Quiet news week in Scotland?Belinda Cunnison
15th July 2008.
Last week we were told in the Dundee Evening Telegraph how at Ninewells Hospital the scent of lavendar and other aromatic shrubs has been displaced by the whiff of smokers 'congregated' in a garden designed as a 'relaxing retreat for everyone'.
Smoking is banned everywhere from the sites of Tayside hospitals. Even in outdoor areas, received wisdom now says that smoking is anti-social, when the plain fact is that smoke drifts straight upwards. The writer Margery Inglis did not mince words by describing smokers in one of her opening lines as 'nicotine addicts', who 'colonise' the gardens provided for 'everybody', not as people who want to share the facilities offered to the public as a whole.
The news that broke this week is that no one wants the job of smoking policy liaison officer for NHS Tayside! Oh dear. Some people have even resorted to describing the post as 'smoking clipe' . Nobody wanted it the first time round, and now NHS Tayside is busy 'shortlisting' from a total of five (5) applicants. Further, 'the successful candidate can expect some resistance from his or her new colleagues, as well as patients and visitors' ... a poisoned chalice indeed!
Perhaps somebody complained to Margery about her reporting the previous week (I know a few people wanted to). However it is refreshing to see that the 'nicotine addicts' in the garden are now described as 'patients and visitors who smoke'. Much better.
Are we surprised that 'some even describe the policy as discriminatory against smokers'? The policy of banning smoking on the grounds of the hospital is most certainly detrimental to smoking patients and visitors. However it is also discriminatory to smoking staff as they are the only ones who can suffer disciplinary action at the hands of NHS Tayside, whose restrictions don't carry the force of law and cannot be made to appy to anyone outside their employment.
The policy, says Inglis, aims to achieve a cultural change, and in the long run trustees hope that the public will not feel comfortable to smoke in public. It is hard to impose cultural change, however (even the ban on smoking has displaced smoking rather than diminishing it).
Margery Inglis can't help observing the rumblings of discontent about a policy of banning smoking, even outdoors, in a place that is characterised by high stress levels. Tannoy announcements blaring out over a scented garden hardly make for a relaxing retreat.
But in a quiet news week it is beneficial to reflect on such details. Smoking ban policies are in general not benign nor inclusive. They demand intrusive, noisy and expensive measures to remind people how to behave. They don't even guarantee a lower rate of smoking. They just give some people with a missionary bent something to get zealous about.
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Meanwhile In Scotland ...Belinda Cunnison
10th July 2008.
A study has found that compliance with the smoking ban in Scotland has not reached expected levels. The study covered only eight bars, found breaches of the ban in many of them (including the insufferable act of allowing shelter to older smokers in rainy weather ... what is the world coming to?) and concluded that cutbacks in enforcement activity planned for the current financial year would be premature.
So Scotland has near total compliance, but enough non-compliance to ensure that enforcement activity continues.
So now you know.
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Scottish Labour Celebrates National No Smoking DayBelinda Cunnison
23rd March 2008.
... Well, in their own sweet way Scottish Labour tried to mark National No Smoking Day by an attack on the Scottish government for not giving smoking cessation the financial support that it supposedly merits (see main story).
Labour accuses the Scottish government (SNP-dominated) of 'flat-lining' smoking cessation budgets by 8 per cent. Funding runs throughout the NHS and smoking cessation and advice is delivered via GPs, hospitals and elsewhere in the community via the NHS and voluntary bodies.
Several years ago the Government struck a deal with major pharmaceutical companies described here, to encourage the uptake of pharmaceutical smoking cessation products. Included was a drive to encourage smoking cessation that was led in the voluntary sector by Cancer Resarch UK and the British Heart Foundation. In the ongoing price war between the drug companies and the NHS, here was a win-win situation: a drive to promote smoking cessation products that led logically to a smoking ban, because after all, why waste public money encouraging people not to smoke, if they are easily able to smoke over a coffee or a drink?
Scottish Labour may bemoan the SNP's failure to fund smoking cessation in the same way the previous Scottish government did. But the current Scottish government might still legislate to remove cigarette displays in shops. Should it do so, it would demonstrate support for the pharmaceuticals in what is becoming a nicotine war with the tobacco companies, because this policy includes promoting the availability of gums and patches.
