Monday, 10 February 2014

Hostage to fortune

The anti-smoking lobby's track record of predicting the future is notoriously pisspoor. ASH's 'Myth and Reality About Smokefree England' was such a humdinger that virtually all the 'myths' had become reality within a few months of the smoking ban being introduced. Likewise, reassurances that food and alcohol would not be treated in the same way as cigarettes have proven to be hilariously hollow.

The CEO of the British Lung Foundation should therefore know better than to describe legitimate concerns as 'myths', but needs must when there's a campaign to win. And so she has produced the Top Ten Myths About the Ban on Smoking in Cars Carrying Children, which includes this nugget:




It's a keeper isn't it? The hubris about 'bans in all cars' is particularly inappropriate when you consider that the British Meddling Association was demanding exactly that only three years ago.

I wonder how long it will be before we can look back on this reassurance as an 'insult to the intelligence of the public'?