The smoking ban one year on

It's been one year of hardship for some smokers

Tuesday, 01, Jul 2008 12:00

One year after the country took a dark turn into state control and an unpleasant, puerile attitude to other people's business. Or is it one year into a brave new world where the country became fitter, healthier and more civilised?

One year since the smoking ban in England and Wales, and passions remain high on both sides.

"Plainly it's been a huge success," says Martin Dockrell, policy manager for the Anti-Smoking and Health campaign (Ash).

"Not only has there been very little need for enforcement, because compliance was so high, but the benefits have been coming in thick and fast. It's indisputably the big political success of the year. It's just gone on getting more and more popular.

"These people who oppose it are pretty damn noisy, but they're outnumbered ten-to-one by those who support it."

One of those noisy people is Neil Rafferty, a spokesman for Forest, the pro-smoking group.

"For smokers, it's been a pretty rough year," he says.

"A huge chunk of their lives has transformed dramatically. They can no longer socialise in the way they wanted to.

"Ash will say Britain is healthier place. But the underlining point of that is they think health is more important than anything else. We think happiness and freedom is just as important, if not more important," he adds.

"The debate in this country has become so hysterical that we're now in an atmosphere where freedoms are being thrown away every day because of this religious fervour of the Labour party and their campaign allies."

The civil liberties argument received a fair amount of attention in the build-up to the ban, but anti-smoking campaigners don't think it stands up.

"It's pretty straightforward," says Mr Dockrell. "John Stuart Mill said people were free to do whatever they like as long as they don't hurt anyone else.

"While we thought smoking in public was harmless, it was fine. But once the evidence about the harm from second-hand smoke became pretty conclusive the argument changed. Your freedom to swing your fist ends where my face begins."

But Forest contests the evidence the passive-smoking argument is based on.

"This is double-speak from Ash," says Mr Rafferty. "The reason they pushed for the ban was because they felt it would contribute to the de-normalisation of smoking.

"That was why they wanted to ban it. It has nothing to do with protecting bar staff. There's no evidence bar staff are badly affected by smoking. They claimed 50 bar staff a year are dying from passive smoking in Scotland, but they've yet to name one. They simply have not presented any credible evidence at all."

"There are still plenty of environments where you're exposed to carcinogens. Cooking red meat in a restaurant exposes you. Road workers are being subjected to a huge cocktail of lethal poisons, but do you ever see them using face masks?"

The battle isn't over yet, either. The Department of Health (DoH) is in consultation on a wide range of anti-tobacco measures designed to tackle underage smoking and cut down on demand. Proposals are being aired to ban cigarette vending machines, hide point-of-sale displays of ten packs and put photo warnings on packets. The proposals give a fairly good indication of the priorities of health groups like Ash.

"People are still being exposed to second hand smoke, especially outside of offices," Mr Dockrell explains. "Their right to smoke does not trump my right not to smoke. But the idea of smoke-free outside areas isn't the big issue. Once you're in the open air there's much less evidence of harm. We want to constrain the opportunities tobacco companies have."

Forest objects to all the new changes. "If a kid can afford two packs of ten in the course of a week, he can afford a pack of 20," says Mr Rafferty. "If they buy 20 cigarettes the chances are they'll increase their smoking rate."

The argument is similar with banning vending machines. "If you want to stop children using vending machines, you make them credit card operated only," he argues.

"It's all to do with creating this atmosphere of de-normalisation. They will use this agenda on alcohol and food too. And its anybody's guess what they'll move on to next. It could even be the media.

"Ash are already calling for movies with smoking in them to automatically have an 18 certificate. So, Casablanca would become an adult rated movie."

That's one argument Mr Dockrell bitterly refutes. "That assertion is entirely false," he says. "Our policy is that film makers be encouraged not to depict smoking in films for children. Even those who do support an 18 certification for films with smoking apply it only to new films not old films."

It's been one year, and no one needs telling the difference it's made. Not just in terms of smell, or huddles of people shivering outside in the winter, but also a marked change in the perennial argument between health and pleasure. Whichever side of the argument people ended on, the smoking ban opened the doors to further changes in legislation. Barely a day of news passes without mention of fatty foods, alcohol, smoking or lack of physical activity. Britain is becoming obsessed with health and the battle over the government's role in addressing it isn't over yet.