Extra Velvet

No blogging from me for a week or so, so I will leave you with some extra notes from Velvet Glove, Iron Fist: A History of Anti-Smoking.

Download the PDF: Extra Velvet

Quite a bit got cut out of the book before it was published, generally because it didn't fit the narrative. Some of it you may find interesting, some of it you won't. It is, after all, a selection of left-overs, but I thought it was worth putting it out there for the sake of completeness. If you haven't read Velvet Glove, most of it won't even make sense. It's no substitute for reading the book but at least it's free.

Includes:

- the inherent snobbery of the food wars

- the strange battle over salt

- the misguided attack on safer tobacco products

- the story of Rob Cunningham, Canada's John Banzhaf

- more on Michael Siegel's secondhand smoke study

- Australia's version of the infamous EPA study

- some advice on how to kill a cat

- how ASH differs from anti-smoking groups of the past

- why cigarette taxes hurt the poor

- what happened to Lawton Chiles

- how America came to believe there were 50,000 deaths a year from passive smoking

... and numerous other facts, quotes, tales and thoughts from this long and tangled story.

This isn't an update. All this was written before March 2009. See it more as a collection of extended footnotes—references to where each bit would have gone are included.

Take care, don't forget TICAP and I'll be back online next week...

 

Share

Tweet

Does advertising nicotine patches increase the smoking rate?

I'm currently reading The Logic of Life by Tim Harford. He mentions something about the advertising of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) which I found interesting (p. 59).

Economists have also found that advertising for nicotine patches and gum seems to encourage non-smoking teenagers to smoke. That's easy to explain if teenagers are rational: the advertisements tell them that there are new ways to help them quit, so rationally it is less risky to start the habit.

It does make sense. If people are told there is an easy way to quit, they will be less tentative about starting. The study he refers to is this:

The Effect of Nicotine Replacement Therapy Advertising on Youth Smoking

The results indicate that NRT advertising has no effect on participation but increases smoking by youth who do smoke. The elasticity of smoking with respect to NRT advertising is about .10 and the elasticity of smoking with respect to price is about -1.03. Since average youth smoking is about 5.77 cigarettes per day, an increase of 10 percent in NRT advertising would increase this average to about 5.82 cigarettes per day. It is also estimated that a ban on NRT advertising would be equivalent to a 10 percent increase in cigarette prices.

You will notice that this study doesn't quite confirm what Harford is saying. NRT advertising makes smokers smoke more but "has no effect on participation" ie. it doesn't get non-smokers to start. 

This proposition was tentatively confirmed in an earlier study, which concluded:

...those exposed to NRT ads reported stronger perceptions about the ease of quitting, but non-susceptible non-smokers primarily drove this difference. This study suggests that exposure to NRT and Zyban® advertising in an experimental context does not reliably influence youth smoking-related beliefs, especially those vulnerable to becoming regular smokers.

But if NRT ads make people thing it is easy to quit, why wouldn't this perception affect those who are "vulnerable to becoming regular smokers"? You would expect them to be the most affected. How do we even work out who is "vulnerable" and who is "non-susceptible" any way?

The picture is clouded further by the fact that Melanie Wakefield was involved with both of these studies. Wakefield is Deputy Editor of the journal Tobacco Control, which has always been well-disposed to pharmaceutical nicotine. Indeed, one of her other studies on NRT was sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline.

The question of whether NRT advertising increases the smoking rate is, therefore, intriguing but unresolved. I dare say it will remain unresolved for as long as the pharmaceutical industry funds anti-smoking groups, conferences and research. At a time when ASH are calling for a 5% increase in cigarette taxes, it is interesting that research indicates that a ban on NRT ads would have the same effect as a 10% increase in cigarette taxes. But don't expect to hear pharmaceutically funded pressure groups like ASH calling for that any time soon.

Share

Tweet

The slippery slope in action

John Banzhaf in 1991, on the 'slippery slope' argument that the war on tobacco would be followed by a war on food:

"They use the 'slippery slope' argument. 'My God, if they can do this to smokers today they can do this to people who eat Haagen-Dazs ice cream or whatever.'"

Ridiculous, yes?

Tackling obesity may require anti-smoking style approach: Canada's top doctor

Canadians need to do more to reduce their growing waistlines, but the country may not be ready for tough measures and legislation to help shrink the nation, according to the chief public health officer.

First comes the scare-mongering...

"The concern with the increasing rates of obesity is that this may in fact, be the first generation of children to not live as long and healthy as their parents," said Butler-Jones in an interview.

If that's true then why does life expectancy go up year after year?

Then the velvet glove is taken off to expose the iron fist...

Governments over the years, have passed various pieces of legislation designed to reduce smoking, including increased taxation and packaging requirements, and some health experts have been pushing for similar initiatives to combat obesity.

