The Much-Ignored Pleasure Of Smoking

There is a report out today from the Centre for Substance Use Research (CSUR) in Glasgow which should be compulsory reading for anyone and everyone in the tobacco control industry. Sadly, it will be largely ignored.

Entitled "The Pleasure of Smoking", the report canvasses the views of 583 'confirmed' smokers; that is, smokers who enjoy smoking and are mostly resistant to demands to quit. Lead author Neil McKegany explains why this research should be heeded in the Executive Summary.

This research has provided considerable detailed information on the way in which smoking is viewed by a group of confirmed smokers. This is a group whose opinions are rarely articulated. The implications of these findings from a smoking cessation perspective are significant because there is a clear gulf between the way smoking is typically viewed as a negative, somewhat reprehensible behaviour, and how the smokers themselves saw their smoking as a source of pleasure, a choice rather than an addiction. Whilst it might be objected that "Smokers would say that, wouldn't they?", if stop smoking services are going to succeed in engaging with those smokers who continue to smoke in the face of the extensive efforts aimed at encouraging smoking cessation they are going to have to be prepared to engage with smokers on the terms upon which those individuals view their own behaviour. This includes being willing to recognise the pleasurable elements of smoking. 

Indeed.

There are two things to observe about that introduction. Firstly, tobacco control has never been remotely interested in articulating the views of smokers, instead they have sought every avenue by which they can ensure the views of smokers are silenced or ignored.

Secondly, if any tobacco controller were to admit that smokers derive pleasure from smoking rather than merely being addicted, they would experience an avalanche of abuse and threats from their colleagues who are driven solely by the need to actively denormalise smoking and cast smokers as third class citizens incapable of rational independent thought. The report points out how such vile behaviour from tobacco control would never be tolerated in any other policy area.

In other contexts we recoil at the suggestion of excluding individuals from social gatherings on the basis of their gender, race, religion or sexual identity and yet we positively embrace the notion of excluding smokers from gatherings in enclosed public places. The increasing marginalisation of smokers means that we are less and less inclined to ask them about their views on smoking or their views on the evidence of smoking harm, of addiction, and their interest in changing their behaviour. As a result we understand less and less about the experience of smoking as seen through the eyes of smokers themselves. 

Yep. Those who wish smokers to quit have never been prepared to "engage with smokers" at all, a tactic that vapers might recognise too. It is why tobacco controllers have never, and will never, understand smokers or other users of nicotine. Simply because they don't want to.

Denormalisation has been a stated tactic of tobacco control for many years now, they are quite open about it. Ignoring smokers is just one facet of that approach. Considering this is an attitude endemic within the anti-smoking industry, it is no surprise that the smokers surveyed by CSUR find nothing of any interest when they come into contact with the "well-meaning people but bloody useless" (from the report) staff at stop smoking services.

 “I had worried that quitting smoking would be bleak dull soulless and righteous. Everyone I dealt with through stop smoking services confirmed that view. Not wanting to be like them is one of the reasons I started smoking again”, “It was rubbish and I was rather stunned when it was pointed out to me that ‘By now you are supposed to be using weaker patches and close to quitting’. I was not aware I was on some kind of timetable and they witter on so much at you. They turn it into something much bigger than it needs to be and pepper their speech and information packs with so much negativity and wittering on that it just isn’t worth continuing.” 

Smokers commented that they had found a judgemental attitude on the part of staff within the smoking cessation clinics that had a negative impact on their contact with the service: "I felt the advisor was condescending and holier than thou", "Weak, of little consequence, and coming from a position of sanctimony and patronisation, anti-smoking products are a placebo, they don't work", "Pseudo sales person for the pharmaceutical industry products. Promoted by quit smoking advisors who lacked any knowledge of smoking other than the anti-smoking dogma", "Negative vibe because I am a smoker".

