In praise of the smoking ban
1 October 2007It is now three months since smoking was banned in enclosed public places in England, bringing it into line with the rest of the UK. I have to say that, while Tony Blair’s government have been unpopular on some issues, and have been criticised for producing too much legislation, the Health Act 2006 is one of Labour’s finest achievements, and marked an important stage in the UK’s transformation into a 21st century nation. Never again will people have to put up with breathing in other people’s smoke while working, or enjoying a meal or a drink indoors.
Even the requirement to display signs at the entrance to every building has proved not to be as onerous or unsightly as I had feared at one stage. Most shops already have notices plastered all over their doors or windows; in many cases this already included a “no smoking” sign. So the addition of the standard A5 sign has had little impact. Besides, this requirement will be reviewed in a few years’ time.
Progression of curbs on smoking
My disliking for tobacco smoke goes right back into my early childhood. I have memories of travelling by train, and of it being quite overcrowded. Yet there was one carriage on the train that had plenty of empty seats: it was the smoking carriage. Even then, people preferred to stand for their journey, rather than sit in a smoky environment. Throughout the 90s, trains began to go smoke-free. Train operator GNER became the last to ban smoking on its trains in 2005. They were way behind all other services – by this year it was more or less already taken for granted that trains are places people can’t smoke.
With the smoking ban this July, train companies have decided to extend it beyond the scope of the Act to include smoking on all parts of railway stations, including uncovered platform areas. They already had the powers to do this under railway byelaws, but it seems sensible to introduce the restriction at the same time as the main ban. This will put an end to pathetic scenes such as the one I once witnessed on a railway platform. The train stopped, and the first passenger to jump off was a man already lighting the cigarette that was in his mouth. Puffing away, he then joined the end of the queue of people boarding the train. Less that 30 seconds later, he dropped his cigarette, and climbed back on. Were those really the actions of someone who smokes because he chooses to, and because he enjoys the habit?
As a child, my parents rarely took me to the cinema. One of the reasons they always gave was the amount of smoke inside the auditoria. I can remember in the late 1980s when the first American-style multiplex opened nearby, how wonderful it was to be able to watch a film on the big screen without sitting in a fog of smoke. After all, no-one would want to sit on soiled seats, so why should they have to breathe dirty air? By the late 90s, cinemas didn’t even need to tell people not to smoke any more. Cinemas had simply become places where people didn’t smoke.
Virtually all shops and offices were already non-smoking even before the ban came into force. The law came at the right moment: the time where voluntary measures had more or less been taken as far as they could. The last few offices where the boss likes to smoke would never have gone for a ban without legislation. Of course, the biggest effect has been felt in the entertainment industry. Few restaurants, pubs or nightclubs were ever going to go it alone and be one of the few not allowing smoking out of fear of the effect on their trade, even though the majority of their customers prefer it now smoking isn’t allowed. The law has meant they are all in the same boat, so preventing smoking hasn’t put anyone at a commercial disadvantage.
Flawed arguments against the ban
Of course, there are some people who have criticised the ban as “draconian” or as an infringement of their rights. Many of these are, quite naturally, smokers. But there are also some non-smokers who claim to hold this view. The latter are most usually middle-class so-called liberals who have white collar jobs. They have spent their working lives in offices where smoking has always been banned, yet are all too quick to speak out against the new law. In the past, it would have been people in lower social classes whose health suffered from the effects of smoke. They would have been more likely to work as a waiter or behind a bar. “But wait!” say the libertarians, “people could choose whether they worked in a smoky place.” Unfortunately, that’s not true. Many people, particularly those on low incomes, have no choice over where they work, they have to take whatever job they can find. They certainly don’t have the luxury of choosing a workplace on the grounds of whether smoking is allowed. Those people deserve to have their health protected by law.
