Park committee won't ban smoking

A children's park in the vicinity of Great Ormond Street Hospital has become the subject of a row following a campaign to get smoking banned.

The park extends over seven acres, and is for children only (i.e. children must accompany adults). The park's executive director made the following point.

“As you are aware Coram’s Fields serves some of the most disadvantaged people in the area and making it a non-smoking zone could mean their children, many of whom don’t have gardens, would not come to the park and therefore miss out.”

She was accused by the campaigner of belittling the intelligence of poor people. But she argued that a ban on smoking might lead to children being prevented from coming to the park. Further, the park was not an indoor environment.

As you might expect I don't have much sympathy with the campaign. A park is public property and everybody's rates maintain it. An outdoor smoking ban is punitive in a park, and the impact is felt by children as well as adults, if the ban prevents the adults from enjoying the park. Disadvantage can mean many things, not least that home life can be more stressful than many of us would like to imagine. Even if it isn't particularly stressful it is more than likely to be small, offering limited space for letting off steam. Restricting people who smoke from doing so in public areas (in seven-acre parks!) is simply inconsiderate. It has nothing to do with anybody's intelligence.

The park is there to maximise children's access to fresh air, exercise, space to run around, all of which improves their own quality of life and that of their parents and carers. It would be tragic if this amenity were disrupted for the sake of banning smoking. Well spoken, the executive committee of Coram's Fields!

Greenock parks to go non-smoking

Over to the other Freedom2Choose for this one!

Talking about outdoor smoking bans

Since everyone else is talking about the smoking ban that Mayor Bloomberg wants to impose on the parks and beaches of New York, we should talk about it on this blog too. Let's start here.

Don't forget to view this video.

Vancouver parks: democracy in action (not)

Further detail on the committee that introduced the parks ban, the 'consultation' they conducted, the sheer bloody size of the parks in Vancouver (3,200 acres in total) and the Parks Board's insane belief that 'there is no safe level of tobacco smoke'.

The by-line at the top of this blog is taken from Mencken: The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. No doubt about it in this case.

Vancouver park ban limits options for mentally ill

Land of the Free. Acknowledgements to
KateB

Removing stigma is one of the reasons given for including mental health facilities in non-smoking policies. This is a professional concern of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, who perhaps have reason to fear the stigmatisation of mentally ill people. There are more smokers among mentally ill people than among the general population.

If the Royal College of Psychiatrists doesn't want mentally ill people to have to cope with the additional stigma of smoking, it should perhaps address its own views about the meaning of stigma. Does it, for example, approve of the denormalisation of smoking, and by association the marginalisation of smokers? Does denormalisation or stigma help anyone's mental health?

In this piece, for example, the writer points out that his local council's recent decision to ban smoking in Vancouver beaches and parks prejudices the recreational opportunities for people with schizophrenia because more of them are smokers. I have sympathy with this view.


Several of those who comment on this article say that mentally ill people should apply nicotine patches to themselves before going to the park. For their own health too, of course: why should 'normal' people be forced to encounter a filthy habit when in the park, just because some mentally ill person doesn't have the will power to stop smoking?

What's wrong with these people? What harm does it do if someone smokes in a park? Surely you should not legislate against lawful and peaceful behaviour in a park? And how does it hurt anyone if someone who is mentally ill retains a degree of autonomy?

Would the Royal College of Psychiatrists denounce such a ban on the reasonable public health grounds that under no circumstances should people be denied the peaceful use of recreational public places?

Deliberately stigmatising smoking is at the bottom of these moves. Having told us that smoking is unhealthy, they want to stop smokers taking a walk in the park. This is not to do with public health, which should welcome smokers walking in a wholesome environment, but because nobody wants children to see smokers clearly enjoying their peaceful smoke in the park.

Meantime, meet the man who promotes smoke-free apartments in West Holywood, whose strategy is making smoking socially unacceptable. (This article admits that 'no one knows the science behind the assertion that "there is no safe level of secondary smoke".' But it doesn't stop the ban advocates pushing for outdoor bans.) I really don't get this thing about making smoking socially unacceptable. Everywhere I go there are people smoking in groups outside pubs. At the supermarket checkout I serve groups of people crates of beer and tobacco.

These people haven't made smoking socially unacceptable, they've made it officially unacceptable. Or, to put it another way, they have made it unacceptable to the people who matter in society, and they want us to believe that they are interested in reducing inequalities.