I'm sure staff who profess to be committed to stopping people smoking might not like the idea that their attitude isn't helping, but just like any other industry it is the messages from above which are responsible for it. In an atmosphere, created by the extremists in tobacco control, where smokers are denormalised and society treats them with contempt - merely 'nicotine addicts' who imagine pleasure instead of experience it - it's hardly surprising.

Of course, there is another way.

Successful models of engagement of smokers need to recognise and work with the enjoyment and pleasure that can be found in smoking. If smoking cessation services solely or principally stress the health harms associated with smoking and lay strongest emphasis on an addiction model to explain continued smoking in the face of those acknowledged harms, they will simply continue to find themselves very distant to the sorts of smokers we were surveying. 

The report also details how these committed smokers are very well aware of the health risks involved but - contrary to every policy justification the tobacco control industry has ever suggested - make value judgements based on the (exaggerated) guidance they are given and choose to smoke anyway. In the section on willingness to try harm reduction products like e-cigs, for example, a concern for health was way down in fifth place behind the ability to use them in public places, the fact they are cheaper, and preferences about flavour and smell.

In fact, the CSUR report covers this counterproductive tobacco control idiocy too.

A small number of smokers drew attention to sanctions on public vaping and some people's negative reactions to vaping as having undermined their experience of using the devices. "Same social stigma as as smoking so what's the point, may as well keep smoking the real cigarettes as much more pleasurable", "Still had to stand outside to vape, often right next to rubbish bins, this made it pointless to switch hence not using now", "Restrictions on use" and "Vaping bans"

In light of this, I shall digress briefly and remind you that there are individuals around who believe smokers should quit smoking and use e-cigs instead; are head of organisations which have policies supportive of e-cigs; yet still go to national newspapers like, oh I dunno, The Times, and say that vaping should be banned in all public places. I mean, how cretinous do you have to be to come out with ignorant garbage like that, eh?

It's especially counterproductive when the CSUR research also found that smokers who had tried e-cigs "reported enjoying cigarettes significantly more than those who had not". By attacking vaping simply based on their stupid prejudices, anti-smokers could therefore well be actively harming the chances of committed smokers switching to e-cigs.

Of course, they have no way of knowing that because they won't talk to smokers - instead being determined to ignore them - and will also dismiss today's published report. How do we know this? Well, because they have done so already.

In October, ASH Scotland prepared the way in a blog entitled "The “smokers survey” that can’t tell us anything about “smokers”".

The stated aim “To find out what smokers really think” seems to have missed this crucial point. Surely FOREST is not intending to use the results of this survey to make claims about smokers as a whole? To allay our concerns, will they state clearly that their survey cannot be taken as representative of the views of all smokers and will not be presented as such?

As is customary, attempts were made to make it clear that this wasn't the intention of the report, something that CSUR are open and transparent about in the Executive Summary. However, ASH Scotland were the very opposite of open and transparent, and two months later have still refused to publish comments on their article.

This is because the tobacco control industry, as I have said, don't want to hear about the views of smokers and will wriggle and squirm to make sure they never have to. The CSUR report is very revealing and could be useful to an industry wishing to help smokers to quit. Sadly, the tobacco control industry isn't interested in that at all. It doesn't care about why smokers smoke and definitely doesn't want to hear about what smokers think, far less to engage with them.

So this report will be widely ignored; lessons will go unlearned; and it will all be dismissed as being a tobacco industry plot. This, my valued fellow jewel robbers, is why it has never been about health. 

COP7 Delegates Smoked Nearly Half A Million Fags

You may remember that last weekend I wrote about the WHO's finest elite anti-smokers turning up in New Delhi, just in time to see what a real public health crisis looks like.

A researcher was quoted by the New York Times as equating the pollution in terms we can understand.

Sustained exposure to that concentration of PM 2.5 is equivalent to smoking 40 cigarettes a day, said Sarath Guttikunda, the director of Urban Emissions, an independent research group.

On this basis, I did some calculations.

