Memorandum by Forest
THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY AND THE HEALTH RISKS
OF SMOKING (TB 12)
CREDENTIALS
1.1 FOREST (Freedom Organisation for the
Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco) was founded in 1979. We neither
promote smoking nor do we deny that smoking is one of many risk
factors to individual health. Instead, we defend the rights of
adults who choose to smoke tobacco and oppose those who want to
discriminate against smokers and prohibit smoking at work and
other places.
1.2 Our chairman is Lord Harris of High
Cross and our supporters include journalists, politicans and academics.
Friends of FOREST are ordinary smokers and tolerant non-smokers
who share our views. FOREST spokesmen are frequently quoted in
newspapers and on radio and television. On behalf of smokers we
have written thousands of letters, conducted at least as many
interviews and almost single-handedly defended smokers' rights.
1.3 Our objectives are to promote equal
rights for smokers and greater tolerance between smokers and non-smokers;
to defend freedom of choice for adults who wish to smoke tobacco
and the rights of those who wish to make provision for smokers
on their premises; to increase public awareness of the scientific
complexities of the smoking debate and to help people put the
issue in its proper perspective; and to oppose descrimination
against smokers wherever it may occur.
1.4 Although FOREST accepts donations from
tobacco companies, we have no interest in either the sale or the
promotion of any tobacco product. We do not advertise their products,
provide brand information, promote smoking among any age group,
or speak on behalf of or in defence of the tobacco industry or
companies that constitute or are associated with it.
1.5 Part of our work relates to policies
on smoking in the workplace. Requests for advice and information
come from employers and employees. We are also called upon to
respond to inquiries concerning access to treatment on the NHS,
employee rights, custody and fostering cases, and travel. Primarily,
however, we are a wholly independent office concered to defend
the interests of adult smokers by actively lobbying journalists,
broadcasters and politicians. It is in this role that we make
this submission in response to a request by the Health Committee.
THE TOBACCO
INDUSTRY AND
THE HEALTH
RISKS OF
SMOKING
2.1 FOREST does not represent the tobacco
industry (see 1.4 above) nor have any of our staff ever worked
for the tobacco industry. We therefore have no knowledge or evidence
of any "action the tobacco industry has taken . . . in response
to the scientific knowledge of the harmful effects of smoking
and the addictive nature of nicotine." Our interest in this
inquiry lies solely in clarifying "the role of government
in providing consumer protection."
ROLE OF
GOVERNMENT IN
PROVIDING CONSUMER
PROTECTION
3.1 Since the 19th century it has been widely
accepted that consumers have a right to accurate information about
consumer products, including ingredients and standards of performance
(where they can be measured). We therefore accept that government
has a role to play in protecting the consumer, in particular ensuring
that advertising and product labelling are both accurate and informative.
3.2 We strongly believe that accurate labelling
is central to free consumer choice. We regret that government
health warnings do not always recognise the difference between
propaganda and accurate scientific truth, especially with respect
to the effect of "passive smoking" (non-smokers breathing
other people's tobacco smoke) which remains unproven. Special
pleading, such as salesmen use in advertising and other promotional
material, should have no place in government-inspired product
labelling or other government-funded literature.
3.3 Government defends its intrusion into
the smoking debate on the grounds that the public has to be informed
about the health risks associated with smoking. We accept that
government has a role providing the public with information, as
with BSE etc. However, after 40 years of government and other
publicly funded campaigns, there can be few adults in Britain
who are not aware that there are some health risks associated
with smoking.
3.4 Accordingly, adults should be allowed
to make up their own minds about whether or not they wish to start—or
continue—smoking. All that is now justified is a government
warning on tobacco products. For example: "People who smoke
do so at their own risk of damaging their health." Any attempt
to intensify government warnings will be (a) a wasteful use of
taxpayers' money, and (b) counter-productive because it will provoke
disbelief and "warning fatigue" (see 7.1).