The general public may be prepared to believe that the government should support the sale of pharmaceutical products over and above tobacco products. But we should ask ourselves if the battle lines are drawn in a fair way. We are told, for example, that our chances of giving up smoking are four times better with pharmaceutical aids, accompanied by proper support. How do they know that? They operate a revolving door with cessation programmes, encouraging people to keep trying to quit. Their contact with dedicated cold turkey quitters must be fairly limited. The success of pharmaceutical stop smoking aids is itself nothing to write home about, as even their promoters cannot boast more than 20 per cent.
However if there is a battle between drug and tobacco companies for the nicotine market, it is accompanied with a big stick – the smoking ban. We are urged to believe it is about health, when it is really a publicly funded struggle involving market domination and spin.
Scottish Labour plays the game by accusing the Scottish government of eroding the funding of cessation treatments. But the Scottish SNP-led government that came to power last year has not given much sign of letting up its anti-tobacco war.
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Bingo Bosses Blame Double Taxation For SlumpBelinda Cunnison
7th February 2008.
A recent report by market leisure analysts Mintel blamed the smoking ban for losses in the bingo industry, which they say are set to continue for the foreseeable future. Losses in bingo are expected to drop by 12 per cent in the next year, set against a rise of 24 per cent in 2004/5. Bingo suffers more than other leisure sectors ... between games, there is far less spending on refreshment and games machines than previously, as smokers spend their time outside.
Yet in spite of the obvious knock from the smoking ban, Bingo bosses put their problems down to tax laws – taxes on bingo are indeed onerous and have been the subject of a petition to the Scottish Parliament. Taxes are a reserved matter, and the bingo industry petitioned the Scottish Parliament to appeal with the Chancellor to resolve the multiple taxes that also beset the industry.
The bingo petition was heard at the same time as Freedom2Choose Scotland and the Fife Smoking Action Group presented their petitions for amending the smoking ban. The bingo petitioners (Premier Bingo) were permitted to give evidence, and astonishingly wanted to speak about how hard their industry was hit by the smoking ban, even though they submitted that they supported the smoking ban and were petitioning only for relief on taxation. Their position:
We want to be in business when society accepts the smoking ban, as it has accepted the smoking ban in cinemas. Cinemas used to be full of smoke, but now people cannot smoke in them and we do not find the public marching out saying that they will never go again because they cannot smoke there. That process takes time so, for that time, my members want to stay in business.
(The hearing is here.*) In other words the ban is like an act of God, and has indeed shaken up the industry – but bingo could be stronger if it rides the storm. However, the taxation position still appears unaltered since the petitions committee hearing in June last year.
The Mintel report is less optimistic, however a Gala bingo spokeswoman insists that the report gives out no new information and the industry insists that the Gambling Act, rather than the smoking ban, is the key to the problem.
It is odd that in spite of the smoking ban's obvious negative impact on the bingo industry, the industry bosses should come out so strongly in favour of the ban. Contrast the obvious impact of the ban felt by this bingo hall owner in Anglesey – he has had to close his bingo hall owing to losses that he attributes squarely to the ban, and this has resulted in Anglesey losing its only cinema.
Surely when amenities are at risk, the interests of those who run the services should be listened to as well as powerful stakeholders in the industry. Mintel makes the point that 'the pub industry as a whole will benefit [following the smoking ban] from an upturn in trade at those which do have outdoor space and/or serve food', but that 'traditional pubs with no outdoor space which are focused on drinking rather than food' will be the ones that feel the real impact.
All bingo has taken a knock from the smoking ban (except onlne bingo), and the large industry players should include this in their lobbying efforts instead of playing it down.
Accepting the smoking ban doesn't appear to have brought the bingo industry any dividends so far in the area of taxation.
*Immediately below the section on bingo you will find proceedings on petitions PE1037 and PE1042 (Freedom2Choose Scotland and the Fife Smoking Action Group).
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Scottish Enforcement Officers Fear Ban JeopardisedBelinda Cunnison
4th February 2008.
Environmental Health Officers in Scotland have warned that the smoking ban might be jeopardised by new funding arrangements between local authorities and the Scottish government (see main story).
The new deal means that there is less ringfencing of government funding and this BBC report states that the amount devoted to frontline enforcement of the smoking ban will drop from 25 per cent in the current financial year to 4 per cent next year. Environmental officers fear that more pressing financial needs will take up available funds, following the refusal of some councils to confirm that they would make commitments to spending on frontline enforcement (mentioned here).