There were 180 countries in attendance, each comprising three delegates, and with other accredited attendees it is reported that around 1,500 were there. Over 8 days that means that the COP7 contingent 'smoked' between them the equivalent of around 480,000 fags!

Yet while waiting for three and a half hours for my pass to enter the venue, I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of delegates - you know, the ones who panic about a few wisps of smoke or vapour - worried enough about the danger to take precautions in the form of a mask or other prevention measure. Just saying.

I took some video and pictures while I was there and the boy P has edited it into a concise one minute film. It's a taste of the city under the smog; enjoy.

Meeting Asian Vapers

Following on from yesterday's article about the bizarre chaos at COP7, I mentioned that I had later attended an extremely useful event designed for vapers from a number of countries in Asia.

The first thing to note is that I finally saw an Indian vaper! His name was Nikhil, and a very personable young lad he was too. 

When I say finally, I mean that prior to that event I had not seen a single vaper in Delhi - and apart from Monday night's gathering, still haven't. In short, they just don't seem to exist. I quizzed Nikhil as to why this was the case and he told me that the police often arrest vapers if they vape in public, primarily on the grounds that they believe that the devices are being used to inhale cannabis juice. 

This is most likely because general awareness of vaping is scant. To give you an example, when I arrived at the airport at the weekend, the hotel had forgotten to send the car I requested to pick me up. Two representatives of the hotel - suited and booted - were apologetic and called another which could be with me in 15 minutes (it was a bit longer than that in the end). They took me to the road outside with my luggage and I got my e-cig out for the first time since Heathrow; that's when the questions started. 

I tried as best I could to answer them but it was clear they were unfamiliar with the products and they both admitted they had never even heard of an e-cig let alone seen one. In fact, as I vaped and let out a small cloud on a low-powered device, one of my helpful shepherds actually stepped back in astonishment. That gives you a clue as to how much work Indian vapers have to do get established in the country. So it was immense that quite a few determined vaping afficionados turned up to discuss what can be done about it, especially in the shadow of COP7. 

It was a very successful networking session which also included vapers from The Philippines, Hong Kong and Malaysia that I know of.

It was a whole new world for me and emphasised that - although vapers in the UK have their problems - the difficulties we face pale into insgnificance compared with these guys.

Having said that, many of the problems are identical to the ones UK vapers have come up against and, in many areas, still do. The most prominent being, of course, an inability to properly get the message out that vaping is all but harmless because there exist repellent tobacco control dinosaurs failing to live with the times and instead producing junk science and pinheaded ideological reasons to object to vaping.

And the interests of the Asian vapers will be instantly recognisable by those who vape in the UK. Very sociable, these vapers were talking devices, juice and regulations before we had even received our first cup of tea. The e-liquid testing scene below, for example, doesn't look dissimilar to one you might see in a vape-friendly UK venue too. 

Anyone who watches VTTV will know that I recorded some interviews on the night as a pre-arranged exclusive for Dave Dorn and the gang (you can watch the whole show here). They went remarkably well, especially the one with Tom Pinloc of The Philippines who gave his thoughts on how he saw the future of vaping under the rule of murderous dictator - and COP7's best friend - Ricardo Duterte. What also surprised me about his tale is that there are apparently around 100,000 vapers in the Philippines, served by a number of different consumer groups. That is quite a force to be reckoned with, but it will have to be while extreme prohibitionist Duterte is in charge down there.

Indian vapers boasted of the same kind of high numbers as the Philippines, so I also interviewed two Indian vapers and a representative of the newly-formed Association of Vapers India. These short video stories (on average about 5 mins each) were received very warmly in the chat area of VTTV and I've had requests to make them available widely. I always meant to do so anyway, so embedded below (in the order I filmed them) are the thoughts of vapers living far away in hostile environments but still fighting their corner admirably. They are well worth viewing to get an idea of the challenges being met in that area of the world. 

It's been a very busy week so far out here, but check back for the next blog which will be discussing a very special award for the WHO and the night I met A Bilion Lives Director Aaron Biebert. Oh yes I did, and have pics to prove it!

