Does anyone get this burning feeling that we've got it all wrong with this smoking ban business? Everyone, bar some serious smokers and clubbers who'd smelt Irish and Scottish sweaty dens, were celebrating the coming of 1 July 2007. Weary smokers were looking for another excuse to quit; non-smokers were waiting for the fresher air. I was certain that this was a triumphant, brave decision by our in-touch politicians to bring
But I'm now getting the niggling feeling that we've got it all wrong. Don't get me wrong, I'm not thinking about this from a petty personal point of view - I like the clear air that doesn't make my eyes water. Also, I'm not a member of the "second hand smoke is not harmful" nuts that still exist out there. No. I'm not writing this for my self-interest. I’m thinking that we’ve got it wrong, because we’ve let the government legislate on a trendy hate.
I think we've let ourselves, fellow Englanders, down. We have let science, fashionable hates and popular moralising merge in such an insipid way that we forgot to think about our liberal principles, the limited role of the state and our choices as free individuals.
The legislation that led to the day of the ban is, granted, informed on science and history that weighs a heavy burden on the brutal tactics of big fag companies. But, if you’ve got a problem with the world smoking too much, I think you better ask questions of the corporate and political elite that has backed the big tobacco companies. (Particularly as these companies continue to use the same hard sell techniques – smoke and you’ll look better, feel better and have more sex – in the third world that we got rid of ages ago.) But, don’t support this fashionable legislating at its very worst.
Forever a decade behind the
***
Let’s make a new rule: never again shall we use the blunt instrument of legislation to randomly manage risks that involve our choices.
Smoking is a risk, but a risk that it is free for people to take. Passive smoking is a risk, but one that can be significantly limited through public pressure by creating smoking only zones and well circulated environments, which was being achieved in recent years.
Driving is a risk, but a risk that is free for people to take. Passive driving (walking, cycling, running) is a risk, but one that can be through pressure be severely limited by creating speed limits etc.
Banning smoking in pubs is like banning driving on country roads.
The analogy may not be water-tight, but the logic is plain to see. (Simon Jenkins' analogy with cats and dogs is better.) If you want legislation to manage risk that involve our choices, let’s do it properly, let’s go the whole hog and ban everything. Let’s ban driving on country roads and cats and dogs anywhere…
But that's where I wake up and realise that we are already there. Selling arms everywhere whilst upgrading cannabis to grade B. Banning smoking indoors over here whilst selling ciggies the good old fashioned way over there.
Fuck it, on that note I'm starting smoking. Won’t you join me outside?
23 comments:
I love the smoking ban. It's great. And I can't wait for ID cards. They're going to be brill too. We'll be able to prove the identity of people breaking the smoking ban.
ed
I like the smoking ban too as it means I can take my daugther to the pub and drink myself stupid without feeling guilty about the effects of second hand smoke - hurrah!
Laura x
Also... we have responsibility to the next generation which your post does not consider. The facts of the risks of smoking have been widely known for decades but despite numerous campaigns, have failed to impact on the new generations of young smokers. I believe that this measure will have a positive impact on smoking numbers in two or maybe even the next generation. Removing smoking from being publicly acceptable is a huge step and will undoubtedly be a huge influence on future would-be smokers. Let's face it, nothing else has worked and trying something is better than trying nothing. So I'm for it.
ed (again)
i'm narked off with the stench of old men, armpits and off beer now all too smellable.
Zoe
This blog is a sensation. You offer a genuinely interesting perspective on the smoking ban. It is not tired and obvious like many articles and comment pieces on the subject.
And it is very well written.
Have you considered getting a job as a journalist or commentator?
HR
The Guardian
I have to say I disagree with your analysis of the subject... I was going to leave it there, but I shall expand.
As I understand it, you think that the end-result of the legislation is a good thing, but you think it shouldn't have taken legislation to get there.
However I'm not quite sure how we'd've got there without legislation. It hasn't been peer pressure or the media that have persuaded us that isn’t it cool to smoke, it has always been legislation. This hasn’t been an anti-smoking bandwagon but a consistent lobby to push this issue. If the media has anything to do with it, then smoking is still cool. I know I’ve been out of the country for a bit, but I don’t recall any anti-smoking wave of sentiment. Most of what I’ve read had said how petty and ‘nanny state’ this piece of legislation is.
I'm sure you remember people smoking on the tube. It wasn't society that stopped them, it was legislation. Ditto hospitals, offices and now pubs and clubs…
While there may be an argument for private clubs and so on having member only exemptions for smoker – just imagine the loophole that this would have caused. Every pub would become a private members club - membership available free at the door, no questions asked. It would have been a legislative and administrative nightmare. A similar argument would have applied to any ‘food’ loophole.