The whole argument that a ban on smoking in public somehow infringes people’s rights is extremely flawed anyway. There are many things that people might enjoy doing in their own homes, but that could lead to arrest were they carried out in public (use your imagination). There are many things that people do in the privacy of their own homes that are simply not socially acceptable to do in public, and smoking has become one of them. But then we come to one of the lies that some people state about smoking: that smoking is a choice an adult makes and that they enjoy doing it. If that were true, they wouldn’t mind not being able to do it when they were in public. As an example, I might enjoy listening to loud film soundtracks; but I don’t expect to be able to do so all the time, for example when having a meal in a quiet restaurant. Someone else might like to ride the unicycle; but they are not going to do so while watching a performance at the theatre or using the London Underground.
Smokers somehow consider their habit to have a special status which means they must be allowed to do it wherever they are, and while doing whatever else they might be doing. No other activity has this status, so why should smoking? Most people are at work all day looking forward to whatever they are going to do in the evening. Why are smokers so different that they have to sneak outside every half an hour? They can enjoy the pastime they take pleasure from when they reach home in the evening.
Of course, the simple truth is that smoking is not a pleasurable activity that smokers, as adults, choose to do. Smoking is a drug addiction. If people who smoke can actually admit to that fact, they should go to their doctor and receive treatment to cure their addiction. If on the other hand, they still insist that they choose to smoke and it’s a pleasurable pastime, fine – but in that case there’s no need for them to do it all the time wherever they are; they can wait until they are in the privacy of their own home, just like everyone else enjoying different pastimes.
There are also smokers (or their apologists) who accuse people of “persecuting” smokers. They speak of smokers as if to be a “smoker” is the same as to be a member of a particular race or to practise a certain religion. Smoking can not be compared with these. A “smoker” is simply a person who sometimes smokes. They are in no way being persecuted. All that is asked of them is that they don’t smoke in public. The cigarette isn’t surgically attached to their mouth. If they are just normal people, they can do whatever they want in just the same way as a “non smoker”. They are the ones who label themselves as “smokers”, thereby creating a class of people who is seemingly discriminated against. But again, people who smoke seem to think they have to be allowed to do so wherever they are and whatever they are doing, unlike anyone who enjoys any other pastime. But then, do you know, the local restaurants in my town really persecute tubists? (That’s people who play the tuba, by the way.) None of them allows tubists to use the restaurant. Isn’t that dreadful? I think we need to form a pressure group straight away. Some tubists even complain that their employers don’t allow them to play while they work at their desks, and even put a limit on the number of tuba breaks they are allowed to take.
Why smoking can’t be allowed in public
Even if it were to be found that passive smoking doesn’t cause cancer, heart disease or any other illness, there would still be a very strong case for preventing people from doing it in public. Just the fact that it’s extremely unpleasant should be enough of a reason. No-one would consider making a very loud noise in public, or spraying others with water, or emitting any sort of foul smell. So why was smoking around others considered acceptable for so long?
However, that’s entirely academic. The only studies that have claimed to find no link between passive smoking and disease are those sponsored by tobacco manufacturers. To anyone who still claims that passive smoking doesn’t cause lung cancer, I’d say just one name: Roy Castle. The popular entertainer, a lifelong non-smoker, died from lung cancer in 1994. While it can obviously never be proved, his cancer was almost certainly due to Roy spending many years playing the trumpet in smoke-filled clubs. As a presenter on the children’s TV programme Record Breakers, Roy was one of my favourite personalities (and it’s rare for me to look up to celebrities at all). As far as I’m concerned, the tobacco industry, and every single smoker, apologist, or anyone else who supports it, are collectively responsible for his death.
I’m sure many people with asthma would also have something to add to this debate. I am fortunate enough not to suffer from this condition, but as I understand it, many asthmatics were unable to go into pubs or other smoky places prior to the ban. They really were discriminated against: premises quite rightly have to have ramps to make them accessible to wheelchair users; so it’s only right that they have to be smoke-free to make them accessible to asthmatics.
