Originally published September 24, 2011
The Guardian has just this week published my latest article on plain packaging, which you can read here. Comments are now closed on the Guardian site itself but if you do have anything you want to say about it, you can do so here.
Originally posted September 8, 2011
You may remember my article on smokers being banned from fostering some time ago, but now it is actually happening. The Evening Standard reported that a couple in Essex were ten months into their application to foster a child when they were rejected. Why? Not for a history of sexual deviancy, abuse, violence, alcoholism, drug use or anything else that could be considered a worthy reason to deny an application, but because the husband had smoked two cigars in the last twelve months. You read that correctly – two cigars in twelve months and he was denied the right to foster a child, because apparently Essex County Council has a policy that a couple can only foster if they have not consumed tobacco in twelve months.
It’s a remarkable story and one that many of even the most ardent anti-smokers will not be able to condone or celebrate. This is, of course, for fear of secondhand smoke and the risks it poses to children, so let’s remind ourselves quickly on the actual level of harm posed by SHS. Using the EPA’s overexaggerated statistics, it would take 40,000 years of constant daytime exposure to produce one extra lung cancer than would be expected (H/T Michael McFadden), so it’s hardly the toxic stalker we’ve been led to believe and sure as hell you can bet your bottom dollar that exposure to two cigars won’t do anything to anyone.
The most criminal part of all this, though, is that it is the children who will suffer. Health officials and authorities can sing along to the “good of the chiiildren” tune all they want, and much of the time they can persuade people they are being honest; however, when it comes to denying children a good stable home because the parents had a cigar not so much lets the cat out of the bag but dumps an entire litter of kittens from a suitcase. There is no denying it and no defending it. It’s true negligence, in a world where we have too many children for adults to care for, two keen and eager parents are desperately trying to help a child and are being denied for no good reason. More to the point, at least one child that is now in care, feeling unloved, neglected, lonely, angry and frustrated and unable to grow and develop much within the confines of care could and should be waking up in a new home, with stand-in parents wanting to nurture and cherish it.
Only a moron would consider the tobacco usage the real threat here.
Originally posted September 6, 2011
Sorry for the lack of postings lately, I got married on September 2 and time was limited in the run up to the day. I meant to write this post last week but time didn’t permit it. So with no further ado…
The Scotsman reports that Professor Gerard Hastings, of Stirling University’s Centre for Tobacco Control Research, is accusing the tobacco industry of being a “pariah industry” because Philip Morris is using the Freedom of Information Act to request Hastings’ research methodologies into his studies on teenage smoking. Specifically the research is examining why teenagers start smoking and what they think of marketing by tobacco companies.
It’s not an unreasonable request for a company to want access to information that affects its business, in fact most would consider it perfectly normal. Especially today, with the hysteria around smoking and the fact that ‘researchers’ are looking for creating results to increase smoking bans or otherwise make it difficult to smoke. While normal people wouldn’t deem it inappropriate, Hastings is refusing to release the information and is accusing Philip Morris of undermining research:
It’s not bad PR we’re talking about, it’s people dying in their droves. This is a pariah industry which is doing the most appalling things. This is not new – Philip Morris has been doing this (submitting FoIs] for a long time. It’s a well-established modus operandi to try and find out as much as possible.
As though it’s wrong for the company to find out as much about research as possible. Hastings simply falls back onto the well-worn rhetoric of how bad the industry is because of people dying from smoking, which has nothing to do with the request for the information.
Just to clarify what it was Philip Morris is after:
We are not seeking any private or confidential information on any individuals involved with the research. As provided by the Freedom of Information Act, confidential and private information concerning individuals should not be disclosed.
Hastings is refusing to hand over the information despite the fact that the FOI request was accepted as valid, and his decision smacks as someone with something to hide. When a researcher from a tobacco control centre conducts research into smoking and refuses to release methodologies then they are open to scrutiny of not being honest in their approach or results, or both. If the research is well constructed with nothing to hide, Hastings should be all too happy to release it.
