Barbados: anticipate the opposition!

Barbados will see a smoking ban from 1 October, and the local branch of the World Health Organisation, the Pan American Health Organisation, wants to ensure we are not under any misunderstanding about the necessity for comprehensive bans as opposed to any other form of solution. Their new publication Anticipate the Opposition is as predictable as the arguments it tries to refute, not least in its characterisation of all those who oppose the smoking bans as fronts for the tobacco industry:

Myth 1. Environmental tobacco smoke is just a nuisance.
Wrong. It is not just a nuisance, it is a health hazard. It causes at least 200,000 deaths a year in workplaces alone ... [calculated from guesswork about the amounts of exposure involved, and more guesswork about other confounding factors].

Myth 2. Voluntary agreements offer 'courtesy of choice': it is possible to accommodate smokers and non-smokers.
Wrong. This ignores the serious health consequences of SHS ... [the consequences that are only guessed at].

Myth 3. Ventilation systems protect non-smokers from the effects of SHS ...
Wrong. The tobacco industry has promoted the installation and use of expensive ventilation systems and equipment in an attempt to accommodate smokers and non-smokers in the same indoor enclosed spaces. [The reason that this is a better health alternative than a smoking ban is that modern equipment cleans air very effectively, not only of smoke but of other airborne pollutants. Getting rid of smoking only gets rid of the smoke but as many people will testify the air in pubs can still be very stale. Not surprisingly this paragraph refers to particles being 'deposited on furniture' before it can be ventilated.]

Myth 4. Smoke-free environments will never work.
Wrong. SFEs are widely supported by smokers and non-smokers, and if rightly enforced they work by protecting people from exposure to SHS. [They don't protect people from any other airborne pollution. On enforcement the levels of fine against landlords 'allowing' smoking are 50 times the fine for breaking the ban. In Barbados the ratio will be smaller, but still a significant deterrent to landlords who wish to accommodate their existing customers.]

Myth 5. SFEs result in lost businesses to restaurants and pubs.
Wrong. [followed by claims that all the 'good' studies find the overall economic situation unchanged for the hospitality sector and the economy. See opposite view from Michael Marlow, who claims not only that overall economic and hospitality trade figures mask large drops in specific sections of the hospitality industry, but also that bars are more likely to survive by flouting the ban, because it is in their interests to flout it.]

Myth 6. Smoking bans infringe smokers' rights and freedom of choice.
Wrong. Smoke free laws do not infringe anyone's rights. [Actually, they infringe everyone's rights. Even if their (declared) intention is about health, rights can be infringed as an unintended consequence. Smoking is legal, it is a recreational social pastime, smokers contribute plentifully to the public coffers and it is wrong to declare a public moratorium on a social activity, declare it's for the benefit of another group in society and deny that any wrong has been done to the smokers. This is infringement on the rights of hospitality traders and of the community in general (just as white civil liberties were oppressed by apartheid since it prevented them marrying black people ... they may not have cared about it in the main but their liberties were significantly curtailed by the doctrine of separate development).]

Barbados bid to comply with Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

Barbados, with a smoking ban due to be implemented on 1 October, is also introducing other tobacco control measures in a bid to comply with the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control: the measures include doubling the import duty, eliminating duty free concessions and moves towards pictorial warnings on cigarette packaging.

The person announcing Barbados's eagerness to comply with this international diktat is Dr Kenneth George, Senior Medical Officer of Health with responsibility for chronic non-communicable diseases.

According to Dr. George, the FCTC is the first negotiated public health treaty under the auspices of the World Health Organisation. This treaty is evidence-based and commits to the highest standards of health care.

Now it actually strikes me as astonishing that the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control should have been the 'first negotiated public health treaty under the auspices of the World Health Organisation'. Why are 'non-communicable diseases' considered a higher priority than communicable diseases, for example ... surely communicable diseases are more likely to strike people early in their lives, and be altogether more problematic than non-communicable diseases.

How can a focus on non-communicable diseases be understood as a commitment to the 'highest standards of health care?

There may be instances where international obligations justifiably over-ride national democratic processes, but the WHO FCTC is not one of them. In this paper, delivered at the 2010 conference of TICAP, international tobacco scholar Kamal Chaouachi called on countries to break away from this treaty (he starts by explaining that he was warned that by addressing the conference he would identify himself as pro-tobacco, and his career would be irrevocably damaged).

Back to Barbados. As anywhere, doubts are expressed about whether a smoking ban is good legislation ...