2032 could see end of UK smoking

One wonders what convoluted calculations might have produced this prediction. But all it is, is a prediction stated by Professor John Britton, a career tobacco control advocate, that the anti-smoking community can eradicate smoking 'within 20 years'.

Adding, 'Andrew Lansley could make himself a legacy greater than almost any other Health Secretary in history', Britton opines that in spite of growing austerity and increasing strains on the NHS, the British public will laud Lansley for a prediction to eradicate smoking, even though he will not be Health Secretary
for nearly long enough to see this prediction out.

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.

Smoking still a part of life in France

Funny how life can be so different in two countries separated only by the English Channel. In Andrew Lansley's England smoking is no longer a part of life. In France, defiance of the smoking ban has been reported widely in Paris. The French non-smoking organisation Droits des Non-fumeurs describes the volume of complaints about smoking violations as 'colossal'.

Some more reasons that smoking is not likely to disappear any time soon are discussed here.

Smoking not part of Lansley's life

We're all in it together, remember?

But Andrew Lansley wish to persuade us that 'smoking is no longer part of life'. He used it to justify the tobacco display ban, which we have been reliably told he voted against when in opposition.

All this means is that there is an official policy to denormalise tobacco: not that most of its users recognise that smoking is no longer part of life.

BBC's Marr quizzes Lansley, Westminster health policy in confusion

I was going to say, 'plus ça change', but it's such a cliché. It's hard to know what else to say about the Westminster situation, however – the Labour Party managed to bring in the smoking ban in spite of its election promises, and the Coalition has broken many of its post-election promises, now deciding after all that liberal paternalism is the best course of action. Enjoy Lansley's interview by Andrew Marr, who questions whether a policy of mandatory plain packaging will work. Lansley's reply is that Australia will provide the evidence, but somehow its inclusion in this week's White Paper is not expected to be conditional on absolute evidence that it has 'worked' in Australia.

This begins to resemble Scotland, where no party of any colour questions the public health industry's dogma (although individual politicians have questioned it loud and clear. See 'Crying Shame' halfway down this column).

Talk of plain packaging has caused more speculation that the display ban will be ditched, as there is no need to ban the display of plain packaging. But not all commentators believe that the Government will proceed with the plain packaging idea.

Time, and the White Paper, will tell. This blogger expects many echoes of the past.

Plain packaging on the way, Westminster and/or Holyrood

Has Andrew Lansley, who has been weighing up whether to implement the display ban as passed into law, found an even stronger form of deterrence? The BBC announces that the Department of Health will consider requiring plain packaging for tobacco products, and that it will put together a White Paper on the subject (it also says the government 'will ask' shops to cover up displays from next year: the wording is too mild to suggest that any final decision has been made).

Compelling the sale of tobacco in plain packaging cannot fail to make counterfeiting easier and cheaper, but legislation requiring such a move has already been mooted in Australia. The Scottish Government has also expressed interest in this, but does not have the powers to pass legislation on packaging. An SNP spokesman said: “The SNP is favourably disposed to this idea, and if Westminster will not do it then the powers should be transferred to the Scottish Parliament".

It would seem that the SNP might not need the extra powers, if the Westminster government proceeds to bring in legislation. Is this a factor behind the Department of Health's interest in the idea: 'being in the lead in tobacco control'? (or do they wish to prevent the devolution of further powers?)

Within Scotland, the effectiveness of plain packaging as a deterrent to smoking is disputed. Enrico Bonadio of Abertay University predicts a price war, but Crawfood Moodie (of the Institute for Social Marketing – yes, them again!) believes that the deterrent effect will outweigh any price war. The tobacco industry has concerns over its right to a brand image, and warns of legal trouble in the event of any legislation.

Nothing would be less surprising than an aggressive policy of this kind in Scotland, where ASH Scotland rules supreme. The same cannot be said of England however, where even many Tories have felt grounds for hope that the Coalition would adopt a less 'nanny state' line of policy. Dick Puddlecote has been enjoying disabusing them of their hopes of a better future under the Coalition.

LiberalVision also comments: also disillusioned with its leaders over more central control and illiberal governance, in contrast with its promises. More criticism from the Scottish blogosphere would be welcome: surely not everyone in Scotland approves of this policy?

Grocers fight on for Coalition parties to keep pre-election promises on display ban

The Grocer reports an ongoing campaign to put the tobacco retailers' perspective before the English Department of Health. Both parties opposed this legislation before the General Election on its passage through the Houses of Parliament.

Following Peter Kellner's Open Letter to Vince Cable in the New Statesman on 21 October, a reply has appeared in New Statesman's Letter of the Week spot, from Parminder Singh, National President of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents (I haven't been able to find it online). He dismisses Keller's dichotomy of health or Big Tobacco (or as Kellner put it 'now is the time to choose between Big Tobacco and the British people'):

Our fears are genuine. The display ban is not a health v business issue: independent evidence demonstrates that it does not work on health grounds and it affects small businesses disproportionately. It therefore fails both tests of making effective and evidence-based legislation.

Singh also refers to international evidence of effectiveness in other countries, including the closures of shops in this places; he mentions that Denmark and Sweden have decided against the ban because of lack of evidence that it will work; and he cites the cost of complying with the legislation: another area of controversy.
 
Grocers have had high hopes since the formation of the Coalition Government that overturning the ban might be possible. To their credit they have continued to campaign throughout the summer and they – and the rest of us – deserve a good outcome: that another government will decide that the evidence doesn't justify a ban. Unfortunately Scotland seems unlikely to follow.

Trade warns of more illegal tobacco trading if display ban goes ahead

The daily news bulletin of ASH Scotland on Wednesday included several links to Scottish papers and the trade press reporting the warnings of the trade that the display ban will cause smuggling to grow. A further version of the story appeared yesterday south of the border.

Sheila Duffy can't see the problem with the display ban:

Throughout the debate over removing tobacco displays, a measure intended to protect young people from tobacco promotion, the tobacco industry has tried to divert attention away from the important health issues at stake by exaggerating fears based on unfounded claims.

The reality is that there is no substance to these claims. There is no reason to think that adult smokers who currently buy their product legally from responsible retailers will suddenly switch to illegal sources because the product is no longer on display. Smokers will be able to go on buying what they normally buy, where they normally buy it. Why would they suddenly go somewhere else?

What about price?

'Putting tobacco under the counter will make smokers feel like they’re doing something illegal when they buy tobacco from a shop' [says a shopkeeper]. 'If they think that, they might as well get it from a smuggler who sells it at half the price I can.'

There's also the stigma and the sheer bloody inconvenience, to say nothing of the fact that tobacco sales will slow down queues, to the (real or imagined) annoyance of other shoppers.

The English version of the story states that Andrew Lansley, Health Secretary, has been swayed by a rise in smoking rates in Canada since the display ban was introduced there. I hope the Scottish Health & Sport Committee is paying attention!

Sheila's attitude to the retail trade is extraordinary. It is part of her faith that tobacconists, who sell tobacco every day for many more hours every day than she spends working for ASH Scotland, rely completely on the manufacturers for knowledge of the tobacco trade. As for this:

This [the idea that a ban on displays would encourage the black market] looks to me like a classic case of tobacco industry smoke and mirrors. They spread misinformation and alarm amongst retailers, survey the concerns they create, and present the results as if they were genuine evidence.

A direct description of the way the scare of Third Hand Smoke was created.