Times Of Embarrassment

Today's edition of The Times carries an apology to the scientists and researchers it defamed in a couple of articles last month about the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum. This came about after those involved threatened to take legal action.

The articles concerned have now been pulled and the original URLs take you to the apology instead, but you can read some of what was said in screen grabs that I published here.

The articles disappearing will also come as a relief to Cancer Research UK because the journalist claimed that it was they who "condemned scientists who accepted tens of thousands of pounds from tobacco companies".  I'm sure that The Times would also publish a retraction of that claim, but for some reason CRUK don't seem to be demanding one. How odd?

I wonder, also, if The Times will be asking their reporter to pay back her travel expenses considering her lazy hackneyed approach to the subject led to embarrassment for the paper and resulted in nothing but empty URLs for their cash. What a mess, eh? Perhaps there is a lesson in the whole palaver for a few people, don't you think?

Kids, Jobsworths And Clowns at #Battleofideas

"The current fuss about creepy clowns is a pantomime version of the world. Adults are no longer able to lay the law down to kids, and life is ordered not for adults but for children".

So opined Dr Andrew Calcutt, a lecturer at the University of East London, during a Battle of Ideas panel debate this weekend discussing the so-called 'killer clown' craze which swept America and is now reaching panic proportions in the UK and beyond too.

He was referring to how online-led pranks such as these are well understood by teens on social media and that kids are generally unconcerned, but that media panic and moral outrage contribute to blow things out of all proportion, despite history telling us that crazes soon die down to be replaced by something else, especially if there is little fuss.

Dr Calcutt tops up with water prior to the 'killer clowns' panel

The "life is ordered not for adults but for children" idea could also just as easily have been adopted as a partial theme for the other two sessions I attended at the Barbican event though. In fact, this is my sixth year of rocking up to the annual Institute of Ideas free speech festival, and it could describe most of what I've seen over that period.

The first of my chosen sessions this year was "The Busybody State" which discussed how we have arrived at the position whereby so much human behaviour is now frowned upon and controlled by petty bureaucracy and poorly-trained citizen enforcers. The archetypal 'jobsworths' who can now issue fines for 'crimes' such as enjoying a barbecue on a beach, lying down in a public place, busking, smoking in a park, handing out leaflets on the High Street, and even reading poetry in a pub without a licence.

The panel for The Busybody State

As we know here, using children as a weapon to impose illiberal rules is a favourite tactic of 'public health'. Denying adults the freedom to smoke in public in case children see them is one particularly fascist application of the weapon, but Dr Jan MacVarish - a lecturer at the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies at the University of Kent - told of methods employed by the modern day health visitor which are arguably more sinister. Explaining how the state now assumes that all new parents are incompetent and therefore require guidance, she expressed mild exasperation that "there is no thought that parents might, you know, just work it out for themselves". That the child is precious and the parent assumed to be a vector for harm no matter the domestic environment.

Josie Appleton of the Manifesto Club had kicked off the panel - partly as an unofficial launch of her new book, Officious - with a speech detailing the history of officialdom and how its roots used to be to control based on class, and how this is still partly true. Speaking to about 200 people who had trekked to the very remote Frobisher Auditorium on the 4th floor ... with no lift - an attendance which illustrates how many people can identify with the deteriorating relationship between citizens and the locally-administered state - she ran through abuses of power such as PSPOs and other infringements on liberty and described how it seems that none of these petty rules are designed to advance the public good, but more to place the bureaucrat at the top of the food chain and to value rules over and above the preferences and choices of the public.