Last year in the Sunday Herald, concern was expressed about the unevenness of enforcement measures across Scotland, with one council, Renfrewshire, being responsible for 28 per cent of fixed penalty notices awarded in the first year of the smoking ban, while Glasgow issued only 17 fines and Edinburgh issued just seven. The new agreement regarding funding gives councils even more discretion in their spending on smoking ban enforcement and is bound to increase disparities further between different areas of Scotland.
This is a surprising move so early in the life of the ban ... not surprising to find that councils find it difficult to commit funds to such a trivial exercise as the smoking ban, but surprising that the costs in relation to the benefits were not considered earlier. Likewise the likelihood of producing a postcode lottery in terms of smoking ban enforcement could have been expected as a downside of the ban.
But then again ... this is Scotland, and we have been here before. Now, the hundreds of people who appear to have been getting away with smoking ban infringements everywhere in Scotland except Renfrewshire can cheer up in the knowledge that the council has better things to spend its money on.
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Anti-smoking patrols on Glasgow hospital groundsBelinda Cunnison
12th December 2007.
Prohibiting smoking on hospital grounds in Glasgow might seem an unenforceable task. The Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board has solved the problem by employing a task force (main story). Eight specially trained enforcement officers will patrol the hospital grounds. Primed in dealing with delicate situations, they will implore smokers to stub it out and warn them to keep away from the filtration units serving the children's wards. Smoking cessation advice will be offered.
This is not news, and the Daily Record has already reported anger about the expense of special personnel to stop people smoking in the grounds, and the need for smoking clinical staff to waste their precious breaktimes making their way to the perimeter fence should they wish to smoke. Existing smoking shelters have actually been dismantled in this zeal to ban smoking anywhere on the premises.
It seems an odd use of health authority resources. It was reported today that 1,200 elderly people across Lothian and Fife will not get promised central heating fitted until the Spring. Yet training people to coax the public to stop smoking in outdoor areas, at a time when they are concerned for sick friends and relatives, gets top priority treatment.
The policy has been adopted in other health authority areas, with Grampian health bosses also being accused of heavy-handedness.
The Press Association reports that £11 million annually will be given over to health authorities for smoking cessation services. Smoking cessation is big business, and Scotland's first ever Smoking Cessation Conference has quietly taken place yesterday in a humble Glasgow hotel – the Crown Plaza.
It is hard to see what makes health authorities rip down smoking shelters designed for the general public (i.e. distressed relatives) and advocate policies that involve people being forced by law to stand outside in the cold. To focus on spending of this kind, when the elderly go without heating and when the care of war veterans is left to charity, is a distortion of priorities in itself. Added to this, smoking cessation success is lucky if it hits a 40 per cent rate (it is often less than half this).
Throwing all this money at the problem has to be self-financing, or the government would not do it. In the meantime they are creating the worst possible conditions for people who want to give up smoking to do so.
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Heart Attack Studies: More ScepticismBelinda Cunnison
5th November 2007.
This two-page Spectator article (main story) covers the heart attack story from many angles: the claim that heart attacks dropped 17 per cent since the smoking ban came into Scotland in March 2006. Tessa Mayes argues that science is driving policy, rather than guiding it: regrettable in itself, but unacceptable when the science itself comes up with unsound results.
She quotes Michael Siegel, a tobacco control advocate in the US who has infuriated his colleagues by publicly deriding the claims of anti-smoking organisations. Siegel says there is no evidence to support the conclusion that heart attacks drop radically following smoking bans, and reaches this conclusion by comparing the figures in neighbouring states with and without smoking bans.
She is also critical of the Edinburgh conference 'Towards a Smokefree Society' in September this year for its uncritical acceptance of the results of the '17 per cent' study by Professor Jill Pell, which two months after the conference has still not been published by any academic journal.
This is an important article, which asks important questions about the way 'science' is called up to justify public policy measures even when the science is coming up with conclusions that people in the tobacco control can't take seriously.
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Tobacco Sales Down .... The Unofficial StoryBelinda Cunnison
20th September 2007.
Of course, tobacco sales are down ... 7 per cent was the figure widely reported in the summer.
