gates of the site (ffs!), and effectively dumping the waste in the street, rather than offering patients, staff and smokers a smoking room. The usual volley of counter-insults appears in the comments column below.

Worse still, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board plans to follow suit this year with plans for a ban in hospital doorways from April, and the Welsh Health Minister even considering outlawing smoking on hospital premises. They seriously think it will save money.

Today's Daily Record (I learned from the daily news bulletin of ASH Scotland) carries a letter from a woman aged 40 with a terminal lung condition. (No url.) Her complaint (and she feels she has the right) is that she has to get through a barricade of smokers to get to her hospital appointments. Unfortunately she blames the smokers, rather than blaming the authorities for not allowing the hospital's catering department to accommodate them in a large room, where visitors could rest with a coffee while waiting for their loved ones, and patients could take their relatives or just go for some time away from the ward. I know what I would do in her case: rather than claiming a 'right to complain', I would go to war with the hospital authorities and the Government, rather than hope to influence smokers by writing to the papers about them.

What will it take this country to come to its senses on this issue?