Full house to hear about The Busybody State

Fellow panellist Max Wind-Cowie - a self-professed big C conservative who appreciates rules and order but is still concerned about the rise in petty criminalisation of mundane activities - succinctly condensed this phenomenon as "we've nationalised the clip round the ear". And it's true. The public is not trusted to resolve conflicts over minor irritations amongst ourselves now, increasingly it is local councils who seem to believe that the only members of the public who can be trusted to tackle mildly icky behaviour are those deemed to be an "accredited person" after arguably scant training. An accredited person is now elevated above their peers and their word trusted in any case of disagreement. If you were to receive a penalty notice from one of these people, you could argue that you did not commit the offence - and you may be 100% correct - but their word is worth more than yours because they have been accredited.

Common sense and assumptions of innocence have been replaced by control and the assumption of state-designated power as infallible.

Mark Littlewood of the IEA suggested that skewed motivations were at fault for the burgeoning bully state promoted by local bureaucrats; that they may well believe that since local services are paid for by taxpayers, councillors and officials are obliged to do everything in their power to reduce - for example - discarded leaflets on the High Street due to a marginal increase in cleaning up costs. However, he pointed out that this incentive often disregards the greater goal of local harmony; that most of the public will rationally value freedoms and human interaction more than a few pennies here and there on a council spreadsheet. The problem, then, is that local authority incentives regularly fail to serve the public adequately. His suggested solution was to shift these motivations by "naming and shaming" the bureaucrats involved; to personalise the issue and remove anonymity. If Joe Bloggs, accredited person or bureaucrat, is exposed to ridicule when writing illiberal rules or rigidly enforcing them, it might encourage them to take into account more human decency and introduce some semblance of discretion which is very often lacking. Publicity, he argued, is something that bureaucrats fear greatly, and I would agree.

He also expressed dismay that these attitudes had spread from the public sector into private industry, citing one particular example as quite shocking.

"I'm staggered that you can't use #ecigs in most pubs and sports stadia" says @MarkJLittlewood at @instofideas #battleofideas pic.twitter.com/5V5NVsU0rQ

— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) October 22, 2016

Of course, we know that this too is a state-funded - and therefore public sector - problem brought about by tax-spongers at Healthy Stadia misleading sports clubs with deliberate lies based on ideology not health and others like them exaggerating miniscule concerns into something bigger. Pubs, for example, can't be guided in the right direction all the while ASH refuse to vocally object to bans and offer the dire insipid advice that they do. Not that this makes the problem of private sector bans any less worrying.

One of the reasons for e-cigs not being allowed in sports stadia, of course, is that children shouldn't see them, which also came up as a theme in the second of the BoI sessions I attended entitled "Does Britain have a gambling problem?".

The gambling panel in the Pit Theatre

On the far right of that pic above is John Crowley - Editor-in-Chief of International Business Times - who argued that Ray Winstone advertising betting companies during daytime sports shows should be banned because his children see him. When it was suggested that there are tools by which it is possible to ensure they don't, he replied that he didn't think it should be up to him to police what his kids see, so therefore the ads should be restricted to after 9pm.

He had used the example of the England cricket tour of Bangladesh which he'd been watching at 11am that morning by way of justification. I struggled to think how many cricket matches take place after 9pm whereby the obviously child-alluring Winstone might be allowed, but I suppose there might be some.

Crowley was also not enthused by the suggestion that technology could solve his very personal problem. It was advanced that it is very likely that digital viewing may very soon allow account-holders to decide which adverts they wish to see and which they don't. Considering that betting and gambling companies pay top dollar to advertise - and therefore subsidise TV subscription rates - it might be that those who opt to reject those industries advertising might pay a higher rate for their viewing, but it would be worth it so their kids wouldn't see ads they find objectionable, wouldn't it? I didn't get the impression that Crowley agreed.

His ally was the baddie of the whole day for me (there is always one, last year was the RSPH's Duncan Stephenson, you may recall). Step forward Jim Orford, Professor of clinical and community psychology at the University of Birmingham, and proud founder of Gambling Watch UK.

