Flag hoisted on Fedcaf crusade against smoking ban

The tour (not the first undertaken on this boat) is to draw attention to the case against smoking bans in the hospitality sector. Taking part are Frederick Matthei and others from Fedcaf Belgium and HorecaClaim Europe, and Wiel Maessen from Forces and The International Coalition Against Prohibition. 

For the full story go here (Dutch language site but Google translates enough for rudimentary understanding). Route is shown to the right. 

Flag hoisted to tune of 'Smoke on the Water' (source)

Florence, the mosquito, and the tobacco industry smear

Ever since the First World Conference of TICAP (The International Coalition Against Prohibition) held in Brussels in 2009 I've wanted to know about Florence Berteletti Kemp – the woman whose complaints to the European Commissioner threatened to disrupt the Conference.

Any Dutch readers will appreciate that this video is really about Edith Schippers, the Health Minister of the Netherlands (or Minister for Tobacco, as her opponents would have it). My Dutch language skills enabled me to enjoy only Ms Berteletti's contribution, as it is in English.



Berteletti starts at 20.30 mins into the video: 'Well, if you're dying of malaria you're hardly going to invite a mosquito to resolve the issue at the policy table.' Anti-smokers have a thing about mosquitos. Sheila Duffy doesn't see the point in fighting them because they don't have expense accounts and are naturally less serious a threat to human health than the tobacco industry.

Florence won't have them at the policy table. I suppose this is because she doesn't believe in engaging with her opponents. Mosquitos however are now acknowledged as the carriers of malaria. If they were any good at talking, perhaps deals could be done at the policy table that might eradicate the malaria problem.

The health problems associated with smoking are a different matter as they are all multi-factorial in nature. Saying on the one hand that tobacco kills x-billion more than road accidents and wars and is best only speculation – rendered more inaccurate by a refusal to engage with the tobacco industry. Nobody is suggesting the tobacco companies write health policy without the participation of public health interests, but excluding them entirely as a matter of policy is equally unwise.

Since I don't know Dutch I missed most of the video, getting only the mosquito and Florence Berteletti's disappointment with the Dutch government for its failure to espouse tobacco control policies (33.25). A Dutch tobacco industry representative is interviewed in the video, but I don't know to what extent he has influenced Schippers. The Dutch licensees' campaign to overturn the smoking ban was not, of course, funded by tobacco companies. The 'fearless anti-tobacco warrior' Stanton Glantz took the trouble to interview Wiel Maessen, campaign organiser (and director of TICAP) in order to understand how the legal challenge to the smoking bans came about. Maessen stated that he had paid a large part of the costs, including all the advertising costs, personally.

Berteletti, in common with the likes of Stanton Glantz, has a mission to associate the interests of smoking ban opponents with the tobacco companies. She has invented a reason not to discuss malaria with mosquitos and extends this to exclude tobacco from the discussion of any health issue, in spite of blaming tobacco for all health issues.

For Berteletti, and anti-smoking policy-makers everywhere, nothing is negotiable.

Wiel on Talksport

Now (Wednesday night from 10.00) you can listen to and participate in the debate on Talksport. Lots of opposition to the ban being expressed.  Go here and listen in. The number is 08717 223344 if you wish to call the show. The show ends at 1.00 am: the discussion ends when people stop calling and emailing the show.

11.00 pm: the debate is still going strong ...

Dutch smoking ban partially repealed: BBC interviews all day

As reported here, the Netherlands has repealed its smoking ban for bars under seventy square metres with no employees. This has been announced with some media fanfare in the UK, with the question even being asked on air whether a partial revocation of the ban would work over here. (By over 'here', I mean the UK. I am sorry to say that this reversal in the fortunes of anti-tobacco has not been reported in the Scottish press [edit: see first comment]).

Interviews went on throughout the day. It started with a broadcast with Paul Greer interviewing Wiel Maessen and Cecilia Farren. The story in the clip is badly presented with nil research evident on how to spell Wiel's name or even what gender he is. But it's worth hearing the interview, in which Cecilia Farren (ASH) accuses opponents of smoking bans of conducting a campaign of terror. She also suggests that the tobacco-related interests of a single sympathetic MP outweigh the interests of around twelve hundred rebel bar owners, and are sufficient to characterise the reversal in the smoking ban as the result of tobacco industry lobbying.

A debate on Radio Five Live from 9 this morning (Nicky Campbell) was spirited and showed anything but consensus. Brian Binley MP, who has campaigned to reform the smoking ban, participated.

An interview on the World Service (start from 49) follows with Paul Greer interviewing Wiel and Southampton publican Simon Bell who runs Talking Heads and another pub in the city. Wiel explains the history of the ban's reversal, the huge losses that publicans had experienced following the ban. Simon Bell obligingly opines that the Dutch system would be adaptable to the UK provided that extraction and air cleaning were in place.