3.5 If smoking tobacco does involve a risk
to health, it should be for consumers to judge whether they wish
to take that risk, as with driving a car, flying an aeroplane
or indulging in a wide range of sporting activities. They can
take advice, read articles and consult medical opinion. In a free
society consumers should then be allowed to draw their own conclusions,
without government intervention, just as we all decide about the
dangers of using kitchen knives or electric chainsaws, or going
skiing or taking up karate or even having sex.
3.6 It is hard for non-smokers fully to
understand that smoking brings pleasure to a great many people.
A culture dominated by people who ignore, or oppose, pleasure
(a culture, that is, dominated by puritans) is sure to be a miserable
culture. In a free society, government must ask itself—are
we really in the business of denying pleasure to such a large
number of people? Our view is that, beyond providing simple public
information, government should keep out of people's lives and
allow them to choose their own lifestyle, on condition that they
stay within the law and within accepted boundaries of social behaviour.
DISINFORMATION: HOW
GOVERNMENT CAN
MISLEAD THE
CONSUMER
4.1 While we accept that government has
a role in providing information, politicians too often abuse that
position with blatant disregard for facts which are far more complex
than slogans allow.On a scientific level, the smoking debate is
highly complex. It is disingenuous for government to pretend otherwise.
Yet on a whole range of tobacco-related issues (and motivated,
no doubt, by a desire to "protect" the consumer) government
does precisely that.
4.2 For example, to single out 16 cancer
and pulmonary diseases as "smoking-related" obscures
the FACT that two-thirds of the population—smokers and non-smokers
alike—are destined to die of them, mostly in their late
seventies and eighties. No objective doctor would deny the FACT
that, apart from smoking, diet, genes and lifestyle are major
factors in cancer and heart conditions.
4.3 With respect to "passive smoking",
government disinformation is even more pronounced. This, in spite
of the FACT that the scientific establishment has found it impossible
to reach agreement on this issue.
4.4 In America a landmark report by the
Environmental Protection Agency designed to show the harmful effects
of "passive smoking" was overturned in court. In 1998
the World Health Organisation admitted that the increased risk
of non-smokers getting lung cancer through "passive smoking"
is not "statistically significant". Most recently, in
July 1999, the Health and Safety Commission in Britain declared
that proving "beyond reasonable doubt that passive smoking
is a risk to health is likely to be very difficult, given the
state of scientific evidence." Such FACTS are very difficult,
given the state of scientific evidence." Such FACTS are very
different from the glib propaganda promoted by the anti-smoking
lobby.
4.5 The "passive smoking" argument
has two very clear objectives—one, to demonise the consumers
of a legal product and, two, to coerce employers into introducing
a ban on smoking at work. In the absence of scientific proof on
"passive smoking", we believe that neither objective
is compatible with a tolerant, democratic society.
GOVERNMENT
ROLE IN
COERCING CONSUMERS
TO GIVE
UP SMOKING
5.1 The anti-smoking lobby makes much of
the finding that 70 per cent of smokers wish to give up. Even
if we ignore the effect of exaggerated health warnings, what people
tell pollsters is quite different from how they behave in practice.
If adult consumers genuinely wish to give up smoking that is their
choice—it is no business of politicians who are known to
indulge their own weaknesses.
5.2 In particular, we deplore government
coercion and social engineering whereby consumers of a legal product
are forced to abstain by codes of practice or other regulations
which incite employers to ban smoking at work or send smokers
on smoking cessation courses.
5.3 We strongly believe that offices, pubs
and restaurants should be allowed to devise—in consutltation
with the workforce—a smoking policy best suited to their
customers and employees, without government intervention.
GOVERNMENT ROLE
IN PROTECTING
UNDER AGE
CONSUMERS
6.1 We fully accept that, as with alcohol,
government has a role in preventing children from obtaining tobacco
products, on the grounds that they are not able to make a mature
and reasoned judgement on the merits of such products. For children
there is a role for protective paternalism but not for adults.