The first figures released in Scotland, however, reported a signficant rise in tobacco sold from shops, in October last year when the ban had been in place over 6 months. This report observes, 'The trend — which reflects the experiences of other countries that have banned smoking in public — is believed to be partly driven by people smoking more at home.'
The Scotsman article (main story) headline attributes a drop in sales to the UK smoking ban, although the first figures indicating a drop came when many people were abroad on holiday. Seasonal factors were not taken into account.
Also ignored was the enormous illegal market for tobacco. This was reported very recently in Scotland in a Herald article in which it was claimed that '75% of shopkeepers in Scotland are aware of smuggled tobacco being sold in their area and feel the effects on their business'. That is an enormous quantity of illegally traded tobacco and is estimated to cost newsagents in the region of £20,000 per year. If there is no illegally traded tobacco in the rest of the UK that will be a first.
Was the Scottish rise in tobacco consumption the result of increased smoking in the home, then? Not according to recent studies published in the BMJ (synopsis provided here), which indicate very little change in home smoking levels. (The sample size of 50 adults from across Scotland speaks for itself.)
In all the furore about how successful the Scottish smoking ban has been, there has been no check on overall consumption levels of tobacco. As usual, more questions than answers. My conclusions are the following:
1. The amounts of tobacco purchased in the UK bear very little relation to official figures.
2. When the new age restrictions on tobacco purchasing are introduced, 16-18 year olds will be able to find tobacco from other sources. Any anticipated drop in consumption by this group will be imperilled by this plain fact.
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Scottish Smoking Ban 'Experiment' Inspires EuropeBelinda Cunnison
18th September 2007.
The Scottish smoking ban has led to a 17 per cent drop in heart attacks and has become a model to be emulated across Europe, leading to improvements in respiratory conditions and a decline in smoking at home.
So says the Medical News Today, in a ferociously one-sided article that neglects to mention the furore that erupted over the publication of yet more flawed heart attack studies, carried out with no control group and no attempt to show that tobacco sales had in fact decreased during the period following the introduction of the smoking ban in Scotland. Contrary to what the article says, there were eight studies, not one, and most of them are unpublished. It also mentions no body of opposition to the ban, even though this body is growing daily. It is shameful that the medical press passes off sensation-grabbing headlines as facts, simply because it supports the anti-ban policy line – and all at public expense. Taxpayers are footing the bill for agenda-driven science.
The article is rated by both the medical profession and the general public about how interesting it is. At the time of writing, the medical profession has given it a five-star rating (from one voter) and the general public 1.5 stars (five voters). Voting is still open. This article would be much more interesting if it made the faintest attempt to be truthful about the impact of the smoking ban.
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Cracking Down in the HighlandsBelinda Cunnison
9th September 2007.
Two recent articles from thisisnorthscotland, online version of Aberdeen Press and Journal, feature crackdowns in smoking in Highland region. The main story features taxi drivers. This reveals that around 20 per cent of written warnings about smoking ban infringement were issued to taxi drivers (but does not explain, tantalisingly, who got the other 80 per cent). Both the council spokesperson and the 'representative' of taxi drivers (speaking for the Taxi and Private Hire Association, Inverness) speak in favour of the crackdown and the importance of protecting public health.
Whether the association speaks for all taxi drivers or has agreed with the government policy on their behalf is not clear. Taxi drivers have suffered enormous personal inconvenience from this policy. Enforcement officers in this Fife story fined an off-duty taxi driver for allowing his daughter to smoke in the cab after rescuing her from her broken-down car. An additional fine on her was revoked and replaced with a written warning. (The story is from last year. Scroll halfway down the page.)
The other Highland Region story tells of the clampdown in Highland region hospitals. We reported recently here that staff were refusing to enforce this ban, which will extend from 1 January 2008 to include the entire sites of hospitals in these region. In contrast to the taxi story, which failed to find any dissenting voice, in this case a staff representative claims that this is 'a step too far' when dealing with the (alleged) effects of passive smoking. The decision to introduce the policy across all hospital sites was recently reaffirmed, in spite of a decision by staff not to cooperate with its enforcement.
Staff resent having to enforce an outdoor smoking ban on distressed members of the public. They are not 'pro-smoking', any more than Freedom to Choose. It is good that this dissenting voice is reported. But what of the taxi drivers and, for that matter, many other trades that have to enforce and observe the legislation?
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