Originally posted August 1, 2011
I’m pleased to hand this blog over to the capable hands of Michael McFadden today, widely known to most people reasonably involved with the smoking issue as the author of Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains and one of the most tireless activists we could hope to have. Given the recent murmurs of outdoor bans and of course Vancouver and New York doing just that I thought the time was right to look at some of the figures, and Michael is the best for looking at those figures. So with no further ado…
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While the true goal of smoking bans at beaches and parks is the same as the true goal of most of the bans elsewhere – namely to simply make smoking as difficult and unenjoyable as possible – the stated goals are almost always focused on reducing butt litter to either save the children or the environment.
Any local beach/park ban push will almost certainly include a made-up quote from some young distraught mother (who usually just happens to be active in the antismoking group) about how she found her two year old picking up old cigarette butts and putting them in his or her mouth. One particularly colorful story involved a four year old whose cheeks looked like chipmunk cheeks because she had supposedly stuffed them so full of old cigarette butts dug up from the sand while mommsy had turned her head “for a moment” at the beach. Children being “poisoned” by deadly cigarette butts at beaches and in playground sandboxes evokes a powerful emotional response in support of smoking bans and that’s exactly what the Antismokers are counting on… as usual.
What’s the reality though? Well, a quick check of national poison control center figures, along with an examination of a CDC WMMR report on the subject shows that not only are no kids dying out there from such “tobacco product ingestions” but that additionally, 98% of such happenings occur *AT HOME* … not at the beach, not at the park, not in the schoolyard or on the sidewalk or on top of Mrs. Widdicrumb’s Hen House… but at home.
Children are at FAR greater risk of drowning while at the beach or dying from playground falls at the park or contracting serious infections from broken glass in either location than of being “poisoned” by picking and eating up old cigarette butts. The disgusting antismoking fantasy plays well on the media, but that’s pretty much all that it is: a disgusting fantasy meant to use and abuse our love for our children.
But what about the other concern? The environment? Antismokers love to trot out a “science experiment” showing that little water fleas (a life form known to be very sensitive to any sort of pollution in its environment) can be poisoned by as little as one-tenth of a cigarette butt in a liter of water. The antismoking advocates follow up that piece of information with the stunning announcement that over five TRILLION cigarette butts are discarded each year and can wind up in our water supply.
There are several tricks being played here. One is simply the assumption that virtually every cigarette smoked by every human being on the planet gets thrown into our water. Obviously that’s not true. But even if it WERE true… would it be the global pollution threat to life that is painted by that little water flea experiment?
To figure that out you need to know how many liters of water there are out there getting filled with cigarette butts and poisoning innocent you water fleas in the prime of water flea life. A little research through encyclopedias or Google will soon give you an answer, or you can just take the figure from http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/question157.htm and accept it at 1,260,000,000,000,000,000,000 liters (about 1.3 sextillion … golly but I love it when things get into the sextillions….)
So how long would it take smokers, even if they dumped EVERY ONE of their 5 trillion butts a year right into the water and even if we completely suspended the normal laws of physics, chemistry, and biology so that they never biodegraded, how long then would it take to reach a poisonous level for those poor little water fleas?
Simple: Just do the division: 1,260,000,000,000,000,000,000 liters / 5,000,000,000, 000 butts
Without getting into scientific notation, let’s just cancel the zeros on either side and we’re left with 1,260,000,000 / 5 which tells us it would take those nasty old smokers roughly 252,000,000 years to bring us to the nightmare scenario of the water fleas dying. But…. Wait a minute… the Antismokers claim it will only take one TENTH of a butt per liter to cause catastrophe, so it looks like doomsday is only 25,000,000 years away. Hmmm… ok… According to Darwin ‘n his buddies, Homo Sapiens has been dancing around on planet Earth for about 250,000 years. So basically we’d have to smoke and dump butts for a hundred times as long as all humanity has existed. Whew!