Proposals include banning the advertising of unhealthy foods, increasing taxes on food that isn't nutritious, subsidizing fruits and vegetables to make them more affordable for Canadians and forcing the food industry to change its labelling, packaging and ingredients.

Does anyone seriously dispute that the slippery slope is real, or that this was not always the next 'logical step'?

Share

Tweet

ASH Wales: still in the pay of Big Pharma

ASH Wales' financial accounts have finally come online. I have written previously about how the charity failed to send the Charity Commission the breakdown of where it's money was coming from. 

As expected, it transpires that—after the Welsh government—Pfizer is its biggest sponsor. Pfizer does, of course, sell the stop-smoking drugs Nicorette and Chantix/Champix. In addition, ASH Wales' Tobacco Control Conference will be sponsored by Pfizer, McNeil, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline, all of whom manufacture or market nicotine drugs.

ASH Wales 2008/09 accounts run as follows:

Welsh Assembly Government: £115,800

Pfizer Foundation: £45,168

British Heart Foundation: £24,666

Donations: £2,697

Other: £351

Total: £188,682

Take note of the amount of voluntary donations: just £2,697. Less than 2% of this charity's income comes from the public. Meanwhile, Old Holborn has just announced that the blog-reading public has raised over £9,000 to free the Nick Hogan. Hogan should be released within hours, an extraordinary achievement all done in under a week with virtually no mainstream publicity. Perhaps the MSM will pick up on this story now?

Share

Tweet

The solution to everything

We all know that smoking bans reduce the number of heart attacks by 40% and absolutely do not, repeat not, lead to a fall in bar sales. Now we know that they also cut car crime by 80%. 

The smoking ban has helped reduce car offences in Gedling, says a crime expert.

Smokers who go outside for a cigarette are acting as "extra pairs of eyes" and deterring criminals, says Bob Vaughan-Newton.

Since the ban came into force in July 2007, there has been an 80% drop in auto crime in the borough.

Has there, by jingo? Let's see your figures then, sunshine.

Latest figures for Gedling North, which includes Arnold, Daybrook, Woodborough and Ravenshead, show it has dropped by nearly a quarter in the last year, with 287 recorded crimes between April 2009 and this January compared to 378 in the same period the previous year.

But the smoking ban was introduced in July 2007. How about showing us how the crime changed in July-June 07/08 compared to the same period in 06/07?

No? Nothing? Let's move on then.

Mr Vaughan-Newton, crime reduction manager for Gedling Borough Council, said: "We used to have big problems in Gedling North, and Gedling South as well, with people breaking into cars in public car parks down Mansfield Road and the rural pubs in Lambley and Stoke Bardolph. It was all along the A60 corridor.

"Suddenly, with the smoking ban, there were all these extra pairs of eyes on the car park.

"We've actually reduced car crime in the whole of Gedling Borough since the smoking ban in July 2007 by about 80%.

The very defintion of post hoc ergo proptor hoc. I'm not familiar with this part of the country, but I wonder if there could - just possibly - be any alternative explanations? Let's ask the police, shall we?

Neighbourhood Policing Inspector Andy Crouch said he believed the decrease was down to police targeting problem areas with CCTV and more patrols, as well as moves to make car parks more secure.

I see.

"I think it's been down to good problem solving and good visibility," said Insp Crouch. "Car parks are safer now, we've covered them with CCTV.

That would certainly make sense.

Insp Crouch said police had been educating people about the dangers of leaving valuables in their cars, and used signs to make people think twice about leaving items on display.

So nothing to do with smoking ban, then. Anything else?

Mr Vaughan-Newton said the integrated offender team management project, where police keep tabs on known offenders when they are released and try and help them get jobs, had also helped.

This all sounds very plausible.

He said that CCTV coverage had also contributed to the reduction in car crime and that a camera used by Sainsbury's in Daybrook had had a knock-on effect, reducing car crime in the Premier Travel Inn opposite, which also came within its line of vision.

I think we get the idea. Every conceivable crime reduction strategy has been employed in Gedling in recent years. All of this reported under the headline: Smoking ban leads to car crime fall in Gedling. 

Interestingly, if you look at the web address of this news story, you will see that the original headline was the less sensational, but more accurate, 'Car crime has reduced by almost a quarter in Gedling Borough in the last year'. Looks like the editor felt it needed spicing up.

The smoking ban. Is there any story too small to be reported?

Share

Tweet

Number crunching

£4,975

The amount Action on Smoking Health raised from voluntary donations in the entire financial year 2008/09. The intense lobbying of this charity is regularly reported in every newspaper in the UK and its activities were pivotal in bringing about a total smoking ban in England.


