Ireland's abject failure

Anyone remember when Ireland was tobacco control's jewel in the crown? The Irish smoking ban of 2004 was reported around the world and was supposed to lead to a "cultural change" that would see smoking gradually fizzle out. Keen to 'lead the way', Ireland has since followed the tobacco control blueprint to the letter. It's banned packs of 10, banned tobacco displays in shops and put more tax on cigarettes than any other country in the world.

The result, as previously reported here, is now official...

More smokers now than before 2004 ban

More people are smoking now than before the ban on smoking in public places was introduced six years ago, the Dáil has heard.

Minister of State for Health Áine Brady pointed to figures showing that 29 per cent of the population smoked despite the ban, the abolition of packs of fewer than 20 cigarettes, the ending of in-store displays and advertising, and the cost of cigarettes, which at €8.55 a pack “are the highest in the world”.

Although, to be fair, Ireland's slavish devotion to tobacco control policies has had some effect:

Sinn Féin health spokesman Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin described tobacco smuggling as a “huge and growing problem”

And let's not forget all those pub closures. All in all, a colossal disaster for all concerned except, perhaps, for the tobacco industry. I've said it before and I'll say it again. It's a damn good job it's not a results-driven business.

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Deborah Arnott: lying about Ireland

Deborah Arnott, Chief Executive of ASH, is interviewed in The Guardian today and comes up with a novel explanation for the smoking rate rising in Ireland since the smoking ban:

To pause is to run the risk of the numbers once again increasing: in Ireland, she tells me, the government successfully brought in smoke-free legislation, but "they didn't do anything else, and smoking started to creep back up again".

As reported previously, the smoking rate did rather more than "creep back up again". It has risen to an astonishing 33%. As for the idea that the Irish "didn't do anything else", where to begin? 

Ireland has constantly increased the price of tobacco and now has the highest rate of cigarette tax of any EU country; it has graphic warnings on cigarette packs; it has banned all forms of tobacco advertising; it has raised the age of purchase to 18 and it was the first country in the world to ban tobacco displays in shops.

It is completely untrue to say that Ireland has done nothing else since the ban. It has, in fact, done even more than the UK. And yet it is fast becoming one of Europe's heaviest smoking nations.

I don't recall ASH predicting that the smoking ban would make more people start smoking unless it was followed by an endless stream of legislation. I seem to recall them saying the smoking ban would be the nearest thing to a magic bullet. I also recall smoking rates falling for decades when ASH did very little and rising when they started doing a lot.

It looks like Arnott is rehearsing her excuses for when the smoking rate is shown to have risen in England. It's a convenient line to take: "what we wanted then didn't work because it needed to be accompanied by what we want now." It's not true, of course, and it doesn't make any sense, but that has seldom been a handicap.

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That didn't work, let's do it again.

On March 8 2006, an Irish anti-smoking group issued this press release:

Nearly 40,000 Irish people would quit smoking if the price of twenty cigarettes increased to €6.98. That is according to research done by the EU anti-smoking campaign, ‘HELP – For A Life Without Tobacco’, which shows that a 10% price increase in high income countries results in a 4% reduction in smoker numbers.

Professor Luke Clancy, Chairman of ASH Ireland was quoted in the release, saying:

"If we are serious about becoming a nation of non-smokers, the government has to start paying attention to the data. Price increases stop people smoking and deter young people from starting."

They got their wish, and more. Successive tax rises pushed the price of a pack of 20 well above the €6.98 they demanded. A pack now retails at €8.50. So what is the result?

A THIRD of the Irish population now smokes, a new survey reveals.

A survey of 4,082 people this summer revealed that 33pc of the Irish population had taken up or continued to smoke.

It is the highest smoking rate recorded here in the past 11 years, according to the EU's 'HELP - For A Life Without Tobacco' campaign.

Even those of us who are used to seeing tobacco control policies backfire must be astonished by how badly things are going for the anti-smoking movement in Ireland. This was supposed to be the country that would lead the world in tobacco control. It was the first country to ban smoking in public places. It has the third most expensive cigarettes in Europe. It has a tobacco display ban. And yet, in the space of five years, it has gone from being the jewel in the crown to being a failed state.

Everything that could go wrong, has gone wrong. 1,500 pubs have closed, smuggling has gone through the roof and the smoking rate has hit an eleven year high (it was at an all-time low before the ban was introduced).

So what is Luke Clancy's response?

"There is no evidence of any decline in smoking in this survey [you can say that again!], indicating a clear need for higher prices of cigarettes" 

Unbelievable.

Elsewhere, Patrick Basham and John Luik discuss whether the Irish fiasco will be repeated in Britain and Pete Robinson says that Ireland's pub crisis supports his prediction that the UK will lose 25% of its pubs by 2012.

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That's one way of putting it

Under the headline 'Early introduction of ban does little to reduce smoking rates', The Irish Times has reported that... 

More people continue to smoke in the Republic than in Northern Ireland, despite the earlier introduction of the smoking ban here, according to new research.

The One Island – One Lifestyle? report, which compares the health of individuals living on both sides of the Border, shows the introduction of the workplace smoking ban in the Republic in 2004 has done little to reduce overall smoking rates.

Done little? That's one way of putting it. A more accurate way of putting it would be to say that smoking rates have increased since the ban, as the same newspaper reported last year:

The number of people who said they were smokers fell from 33 per cent in 1998 to 27 per cent in 2002 but increased to 29 per cent last year

Using the post hoc ergo propter hoc logic so beloved of researchers when heart attacks are being counted, one might even say that the smoking ban "caused" more people to smoke. I wouldn't subscribe to that logic, but it is clear that the smoking rate was falling significantly before the smoking ban and has risen since.

It is interesting to note that there was also a significant fall in the smoking rate in Northern Ireland before the ban as well.

The effects of the workplace ban in the North have yet to be assessed, but the percentage of smokers there fell 6 per cent from 32 per cent in 2003 to 26 per cent in 2005.

We shall see whether this fall continues after 2007 or whether the curse of the smoking ban will hit the Irish North of the border too.

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