I don’t know about you, but passing laws based upon suspending all natural laws and then traveling 25 million years into the future to see the result is a bit beyond my capacity.
So what have we seen? We’ve seen that both of the main scientifically emotive arguments used by Antismokers to justify smoking bans outdoors have little to no value. Without them the Antismokers are left with such weak ideas as “We don’t want children to see people smoking,” (Which could be greatly achieved by eliminating mandated indoor smoking bans so that smokers would be relaxing comfortably inside in ventilated lounges and bars rather than standing out on the sidewalk to wave at all the schoolkids.) or “I might be harmed by breathing wisps of smoke blowing around outdoors.” (Which, if you actually do the numbers game with full acceptance of the Antismokers’ EPA type claims would result in roughly one extra lung cancer for every 320 million people-years of dedicated smoky beach-going – winter AND summer!)
In brief: there is no good argument for these bans outside of social engineering. They’re just an activation of NY Mayor Bloomberg’s statement of dedication “to making smoking as difficult and expensive as possible.” In other words, to give the smokers little “electric shock” equivalents every time they smoke so that they’ll act like good little rats and change their behavior.
People are not rats. People should not be treated like rats. And the people who design policies that treat people like rats are little better than rats themselves.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”
Originally posted July 28, 2011
According to one Alan Dee from the Herald & Post smokers are not just killing themselves and killing those around them, they are also engaging in a habit that is “antisocial” and a “blessed nuisance to all”. Dee asserts that the plan to make Stony Stratford smokefree is “laudable” but that further legislation will not work for the same reason people still litter the streets despite it being punishable with a fine.
Sure, we can all agree that smokers could help their case a bit by disposing of their cigarette ends properly – but at the same time, if there are no bins around (as is often the case in London, for instance) and portable ashtrays are rarely spotted in a shop, then there must be a degree of understanding regarding litter. If the council won’t provide the means to discard of used items then the council cannot complain they are not disposed of properly. To make matters worse, it’s never mentioned by these individuals or groups that a huge part of the problem is they made it illegal to smoke indoors, yet at most there may be one small ashtray stuck to the front of a building – and that’s just the pub, forget about it on any high street buildings. So the chain of events is: kick smokers out of buildings thus forcing them to smoke on the street, refuse to provide a way for them to dispose of their butts, complain that there are cigarette butts on the floor.
But one would think a discussion about litter could be handled diplomatically and effectively. Beyond the issue of litter, what could there be to say about smoking? It doesn’t harm others indoors let alone outdoors, and surely in a town centre those car fumes would be more worrisome. “Antisocial” can’t be applied because walking past someone without saying a word isn’t exactly a social activity, and even if it is a “nuisance”, well, we all must tolerate things we do not like from time to time. Dee, however, sees things differently. Remember the blog post some time ago about the game where you have to use a sniper rifle to kill smokers? Alan Dee took it to heart, it seems:
My only suggestion for effective action is to be a bit literal around it.
Anyone who buys a packet of fags emblazoned in huge letters with that no nonsense warning that smoking kills is tacitly accepting the possibility.
So let’s set a squad of licensed snipers on the streets, with permission to pick off smokers whenever there’s a clear shot.
I confidently predict that the prospect of having your head blown off while enjoying what you didn’t realise would be your last cigarette would give smokers up and down the country an extra incentive to kick the habit.
And if they defiantly carry on puffing, when they are popped between the eyes it will save the health service all the costs of caring for them in their declining years.
We know bans don’t work if they’re not enforced. My way is simpler, and a lot more effective.
Hmm. The really worrying thing about this is the overt tone of inciting violence, there is no attempt to decorate this as ironic, humorous or satirical. In fact, lest someone take it that way Dee made pains to ensure his message was clear: “My only suggestion for effective action is to be a bit literal… My way is simpler, and a lot more effective.”
