Smokers would have to greatly overestimate the benefits of filters for a ban to provide a net benefit in public health terms, and I doubt they do. I expect most of them think they provide no protection at all. Most smokers have only ever known filtered cigarettes and they know that they are highly dangerous. In any case, making a product more dangerous in order to scare people off using it has got to be ethically questionable.
The anti-smoking lobby’s approach to this issue is all over the place. They were all in favour of the development of low tar cigarettes in the 1970s. They now say that was a mistake. Fair enough, but if it was a mistake why did they lobby for the EU to set limits on tar yields in the 1990s and then fight to lower those limits in the 2000s? They then successfully lobbied the EU to ban tobacco companies from putting the tar and nicotine content on packs because this information was (supposedly) misleading. Which is it? Either all cigarettes are as bad as each other, in which case get rid of the limits on tar and nicotine, or low tar cigarettes are safer than high tar cigarettes, in which case consumers should be informed.
Their current position seems to be that all cigarettes are as bad as each other and that filters should be banned because they give the opposite impression. If so, the EU’s limits on tar and nicotine serve no purpose and should be abolished. Indeed, they will have to be abolished if filters are banned because there is no such thing as a low-tar unfiltered cigarette. This is an issue that the authors of the Addiction article, who include ASH’s Hazel Cheeseman, never address. They can’t be dumb enough to think that the EU will accidentally ban cigarettes by banning filters and leaving the tar limits in place so they must think - if they have thought about it at all - that the EU will allow high tar cigarettes to be sold again. That would be fine with me. It’s just be a bit surprising that it’s also fine with an anti-smoking group.
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