Jim Orford

In Orford's world, there are no redeeming features of gambling, no pleasure derived, merely problems. He argued that despite problem gambling only making up a tiny percentage of those who regularly enjoy a flutter (and even amongst those there will be a significant number who shouldn't be classified as such), it is still a big number so there should be far more restrictions. He naturally agreed that seductive kiddie corrupter Winstone should be removed from view for the children, but also advocated even more stringent measures. He spoke of how "the balance is increasingly wrong between freedom and regulation" and talked about "going back" to an era he viewed as far more acceptable. By the way he spoke, I imagined that would be around 1950 when gambling was banned and only Flash Harry bookie's runners ran the trade.

As a side note, it's interesting that when those of us who believe 'public health' has gone too far argue that we should go back to something more realistic, we are condemned as being stick-in-the-muds who have a glamourised view of the past, and that 'progress' is being made. But when progress involves liberalising rules, bansturbators squeal that only a Victorian appreciation of risk is acceptable.

For someone who mentioned children as a justification, Orford's own understanding of the betting industry was remarkably childlike. Citing the 2005 Gambling Act as a root of much evil, he spoke of how local councils are no longer able to restrict shops opening by having to prove "unmet demand" and that this has led to tons of them populating our High Streets and making them look grubby. It's an interesting argument but only if you have a rather arrogant view of how businesses and humans interact. He seemed to be saying that it is only the power of the state - and clever people like him, natch - which had been stopping bookies opening up in every available shop letting in every High Street in the country; that businesses never take into account whether there is demand for their product, they just want to place loss-making operations in as many locations as they can muster.

Likewise, that the moment a shop opens up, vacant proles are instantly deprived of their better instincts and are seduced, like automatons, into becoming enthusiastic gamblers against their will. The betting industry is incapable of assessing demand, only the state can do that; and consumers are woefully incompetent at assessing their own level of risk based on their income. Only Jim and his mates can do that.

This strikes me as an incredible position to take. It masks what is an in-built disgust for the will of people and the wisdom of businesses. He may couch his 'concern' in fluffy terms but his basic message is that people are stupid so can't be trusted. I'd far prefer it if those who favour restrictions and prohibition would just come out and honestly say that rather than pretend that they're 'protecting' the public from avaricious businesses who are apparently not interested in profit, but instead merely want to thrust shops onto poor hard-pressed local authorities just for a laugh.

If you think you might have seen these kind of methods before, you'd be right. Orford also talked about how ads should be banned "just like we did with tobacco" and spoke often about gambling as a 'public health' problem. It was quite clear he was using the same tactics and the same dubious manipulation of statistics - I was ticking off the instantly recognisable template sound bites as he spoke. At one point, he condemned the gambling industry for providing over 90% of funds for treating harmful gambling, saying the he would prefer that they were not involved at all. "It's significant", he asserted, "that the only conference on gambling harm is funded by the betting industry!". He didn't quite explain why he and others who feel the way he does didn't hold their own conferences as they are quite entitled to do.

By way of response, Malcolm George of the Association of British Bookmakers - who had sponsored the session and asked that Orford be invited to flay them - declared that if taxpayers wanted industry to butt out of programmes to help problem gamblers and for the state to pay for it instead, he'd be very happy (I wouldn't, for the record), but that he was proud of what they do.

Despite all that, it was a feisty session which is most welcome and why the Battle of Ideas is such a great event to attend. Yes there are some hideous people there at times but the motto is "Free Speech Allowed" which is its charm. I'm sure there were plenty who would have a polar opposite view than mine, and they often make themselves known in the Q&A periods. If only there were more opportunities like that in the policy areas we discuss here, eh tobacco control?

After those two sessions, it was curiosity which drew my pal and I to the hastily-arranged panel on "Creepy Clowns: Horror, social media and urban myth" and the aforementioned remarks of Dr Andrew Calcutt. Was this another case of kids being over-protected?

