Welcome to the new Forest website

Wednesday May 21, 2008

Simon Clark has a message for those who believe the war on tobacco has been won and lost. It hasn’t. There is still everything to play for.

Our sister site, Forest Online, has been refreshed, updated and redesigned. If you are one of the 5,000 people who regularly visit the site every day, I hope the changes we have made will encourage you to (a) register your support, and (b) take action and play an increasingly active role in the smoking debate.

This is a work in progress so look out for new features and regular updates in the weeks and months ahead.



But first, to recap:

Forest acknowledges the health risks associated with smoking. We accept that government and other agencies have a role to play, educating people about the risks of smoking tobacco – just as they should educate people about the risks of drinking too much alcohol, eating too much fatty food and dairy products, not taking enough exercise and so on.

What we do NOT accept are the intolerant, bully-boy tactics employed by politicians and the anti-smoking industry who routinely use contentious arguments (about so-called passive smoking, for example) to justify the introduction of some of the most draconian anti-smoking laws anywhere in the world.

Attack

Since July 1, 2007, smoking has been banned in all enclosed public places, including every pub, club and bar, in the United Kingdom. Not only is the ban a deplorable attack on civil liberties and the free market, government is also undermining cherished concepts such as tolerance and personal responsibility.

It is also based on a lie. The anti-smoking industry insists that, each year, 11,000 non-smokers die from the effects of “passive smoking” in the UK alone. And yet, according to what was said to be the largest study into the effects of environmental tobacco smoke (peer reviewed and published by the British Medical Journal in 2003), the links between environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and coronary heart disease and lung cancer are very weak. In a report on the management of risk, published in July 2006, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee agreed. It concluded that the smoking ban is disproportionate to the risk of breathing other people’s tobacco smoke – which is very small.

Despite this, the powers that be are increasingly banning smoking in open air parks, on railway platforms and even in private car parks. The aim is to “denormalise” smoking — a term that owes more to George Orwell’s 1984 than a rational public-health policy in 2007.

The next step in the “denormalisation” of smoking is the introduction of graphic images on cigarette packets. This will be followed – if the anti-smoking industry gets its way – with a ban on the display of tobacco in shops; a ban on cigarette vending machines; and a ban on 10-packs. Is there anything these people don’t want to ban?

Frighten

Another tactic is to frighten smokers by declaring that they will almost certainly die well before their time. None of the illnesses described as “smoking-related” is exclusive to smokers and all are primarily diseases of the elderly. Two-thirds of all deaths in the UK are caused by “smoking-related diseases”, despite the fact that only half of those people actually smoke.

The risks associated with smoking may outweigh other risks, but many smokers believe that smoking helps combat stress. Others believe that smoking, and the occasional smoking break, aids concentration. Artist David Hockney (a much valued supporter of Forest) says that, for him, smoking is a form of anger management. Oh, and he enjoys it.

There is a lack of perspective when it comes to smoking and health. Politicians have been hoodwinked by an anti-smoking industry that has hijacked the debate to such an extent that it is almost impossible to have a rational discussion about lifestyle, quality of life and the actual (rather than the perceived) risk of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke.

War on tobacco

Many people believe the war on tobacco has been won and lost. Forest doesn’t. We believe there is everything to play for. The odds are against us, but we will continue to fight for amendments to the smoking ban – exemptions, for example, that would allow pubs and clubs to introduce separate smoking rooms.
At the same time we are fighting hard to prevent the further “denormalisation” of smoking.

There are at least ten million adults in the UK who continue to smoke in full knowledge of the potential risk to their health. We acknowledge that some people wish to quit or reduce their consumption, but that still leaves millions who enjoy smoking a legal consumer product. They deserve our support – and they will get it.

Forest, however, doesn’t just work on behalf of smokers. We also represent tolerant non-smokers like myself, people who are concerned at the extent to which Big Government is increasingly micro-managing our daily lives to a degree that would have been unimaginable 20 or 30 years ago.


With millions of people choosing to smoke, despite the very best efforts of anti-smoking campaigners to force them to stop, the war on tobacco is far from won – or lost. Forest is in this for the long haul. I hope you are too.

Simon Clark is director of the smokers’ lobby group Forest

Link
Forest Online