How can it be that in 2011 a newspaper will be reluctant to run a piece regarding smoke not being as dangerous as stated by zealots but it will happily run a propaganda piece literally advocating mass murder? Apparently this suggestion is “effective” and will save money – how much would a nationwide team of snipers cost? Not to mention the army of street cleaners that would be needed to wipe up all the blood and brains. Besides, if we’re going after saving the NHS money (because it’s the fashionable thing to do today to overlook the fact that we all already pay for the NHS, smokers more than anybody) why not just advocate killing anyone over 65? It is, after all, the elderly that are the biggest drain on the NHS, with their insistence on suffering from various illnesses and requiring a concoction of drugs. If we kill all the smokers the NHS might save £2billion, but the economy would lose a net £9billion, which isn’t cost effective – maybe Dee writes hate-pieces as a result of his failed accountancy course.
The only real possible implication of this piece is that someone really will go and try to kill a smoker. The question then is, will Dee and his editor take the responsibility for it?
Anyway, you can send your angry emails to the editor who ran this garbage by clicking here
Originally published June 30, 2011
H/T to Juliette Tworsey.
The Lung Cancer Alliance states that in 2010 there were over 157,000 lung cancer deaths, and that 80% of these were non-smokers or ex-smokers – meaning a measly 20% were active smokers.
One of my main arguments against the smoking/lung cancer hypothesis has long been that smoking was so common, so prevalent, not that long ago that it’s impossible to really discern much about it simply because we have too little information about non-smokers. For example, if 80% of the population smoke (as they once did) then it’s an absolute certainty any disease will have a higher ‘relationship’ link with smoking, and it is impossible to know if any given individual would have suffered from a disease had they not smoked.
We are now at a time when non-smokers are the majority, so it is really only around this point in time that we are able to compare smoking prevalence and disease rates with any degree of accuracy. And, while I won’t (yet) say “I told you so”, the evidence is certainly agreeing with my thinking. Take the recent COPD study which found 93% of the COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, i.e. chronic bronchitis and emphysema) sufferers were non-smokers.
The biggest issue here is that lung cancer and emphysema have in particular been considered “smokers’ diseases”, that non-smokers just don’t get. The truth of the matter though is that non-smokers can and do get any and every disease that smokers get. It’s easy to show a statistical link between smoking and any disease when most people smoke; however, the hypothesis has holes poked into it when smoking rates decline to a fraction of what they once were and the disease rates now start to inflict non-smokers instead. And this is unquestionably what is happening, which suggests that smoking did not cause either of them – the diseases exist and afflict regardless.
The crux of the problem though is that we are so convinced smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer, and COPD, that all money and efforts are directed into lowering smoking rates rather than focusing on the disease itself. Indeed, the Lung Cancer Alliance have stated that lung cancer remains one of the deadliest forms of cancer precisely because it isn’t receiving funding. Why isn’t it getting the funding? Because we’re so concerned with smoking that the suggestion there may be other possible factors and causes at play seems ludicrous, or if that suggestion is accepted it’s usually met with “yes but smoking is the biggest factor so it deserves the attention.”
With the smoking rates much lower than they were some 40 years ago, we are now in a time when the real picture will begin to emerge. Fabricated numbers and bogus studies will continue, but they will not be able to ignore or hide increases in the number of “smokers’ diseases” afflicting non-smokers, which seems to be happening as of late.
It’s been interesting to watch the ‘smoking issue’ lately. For a long time the anti-smoking side has been very vocal, very visible and very forceful in getting things done to try to eradicate smoking. Lately, though, the tobacco industry has started to wake up and start something of a retaliation. Imperial Tobacco has released a paper that demands transparency regarding tobacco control – which is only fair, considering the MSA ruled transparency for the tobacco industry. Besides, considering tobacco control is supposedly there to make things safer for the public, they should have nothing to hide, right?