Perhaps so. At one point, a head teacher objected to the suggestion that creepy clowns are mostly benign, and - with a barely-suppressed anger - argued that it was "not fun, but anti-social". His view was very quickly counteracted by a couple of Year 10 students in the audience (there were many youngsters in the sessions I saw) who said that the "killer clowns" didn't bother them much at all. The media, it seems, were more squeamish about the whole palaver than the kids they were concerned about. It makes you wonder how the whole thing got elevated into such a moral panic (which we know will evaporate in very short order).

Perhaps, I dunno, red top news organisations could start by not calling them 'killer clowns' I suppose. Elevating pretty mundane concerns to the category of 'epidemics', 'ticking time bombs' and crises' which require 'urgent' or 'courageous' action - often by invoking the children - when it's almost never worth the hysteria, and almost always harms society for no good reason overall, is great for those who profit by promoting such panics, but never good for the rest of us who have to suffer a never-ending net deterioration in quality of life.

Maybe there's a lesson in there somewhere.

About Time Too

Via The Guardian, this is awesome news.

A group of scientists and public health experts are to take legal action against the Times newspaper after it reported claims from a leading charity that they were in the pay of the tobacco industry. 

The experts, who work in fields that aim to limit deaths and health complications caused by smoking, are looking to sue the Times for defamation following a story which termed them “experts making a packet”. 

The Times has published an apology to one of the scientists cited, Clive Bates, the former head of Action on Smoking and Health. The correction stated that he had funded his own travel and accommodation costs at an industry-sponsored tobacco forum in Brussels and had not received any funding for tobacco or nicotine companies. 

But other scientists say that the same apology was not extended to them and they claim they have been falsely accused of accepting “tens of thousands of pounds from tobacco companies to carry out research into e-cigarettes”.

God speed them, I say.

If you haven't seen the appalling article in The Times, it's here behind a paywall. But these are the offending parts (click to enlarge).

Note that The Times doesn't say anything other than it is Cancer Research UK making these accusations. Because there is a hint at it later in the piece.

But the journo did say explicity in a box that they had "made a packet".

At the time ASH's daily news carried an unprecedented panicky clarification. Not by ASH but from Cancer Research UK.

ASH also failed to link to the article in question, almost as if they didn't want anyone to read it.

So where did The Times get their info from? We don't know, but you'd think CRUK would be fizzing about it enough to demand a full retraction, wouldn't you?

They did write a letter, but it was so lame as to be utterly pathetic.

Nothing in there demanded withdrawal of the accusations that The Times had hurled at the scientists and researchers who had been maligned in the original piece. Nor did it demand that the accusation that the smears had come from CRUK be removed either.

I was personally warned off tweeting about Butterworth's comments by one of the signatories too (since deleted). But if CRUK were so angry about how their comments had been portrayed, where is their lawsuit .. or even proper stiff letter of condemnation?

Instead, the idea of suing The Times was first mentioned by Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos in an article on the 14th October.

I think this is time for legal action. The unsubstantiated, misleading, inappropriate and insulting accusations are totally unacceptable. This is journalism at its worst. In general, I am against legal actions because they rarely solve such problems but divert the discussion to irrelevant issues. However, in this case I think the response should be straightforward and aggressive. Moreover, I think the issue here is not only related to the protection of the integrity of those named in the article. There is a much broader issue. Anyone (including myself) can be in the same position in the future, receiving these unfair and mendacious accusations just because we have an opinion. In that context, I think we should all condemn this shameful campaign. Perhaps a letter sent to The Times, co-signed by a large number of scientists not mentioned in the articles, is a step needed to eliminate these phenomena. I will be glad to participate to this, in an effort to put an end to these disgraceful tactics.

And so it has come to pass, and all power to them for that.

I'm just baffled as to why Cancer Research UK seem reluctant to take the same path themselves considering that their integrity has been equally rubbished. They've not demanded any kind of retraction and their letter was so limp as to be useless. Because The Guardian has even reiterated it.

A group of scientists and public health experts are to take legal action against the Times newspaper after it reported claims from a leading charity that they were in the pay of the tobacco industry.