“Passive smoking is a risk, but one that can be significantly limited through public pressure by creating smoking only zones and well circulated environments”
That is exactly what the legislation has done. How more ‘well circulated’ an environment is the outdoors. In fact rather than confining smokers to certain sections of a pub, they have everywhere to smoke. Just not indoors. I don’t know any place anywhere, where smoking is allowed in a pub/club and the ventilation is good enough to stop me smelling of cigarettes at the end of the night. It is a fallacy.
“Let’s make a new rule: never again shall we use the blunt instrument of legislation to randomly manage risks that involve our choices”
Isn’t this then resorting to anarchy?
I’m all for the nanny state. We don’t as individuals know enough about the bigger picture to be allowed to make certain random choices for ourselves. The analogy with cats, dogs and driving, while attractive, is on closer analysis just nonsense. This is a good piece of legislation, why can you not have the sense to see it.
An addendum:
Rather then bemoan a public health initiative being followed due to fashion bemoan those that aren't
- like banning junk food in schools.
I love Ali!
Jane
Well Jane is entiled to love Ali (sure it is not absence making the heart grow fonder). I love Ali and Shiraz but Shiraz as I said to you in a smoke free pub the other night you have got this one all wrong.I waited 38 years to drink legally in a smoke free pub and I am one of many retunees to the pub but it is not just the pub it is everywhere. I'd now like it banned on the streets and in the homes and indeed everywhere!
Alastair (uncle)
Ban Shiraz! He's a subversive influence that even his brother can't control.
At least ban him in public places.
ed (yet again)
First, thanks for reading and contributing. It is much appreciated.
As promised, I would answer comments to my posts. However, it would seem that in this case I need to answer my critics...
Having read the sum of the comments I haven't erred at all from my despair at this legislation. It is representative of a paternalistic government being allowed, by our fashionable desires and public health fears, to manage risk in areas where we should manage our own choices. Not to mention managing risks in such a random manner (…selling arms, driving, cats, dogs…).
I'll take a few points in turn.
That we can celebrate drinking in a smoke-free environment seems short-sighted. What happens when, because of the serious damage alcohol does to drinkers and those around drinkers, we regulate alcohol out of all places except the home? It could happen. It is a risk for drinkers and non-drinkers, it could become the latest hate of the tutting masses and it is clearly a public health problem.
That the ban is good for the teenagers… Even if we ban smoking we’ll never stop the kids rebelling. That’s OK by me.
The main point in response to Ali is that I don’t think that the end result of the legislation is good. For a while I was thinking the environment in my immediate vicinity was good, but now I’m thinking the environment of the nation is bad.
However, most important is to challenge the nature of this legislation.
We, particularly those on the political left, shouldn’t be encouraged to think that our individual, informed, choices do not contribute to the construction of the good society. They are fundamental to it, as fundamental as collective action is. Free individual choices will best contribute to the good society if we look at the appropriate collective actions that enable us to live free and fulfilling lives. Not the collective actions that take a swipe at our choices.
What about this for a collective direction that might have led to a better situation?
Why didn’t we argue against the role of both huge multinational companies – growing fat over decades from the sale of these goods, and exchequers – earning masses of tax bucks (largely from the poor, in a way not too dissimilar to the lottery) from cigarettes, and instead legislate for only smaller companies or cooperatives to distribute and sell tobacco products with no more than 50% VAT?
What would be the impact? No idea. But it must be in the right direction. It is attempting to treat the cause of our addictions (consumerism and paternalistic government) rather than legislate on managing the effect (health risk).
a no smoking zone in a pub is equivalent to a no pissing zone in a pool. Utterly useless...
After initially poking fun at your "passive driving" comment, I began to think that the analogy of seatbelts would be more suitable.
Studies over time found that not wearing seatbelts cost lives and so (quite rightly) it was made illegal not to wear them.
Studies over time also found that other people inhaving smokers' smoke also costs lives. So (quite rightly) it was made illegal for smokers to force other people to inhale their smoke.
It has been banned in my office for years and I would have it no other way. If I worked in a bar I would feel the same.
Saying that, I recently got chatting to a girl outside a club while having a sneaky ciggie together so I have a special fondness for the smoking ban for other reasons...
James
I think you are confusing a couple of points, Shiraz.
You can have a smoking ban and despise predatory capitalist consumerism. You can allow people to have the right to smoke (or take drugs, or drive) but not allow them to harm other people by doing so. Just because we have improved our individual environment does not mean that we should not improve the national framework too. Conversely just because we haven’t legislated against big-tobacco, doesn’t mean we can’t legislate for personal safety. They are separate.
You seem to want a smoking ban, but only by smashing the cigarette conglomerations. The extension of what you’re saying is that we should repeal all restrictive legislation. Bring back smoking in offices, on the tube, in aeroplanes, because to not do so is to restrict personal freedoms. We should bring back advertising and allow kids to buy cigarettes. The only limit that we should have is on that a cigarette company can be. It would only be able to have a limited turn-over/ profit.