I’ll paste some interesting excerpts from the new paper:
Under the banner of “public health policy” many adult lifestyle freedoms and choices including where to smoke, how much to drink and what to eat, have been unjustifiably attacked.The underlying philosophy appears to be that, left to ourselves, we will inevitably make bad choices and that encouragement is less effecive than controlling behaviour through regulation. The Nanny State has become the Bully State. Nudge has rapidly turned to shove.
I don’t think many of us would argue any of that.
The time has come for all Governments and Health Departments to engage in meaningful, transparent dialogue with Imperial Tobacco and the tobacco sector. Until the current situation changes, and a balanced debate takes place, policy will continue to be ineffective and disproportionate in their approach.
Seems wholly reasonable. Why shouldn’t the tobacco industry be in on the discussions? It is, after all, their product that is under scrutiny.
The Government is to be congratulated for appearing to tackle the difficult, long-term solutions needed to prevent youth smoking…Provided such education is based on independent factual information rather than that provided by organisations with vested interests, such as ASH and the pharmaceutical industry[Emphasis mine], Imperial Tobacco welcomes and will support the Government’s efforts in this area.
Well it’s about time someone stood up to that point.
The Government’s tobacco control policies have never been subjected to proper evalutation. There is therefore no basis on which to claim that the decline in smoking rates is a direct result of such policies, particular when, even with a ‘comprehensive strategy’ in place, smoking prevalence has remained flat amongst adults in Wales since the introduction of the smoking ban in 2007.
Perhaps my favourite part:
It is therefore bewildering that the Government sees adult free choice as a ‘problem’; that prevalence stagnation is due to a lack of mass-media anti-smoking campaigns, the use of niche tobacco products, and smoking in cars and homes, all of which were considered negligible issues at the time of the smoking ban. When informed adults choose to continue smoking the answer should not be yet more draconian and disproportionate policies to force behaviour change[emphasis mine].
An understanding of [the factors that cause people to smoke] must be central to achieving effective policy aims…Their omission here betrays an approach that is more anti-smoker than it is pro-public health – ‘denormalising’ smoking as an activity is clear evidence of this. As a result, policy is not led by empirical evidence but by pressure from anti-smoker lobby groups.
And then we’re told what we already know, but the public aren’t quite so aware of:
The Plan contains multiple referenes to unelected anti-smoker groups, indicating an alarming level of undue influence on polic formulation and implementation. For example, ASH Wales are features no less than 39 times in the 45-page Plan. [Emphasis mine] Such levels of influence from vested interest groups invariably lead to unrealistic, unachievable and ineffective policies.
The facts suggest that, rather than tobacco manufacturers having an undue influence over policy, it is the anti-smoking lobbying industry and other vested commercial interests that are having a disproportionate impact on policy, with manufacturers unfairly excluded from debate.
Imperial Tobacco now highlight the stupidity of the government:
Any effective tobacco control measures aimed at improving outcomes for deprived communities should focus primarily on controlling the illicit rather than the legitimate trade in tobacco. In many communities…a higher proportion of smokers will be sourcing their tobacco from illicit providers and criminal gangs. For example, in Ireland the evidence is unequivocal that many former paramilitaries have moved into this highly lucrative business. It is also worth noting that since the introduction of the display ban Ireland has seen a dramatic increase in illicit trade… Smugglers and organised criminal gangs do not adhere to any of the existing tobacco laws, including those restricting sales to under 18s, and the illicit trade makes tobacco products more easily available. It is therefore disappointing that illicit trade is only mentioned a mere 4 times in the entire Plan (compared to the citations of 39 ASH Wales)…Given this imbalance of focus it is unsurprising that in considering how to further limit the supply of tobacco to young people, rather than focus on illicit trade, the Plan instead focuses on the possibility of retailer licensing.
The paper covers pretty much most of what we have been talking about for a long time – including increased smoking rates since the ban and a devastating effect on the hospitality industry. You can read the whole thing here (it’s not very long).