Anyone have any idea as to why CRUK were desperately spinning to say that Butterworth's comments were taken out of context (though I struggle to understand in what context they would be correct) and why they seem largely apathetic that The Times has categorically attributed the smears to CRUK but seem reluctant to make The Times apologise properly? Perhaps they will now act considering The Guardian has repeated the claims, whaddya reckon?

I'm genuinely confused.

On another note, I really do hope that this kind of thing becomes a regular occurrence. Lazy and unsubstantiated smears by tobacco control organisations have become the norm. It's time they grew the fuck up and stopped it so we can have an honest conversation about such things.

It's almost like some with a perverse ideology would prefer it never happens.

Enough Already!

On Thursday, obsessed anti-smoking MP Alex Cunningham will be demanding that the government bully smokers even more than they already do.

Cunningham is the same MP who initiated the ban on smoking in cars which has been such a massive waste of time that the police say they're not interested and which has done the square root of fuck all for the health of the nation. It's such a balls-up that he should be hanging his head in shame for wasting our taxes on such an illiberal and barmy idea.

It is also the same Cunningham who vehemently objected to Channel 4 coming to film in his constituency for their Benefits Street programme.  He professed at the time to be sensitive to his constituents' concerns but it became clear during the show that the ones he was apparently worried about in front of the TV cameras had never seen the berk in their street before. He turned up just to give himself some airtime and got a flea in his ear from the residents for his trouble.

Perhaps if he spent more time visiting them and not wasting his efforts on an irrational hatred for smokers he may be better regarded.

Still, he's going to continue being a one-eyed waste of parliamentary space on Thursday, which is a bit stupid considering the public think his kind should just stop being arses.

Forest released a report today that points out what most people outside of the Westminster bubble already knew; the public are just not interested in anti-smoking rhetoric any more. Here are some takeaways from the polling.

• The public overwhelmingly believe the government has more pressing priorities than tackling smoking – investing in new doctors and nurses, for example.
• There is no appetite for additional tax rises on tobacco products – a huge majority believe that tobacco duty is already about right, too high or far too high.
• A significant majority of the public believe that purchasing illegal tobacco is an understandable response from consumers faced with the high cost of tobacco products.
• Measures to restrict smoking in outdoor public places such as parks and beaches have no popular or scientific legitimacy and would be hard to police.
• Following a dramatic fall in the number of people using NHS stop smoking services a significant majority of the public believe there should be a review of how these services are funded.
• A majority of the public believe the government’s tobacco control policies should be independently reviewed and should not be driven by taxpayer-funded lobby groups.
• Almost a decade since smoking was banned in pubs and clubs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and ten years since smoking was prohibited in Scotland’s pubs and bars, a majority of the public believe that pubs and private members’ clubs, including working men’s clubs, should be allowed to provide a well-ventilated designated smoking room to accommodate smokers.
• More than half the public also believe that actors should be allowed to smoke on stage and screen when smoking is integral to the plot or characterisation of the play they feature in

It is most encouraging to note from the report that, still, there is not a majority in favour of the kind of smoking ban we have had forced on us. 

Despite what state-funded tax-spongers like ASH like to pretend, this has always been the case. There was no majority of public opinion in favour in 2006, nor in 2010, and there still isn't. It shouldn't come as a surprise. Despite an avalanche of propaganda, the public are clever enough to know they are being lied to and more people than not don't believe the hype.

It won't stop extremists like Cunningham from carrying on displaying their single issue contempt in public, though, because that's just what his brand of prodnose do. Even though there is little appetite for further smoking restrictions amongst the public, he's going to waste scarce resources on Thursday blathering on about the subject once again anyway. 

Perhaps, instead, Cunningham should spend more time talking to the people in Kingston Road in his constituency about the issues that they actually worry about rather than using his exalted and highly-paid position in parliament to pursue his own personal prejudices. Just a thought. 

You can read the Forest report here.