Phew! Not only has ASH long been a guardian of the nation’s collective health, protecting us from the nasty smoke spewed out by cigarette abusers, but now it is stepping up to the plate as moral guardian, too. Many easily led people may simply have checked out the report, Civil Liberties: Up in Smoke by Simon Davies, and fallen into the trap of judging the arguments within on their merits. Never fear, because ASH has saved us from that. Some money from Big Tobacco helped to fund the report, so there’s no need to read a word of it or engage in any debate about it.
Such is the nature of the discussion today about smoking, where anti-smoking campaigners seem to take the jokey name for tobacco - the ‘evil weed’ - quite literally, and regard anyone who has a good word to say for cigarettes and smokers as somehow infected with the evil, too.
Taking my life in my hands, I decided to examine the contents of this contraband report. Does Davies argue that children should be forced to chain-smoke from the age of three so that they are hooked on nicotine and set up for a lifetime of addiction? Does he at least argue that smoking isn’t that harmful? Er, no. The report explicitly does not examine the evidence about smoking and health. Instead it looks at how, in a remarkably short space of time, smokers have gone from being the life and soul of the party to latter-day lepers.
The report highlights the way in which momentum for tobacco control has turned into the personal targeting of smokers. For example, a ban on smoking in workplaces and certain public spaces came into force in Scotland in 2006 and in England in 2007. But that ban has been expanded well beyond the letter of the law. Railway companies have banned smoking on open sections of station platforms, even though there seems no legal basis to this. Hospitals and universities have banned smoking in their grounds, for no apparent reason other than to set an example. Even workers alone in vans and lorries - sometimes even vehicles that they own - have been warned against smoking.
Davies highlights seven worrying trends:
- An increase in non-statutory penalties and controls on smoking:
Ever more bodies, from local councils to private companies, are imposing restrictions on smoking, even when smokers are in their own homes or outside working hours. - An extensive widening of the scope for imposing restrictions:
Restrictions are imposed on displaying cigarettes, for example, while employment contracts can prohibit smoking simply on the basis of reputation rather than health. - A shift towards ‘people’s policing’ of smoking:
In many countries, there are now hotlines and anonymous tip-off facilities to report illicit smoking, and whistleblowers are protected through legislation. This is encouraging a Stasi-like relationship between the population, companies and the state. - A shift from an evidence-based approach to a morally based approach:
In council and parliamentary debates, there is less recourse to actual evidence and restrictions are justified by sweeping moral arguments instead. - An increase in surveillance of smokers:
Employers, health authorities, the insurance industry, family and neighbours have all been found to be engaged in covert and not-so-covert monitoring of smokers, including random testing for nicotine. The use of ever-expanding age checks by shops ensures that smokers are made aware of the dubious nature of their purchases. - A sharp increase in cases of discrimination:
Smokers have been subjected to hounding by employers and colleagues. - A drift from public-health protection to demonisation:
Davies writes: ‘As with almost all substance-control legislation, tobacco control moves in a short space of time from a cautiously balanced set of limitations to a prohibitionist trend energised by hatred or fear of the substance itself… Open season can effectively be declared on smokers, regardless of how sensitive is their use of tobacco.’
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