£6,027

The amount raised in voluntary donations in two days by a small group of blog-readers in order to free Nick Hogan, a man imprisoned for breaching England's total smoking ban (as reported in just one UK newspaper).

Old Holborn and Anna Racoon's fundraising goes on. You can donate here. They have also found an extraordinary passage in a document the government issued to provide 'guidance' for councils:

In addition to the evidence of smoking taking place, the Courts have also indicated that they are taking into consideration the following matters:

• the number of occasions on which the council is able to demonstrate that information and advice on the smokefree requirements have been provided to the person in control;

• the failure by the person in control to take action after the receipt of such information and advice;

and

• public statements made by or on behalf of the person in control:

• that they do not agree with or support the smokefree legislation;

• that they are actively campaigning against it; or

• that they do not intend to do anything more than simply inform people that they should not smoke.

As OH says, this means that what you think of the smoking ban influences how severely you will be treated. What else can this be called but a thoughtcrime ?

Share

Tweet

The bully state marches on

Days after Nick Hogan was sent to prison, the authorities are throwing their weight around again.

A business owner is challenging legislation which dictates that no-smoking signs must be displayed in shops.

Stuart Isbister, who owns garden gift shop The Worm That Turned in Derby Road, city centre, refused to pay a £200 fixed penalty notice after being warned to display a sign by Nottingham City Council.

The council has now taken him to court for not paying the fixed penalty notice.

Mr Isbister pleaded not guilty at Nottingham Magistrates' Court today, and faces a fine of £1,000 if he loses a trial, which is due to take place on April 27.

And, as we now know, if he refuses to pay that fine, he could be given six months in one of the most violent prisons in the UK. Pour encourager les autres, of course. 

To the authorities, it makes no difference that no one ever smokes in Mr Isbister's shop.

"I can't remember a time when people smoked in shops, so it's a like using a sledge hammer to crush a nut, and I thought it was about time someone stood up to it."

Indeed so. Unfortunately we know what happens to people who stand up to the bully state. 

The smoking ban is the only law which requires millions of signs to be prominently displayed on private property. Shops are not compelled to put signs up saying 'No assaults permitted' or 'No drug use permitted'. Mandatory 'No Smoking' signs should never have been part of deal. They are superfluous. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Their sole purpose is to hammer home the anti-smoking message at every turn. And, of course, there will always be jobsworths who use these petty regulations as a bully's charter.

Nottingham City Council says that the shop is the only building out of around 5,000 they have visited in the city since the law came into effect that has refused to comply.

How much have these 5,000 inspections cost the taxpayer, all in the name of prosecuting one man in a garden gift shop? An anonymous council jobsworth was quoted as saying:

"We have provided Mr Ibister with signs and have asked on numerous occasions for them to be displayed which he has refused to do, resulting in us serving a fine which he refused to pay. This has led to the court appearance.

"The Health Act 2006 requires that all smoke free premises display the appropriate sign at the entrance to the premises – we are simply upholding this national law."

Yes, the Nuremburg defence. Only following orders. It would, presumably, be too much to ask the council to use its own discretion and common sense, particularly since no complaints have been made and it is manifestly a victimless crime?

[The smoking ban] includes buildings such as churches, listed buildings and art galleries, and the council says there has been no challenge about the aesthetic impact of signs on premises.

Well, really, what would be the point? When religious leaders described mandatory signage in churches as "daft", "overkill" and "unnecessary", the Department of Health ignored them:

In response to this the Department of Health spokesman said: "I accept, without reservation, that there is a long tradition not to smoke in churches but, as I am sure people will appreciate, to have provided an exemption would have created a dangerous precedent."

Churches setting a dangerous precedent? What planet do these people live on?

Let's be clear. Both Hogan and Isbister have broken the law. The point is that both 'crimes'—"allowing people to smoke" and not publicising a well-known offence—should never have been made crimes in the first place.  

Old Holborn is raising money for Nick Hogan's release. If you would like to donate, click here (but ignore his comments about smoking on trains and in shops. It is indeed illegal both to smoke and to "allow" smoking in the UK).

Ed West has more on the Hogan case at The Telegraph:

Match the crime with the sentence:

1) A man who used his two-year-old daughter as a decoy so he and his pregnant girlfriend could steal from three Poppy Appeal tins and a Multiple Sclerosis charity box over a period of two weeks last year, hiding the cash in their daughter’s buggy.
The 25-year-old also pleaded guilty to carrying a lock knife, stealing a guitar, and the attempted theft of another collection tin. He has a string of previous theft convictions dating back five years.

2) A pub landlord convicted for non-payment of a fine for allowing a “mass smoke-in” in his pub on the day of the smoking ban. He no longer owns the pub, and is bankrupt.

a) Six months in jail

b) A suspended sentence and a six-month drug rehabilitation order

Share

Tweet