6.2 However, the idea that children are
not already universally exposed to warnings against smoking is
absurd. In addition to constant reminders on television, radio
and in the press, they are given information at school. Indeed
children are often coerced into `voluntary' anti-smoking campaigns.
Agent provacateur activities against tobacconists and harassment
of smoking parents in a way ominously reminiscent of George Orwell's
`Junior Anti-Sex League' in 1984.
6.3 Common sense would strongly suggest
that the more smoking is attacked by earnest politicians and government-funded
bodies, the more attractive it becomes to young people. After
all, when the Estabishment (ie grown-ups) universally opposes
smoking—and smokers—what better way to rebel than
to light up?
GOVERNMENT ROLE
CAN BE
COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE
7.1 As indicated above (6.3), excessive
interference by government in consumer affairs can actually be
counter-productive. A 1999 report by the Social Issues Research
Centre in Oxford spoke of the public acquiring "warning fatigue",
and it is not fanciful to suggest that the increased number of
under-age smokers in Britain may be the result of unbelievable
warnings by government and other taxpayer-funded bodies. The same
might apply to adult smokers. Over the past year, for the first
time in almost 30 years, their number has begun to increase.
TOBACCO ADVERTISING
AS A
CONSUMER ISSUE
8.1 On 10 December 1999 the British government
proposes to introduce, two years ahead of schedule, an EU Directive
banning tobacco advertising. Far from bringing forward this unheralded
foray into censorship, we believe that politicians have no business
banning the promotion of a legal product. We would argue that
government is here taking on the role of "nanny" to
the British public that is well outside its remit in a free and
democratic society.
8.2 Worse, by attempting to "protect"
consumers, we believe that government intervention will disadvantage
them. For example, banning tobacco advertising will make it more
difficult for consumers to receive legitimate product information
which allows them to choose between competing brands.
8.3 In addition, such censorship must also
discourage manufacturers from developing new brands, including
so-called "safer" cigarettes, because the motivation
to develop such products will be reduced if companies no longer
have the ability to market them properly. Filters and low-tar
cigarettes are just two innovations that have appeared since the
health risks of smoking tobacco were first publicised.
8.4 Ironically, given the prominent health
warnings on all tobacco advertisements, the ban will reduce exposure
to all such warnings in newpapers, magazines and billboards the
length and breadth of the country. Much research confirms that
bans do not reduce smoking which flourished, for example, in the
USSR before 1989 when advertising was completely absent.
SUMMARY
9.1 FOREST accepts that government has a
role in consumer protection. However, a more corrosive danger
far greater to a free society than exaggerated health risks is
the threat to freedom of choice and individual responsibility
represented by the anti-smoking movement and supported by politicians
of all parties. "Consumer protection" does not justify
the massive deployment of propaganda, intimidation and coercion
in place of true information and persuasion.
9.2 Adults are now very well aware of the
health risks associated with smoking. We believe that beyond maintaining
public awareness of the possible health risks of tobacco, alcohol,
contaminated beef etc, government has no business lecturing and/or
coercing consumers to give up. Such action is an abuse of taxpayers'
money and could well prove counter-productive.
9.3 We deplore the government's decision
to ban tobacco advertising as an unwarranted attack on the rights
of adult consumers to receive information abou a legitimate consumer
product.
9.4 We support government attempts to stop
chidren buying tobacco products but deplore any attempt to use
children as a pretext for dramatically curbing the rights of adult
consumers.
9.5 We are concerned that, far from "protecting
the consumer" (most of whom don't wish or require to be protected),
this inquiry by the Health Committee is an attempt to justify
further restrictions on adult smokers in the name of "saving
" them from their own "folly", which is a most
dangerous delusion for politicians in a free and diverse society.
9.6 Finally, we urgently call attention
to the danger that the real agenda is to increase government intervention
in the lives of consenting adults and extract even more money
from British smokers who already pay over 80 per cent on tobacco
products and consequently contribute over £10.25 billion
a year to the Treasury.
September 1999
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