The term ‘public health fears’ seems to demean the science behind this all as pseudo- as not really worth all the fuss. The extension of your argument to drinking is an interesting one as the evidence shows that the health issues related to drinking are massive. However, these problems would not be stopped by only allowing people to drink at home or outside! In a pub, a landlord will (and is required to by law) refuse to serve an intoxicated person - more legislation.
Yes, starting to smoke is a consumerist activity, but continuing to do so is an addiction. Smoking isn’t pleasant, nor is it particularly enjoyable. The enjoyment that one does get from smoking is simply satisfying the craving that you had in the first place. There is no reason to do it in my face.
Smoking isn't all bad. Let's stop thinking that it is. People enjoy it. You can't take that away from them and it really isn't healthy for us to be so scornful of them. Smoking isn't bad for your soul. Hating the smoker is.
I'm slowly getting more and more abstract here...
I don't hate the smoker - I feel sorry for them - I even feel like going up to people who smoke and ask if they need any help - but I am too much of a coward and afraid for my delicate nose! Yes lets go for the wider environment and clean that up - lets start outside the pub, office etc with all the cigarette butts and those thrown out of cars by adult motorists (I hate the way kids get all the blame for litter) so more reason for banning it everywhere! Then we can start on the multinationals for cans packaging etc. Did you know Denmark does not allow the sale of canned drinks - only in returnable bottles. The smoking ban is here to stay lets move on to the next target!
Alastair
"...we forgot to think about our liberal principles, the limited role of the state and our choices as free individuals."
I choose, as a free individual, not to breathe in other people's smoke, but the government has taken away my choice by allowing people to smoke in public places. The way I see it, the government has not implemented a ban on smoking in workplaces, they have removed a "law" that allowed it. And the sooner they extend it to anywhere except on private land, the better. (But I do think pubs now need to do something about the B.O./urinal smell.)
Cars, emissions, my health, my freedom... ban them. Doesn't work. Ultimately, the smoking ban might be nice and healthy, but that doesn't automatically make it right.
whilst I have to be the advocate of a third way, it seemed to me a better idea to allow pubs with more than one room to have one for somking. Smoking is pointless and carcinogenic but that doesn't seem enough of a reason to ban it in places where non-smokers don't have to go. If you can advertise for a builder with 'must speak Polish' as an essential job requirement why not bar staff for smoking room, must be smokers or willing to wear a gas mask?
It appears that you might be arguing against paternalism and at the same time for it - noone has to buy a lottery ticket or a cigarette and the fact that big companies profit from people's bad decisions seems to me as much a fault of the consumers as the companies (less so in developing countries). If we are to aviod the nanny state we must allow people to choose for the worse and if that creates a market so be it.
Caine
cock.
To the fucking moron who wrote "cock". Fuck off, get the fuck out of here, don't read my blog or my friends comments, stop engaging with anything except your twiglet - or bucket - and kill yourself when you realise what a pathetic life you lead.
However, to HR from The Guardian, do get in touch. I would love to talk more about your suggestion. And they say I have quite fabulous charm.
And thank-you to the rest of you. I think we're done. Until next week.
Most smokers i know, me included, don't consider it a personal choice that they smoke. I actually think most smokers would welcome a complete ban on selling fags (if that was a feasible option). In my opinion it is the best piece of legislation this government has brought in, and hence think you are well wide of the mark.
Well written though.
Owen
your article made me think about the current media - govt - al gore trend to make us feel guilty about our environmental footptint. While it seems ridiculous to make middle class guilt the engine for global environment change, I wonder if it is all an attempt to create a mood in which legislation can later be pushed throught to curb the actions of industry - by far the biggest influence on our environent. And to be honest in both cases I do agree with your analysis, but am not sure I agree that this is a bad thing. We do not live in a liberal society - our society is incredibly damaging to the environment, to our own health, to our education, armed forces, hospitals, and equality of wealth. Most people's freedom to do as they choose - a liberal experience of life - is highly resticted by combinations of these factors. Many of these restrictive forces are strengthened by the people acting under the impression that their freedom or right to choose is upheld - 'choice' in schooling, 'choice' in healthcare, choice to go to war when we feel like it but 'choice' not to commit to it to the point where we may duffer ourselves, and so 'choosing' to stretch our resources to breaking point. Ironically, the fact that our government cannot dictate to big business has made us surrender many of the freedoms that were supposed to be protected. I think the process that lead to the smoking ban, and my predicted changes to legislation regarding the environment, are simply part of a new process whereby the government can protect our health and planet through manipulation of people's ideas to the point of a cultural shift, which will be eventually represented in legislation or policy. Although this process is Orwellian at best and a kneejerk reaction would be to condemn it, we must ensure that we are safegaurded against manipilation that will lead to our harm by safegaurding our democratic rights and by ensuring we have an education that produces and encourages critical thinking. We need to be able to tell the difference between being ordered around FOR our benefit, and being ordered around AGAINST our benefit, and maintain the freedom to disagree based on our safety - not to reject measures that improve our quality of life because we disagree with the process itself.
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