In The World Tonight (at 40.00), Paul Greer distresses Cecilia Farren by conducting a group interview inside a smoky pub. The locals' views reflect support for the move, commenting mostly on viability and an improved atmosphere, and the move is declared popular with English visitors. The landlady comments that people have clearly missed the experience of pub smoking and come into the bar because they see people smoking inside. Paul Greer again invites Simon Bell to reiterate that it would be possible in the UK to provide separate accommodation for smokers and non-smokers.

Finally BBC News 24 saw a head-on confrontation between Nick Hogan, the celebrated licensee of the Swan Inn in Bolton and the Swan with Two Necks in Chorley (both sadly now closed), and Paul Hooper of ASH. It happened at 9.30 pm, and is worth a look if anyone can find it. Nick does not flinch through Paul Hooper's denials that the smoking ban hit bars and the licensed trade, and his insistence that passive smoking kills and that heart attack rates have materially changed, but argues the point for a change in the law.

After a long day of interviews, Wiel's assessment surely gives grounds for optimism. The smoking ban and similar legislation are based on a failure to negotiate. The smoking ban has been defeated by people who know how to negotiate, and who will not allow doctrinaire attitudes to dominate. The solution to the smoking issue is not to be found in excluding part of the community but by actively resolving conflicting preferences. No solution that starts out by attempting to marginalise or denormalise is acceptable, and the Dutch have proved it.

What's the Dutch for Congratulations? Proficiat! And Cheers? Proost!

Smoking ban debate hits BBC airwaves: Wiel v ASH

There will be a live link up on Radio 5 Live and BBC World Service on Tuesday morning, 14 December at 7.40am (GMT). Paul Greer will be presenting the programme where Wiel Maessen (Forces International President & TICAP BoD member) will debate with Cecelia Farren of ASH Bristol (GASP).

Weil Maessen is a leading figure in the Dutch publicans' successful campaign to restore choice to licensees in the Netherlands where pubs without employees are now permitted to choose whether to allow smoking. He persuaded politicians that 'protecting the workers' would not work as an argument in favour of banning smoking where only owners of the business work. The battle does not stop there for Wiel, however, since so many people find the alleged dangers of secondary smoke either unconvincing, irrelevant – for adults who are able to decide where to spend their recreational time or where to seek work – or both. Winning the battle will involve victory of citizens over lobby groups over decisions about how they spend their recreational time, and restoring accountability to the political process.

Since Cecelia's runaway success in creating persuasive anti-smoking messages led her to convert her anti-smoking campaigning group into a business, she has been selling posters like this and other merchandise, including wonderful games and toys like these as aids to educating people about the evils of smoking. She's nothing if not enthusiastic! – but surely her commercial incentive for success in the anti-smoking business should raise questions.

This is a rare opportunity to hear opposing views on smoking bans publicly aired on the BBC.

Broadcast interviews from 7.40 UK time (GMT), Tuesday 14 December on Five Live.

Turks disenchanted with smoking ban, while Dutch fighter speaks to the Sun

As if half measures by the Dutch and Bulgarians were not enough, recent reports show that Turkey is also less than happy with the smoking ban with over 70 per cent of those interviewed (including the non-smokers) finding fault. The report doesn't speak of non-compliance, however. The results contradict an earlier survey that found widespread support for the ban, but also find business losses on a large scale.

Authorities last year expected that the smoking ban would be implemented without trouble. The tobacco control expert interviewed there, Elif Dagli, expressed particular happiness about the short time-scale of implementation. She also denied that there was any hint of human rights violation involved in a smoking ban. This might explain why she feels it should be possible to implement such a ban without spending years trying to convince the population that black is white. She blames business failures under the smoking ban on a refusal to adapt to new conditions

Meanwhile Wiel Maessen explains his fight in the Netherlands to the Sun newspaper. Bars could not compete on an equal footing (in a so-called 'level playing field'), because they did not have to space to cater for people smoking outside, or the facilities to reorient their businesses. Claiming (credibly) that up to 80 per cent of Dutch believed smoking in public should be allowable, he states that the bans themselves are socially and psychologically damaging, and more so to 'the common man' (ordinary people) who felt excluded from social engagement by such a ban. Elif Dagli would have little sympathy with this argument, but I am sure most Turks would see exactly what he meant. 'Smoking kills' is a simple argument, but the issues around smoking bans are far from simple.

Wiel points out great disparities between penalties imposed in the UK and the Netherlands, and says that the Dutch have a different approach to enforcement in many areas.

The European Commission's current consultation on the 2001 Tobacco Directive includes questions in every area of tobacco regulation about whether laws and enforcement should be included in the directive or left to member states to regulate. The European Commission will not win itself many friends by insisting on Europe-wide conformity on smoking regulation.