Perhaps this is the start of the turning point. It should be interesting watching how this all progresses.
Some of you may remember the CATCH debate over at Frank Davis’ blog, primarily between myself, Frank and Chris Snowdon about the effects of active smoking on health. Frank made a very interesting point that, so far as I can see, hasn’t been acknowledged in any of the studies: cigarette size.
Frank stated that true science uses rigorous standards of measurements, and to keep it as basic as possible when we say “one centimetre” we don’t mean “somewhere between this length and that length, but it varies” – one centimetre is one centimetre, and the recent success in trapping antimatter was certainly only achieved with rigorous and painstaking accuracy, not a “it should be sort of that much”. In mathematics, 1+1 = 2, 1.5 + 1 = 2.5; the slightest change makes a big difference to the outcome, and the same is true of science.
Epidemiology, particularly on smoking, is somewhat different. The humble cigarette is itself considered a unit of measurement – “how many cigarettes do you smoke a day?” for instance. This is fine if each study participant smoked the same brand, for they will be the same size and strength. However, beyond such a level of control there really is no symmetry. A marlboro Red is different to a Marlboro Light or a Camel Light, but it gets murkier in the world of roll your own.
Typically, a ‘rollie’ is much smaller than the size of a standard pre-made cigarette. Yet in studies the researchers do not ask if the participant smokes pre-made or roll-ups, rather if both smoke ten a day, they get classified as ten a day – when in reality the one rolling his own is smoking perhaps 50% that of the person smoking the pre-mades. But some people roll their cigarettes incredibly thin and tight, with or without filters, while others roll them as fat as a regular cigarette. Others use the ‘tubes’ to make their own cigarette that is the same size as a pre-made.
On my current trip to America I have noticed the huge difference in filter size for roll-ups compared to what we have in the UK. At home, even the largest filter commonly available is about half the size of that found in a pre-made cigarette. In the USA, filters are almost the same size as the pre-made filters, or they can be smaller, and the papers are much bigger too. Some filters are longer and narrower, others wider and shorter. The paper tends to be much wider than what is on sale in the UK, so roll-ups in the USA can be much bigger.
Studies into smoking have tried over the decades to turn a ‘cigarette’ into a unit of measurement. The problem is, it isn’t. It’s like asking how many plates of food someone eats a day when the plate could range from a saucer-sized one to a large dinner plate. Hence why typically diet research deals in calories, and drink research deals in units. With cigarettes, such a rigorous distinction has not been made. Not only do cigarettes vary a lot, but people have different smoking habits – some will smoke only half, some will smoke while preoccupied and inhale very little, some will inhale every available puff that’s on offer.
If we try to evaluate something scientifically, we need protocolos, measurements and definitions. If we don’t have them and try to measure something anyway, what can we really deduce? Even if we happen to find some sort of link, there’s no way to of testing the authenticity of the results.
For much more interesting musings over this topic, head over to Frank’s blog.
Freedom 2 Choose’s friendly fellow Dave Atherton was interviewed on CNN alongside ASH UK’s Deborah Arnott. If you’ve been following either side of the smoking debate for any reasonable length of time both names will probably be familiar to you. Dave did a great job and provided a number of key facts that completely undermined Deborah’s position – although undermining her position is like shooting fish in a barrel. Check out the video below:
Some of you will have already seen this, some won’t. There really aren’t any words for this, you have to see it to believe it. Smoker Sniper Game
The description is:
“This smoker sniper game does exactly what it says, you’re a sniper and its your mission to go out and kill every smoker. Its an easy game to play and the instructions are simple “Kill the guy, he’s a smoker.” As your sniper killing spree success rate improves you get to earn money which you can spend on weapon upgrades. You might even get promoted and as you gain higher ranks, even more sniper and other equipment become available. But basically its about killing. Go kill the smoker before cancer does. After you play this free smoker sniper game, why not check out and play our other free online arcade games?”
And you can find a commentary of it here