Once again, I hear the pro-smokers saying, “Wait! People can choose not to go to those smoky places.” But as I’ve already explained, many people didn’t have a choice where they worked. There were also few pubs or restaurants that were smoke-free, and even then, people aren’t always at liberty to choose where to go. Sometimes, people might be invited to socialise with their work colleagues. Politely refusing could leave them out of favour with their boss or co-workers, but why should they have to make the choice between that and their health?
There was always one other anomaly surrounding smoking. Anyone who has worked in industry or research where chemicals are used will know about COSHH. If there is even the slightest risk of illness, or of coming into contact with the smallest quantities of a carcinogen, it requires completing reams of paperwork, and most probably conducting procedures within a fume cupboard, or wearing protective equipment. Yet until July, it would have been quite legal for people to smoke at work without any risk assessment taking place, exposing everyone nearby to toxic particles that are far worse than many of the controlled chemicals. This loophole has finally been closed by the Health Act, and before then, many workplaces were smoke-free anyway. Yet the same principle applies to people walking in the street. Anyone found carrying a toxic chemical in the street is likely to be arrested (and these days no doubt charged with being a terrorist). Yet they can quite legally expose people to over 40 carcinogens, and to toxins including carbon monoxide and cyanide – as long as it’s from the end of a cigarette, it’s legal.
The future
Campaigning for smoking bans doesn’t end here, there’s still a long way to go. One of the inevitable side-effects of the new law is that more people smoke outdoors. This causes a nuisance for people living near establishments such as pubs. It also means an increase in smoking-related litter on the ground – something that’s completely indefensible, in common with all litter. A responsible person would never drop any litter, yet somehow I suspect someone who smokes is likely to be of the mindset that it’s OK to drop litter: perhaps that’s a prejudiced view, but I’d be only too happy if smokers could prove me wrong by ensuring there are never cigarette ends on the street.
The outdoor smoking can be quite noticeable in a busy street, however. This is still quite unacceptable. As discussed throughout the article, making the environment around you unpleasant for other people it not considered acceptable; nor is exposing others to toxic chemicals allowed. So why should people be allowed to smoke in the street? We are still seeing the same old attitude towards smoking: that it’s something special that automatically should be allowed everywhere. In time, this will have to be addressed.
While we are talking about the future, there’s one point at least that I hope everyone could agree on, whether they approve of the smoking law in general or not: smoking should be banned in the Palace of Westminster just as it is everywhere else. The hypocrites are still allowed to have smoking areas in the Houses of Parliament. We can’t have one law for them, and one for everyone else.
There is one occasion in particular where I’ve always thought smoking should be banned, on this occasion not because of health risks or passive smoking: while driving. Just this week, a new version of the Highway Code has advised people not to smoke while driving, as this could mean they are not fully in control of their vehicle, so could be prosecuted. This was the situation with mobile phones, before a law banning hand-held phones while driving was introduced. It only makes sense that smoking is a distraction. Holding anything in the hand when driving must seriously hinder a driver’s ability to control the vehicle safely; if the item in question is a collection of burning material, that makes matters much worse. What happens if he drops it? He’ll have to retrieve it quickly – not easy in the fast lane of a motorway. And what if there is an accident? Is a lighted cigarette a good thing to have around spilled fuel? Smoking while driving should be outlawed by a specific law in the way that using a mobile is. Of course, the pro-smokers have all come out of the woodwork to accuse the government of further persecuting smokers. It’s even been described as being a ban on people smoking in one of the few refuges still available to them. But that is not true. There is no ban on people smoking in their private car, as long as it’s not used for work purposes. The Highway Code says that the driver shouldn’t smoke while driving. He can pull into a layby to smoke; he can pop out to the car park at lunch time to smoke in his car. But the smoking lobby does like to twist any bit of news to claim smokers are being persecuted.
Today, three months after the ban, is also the day that the age at which cigarettes can legally be bought is raised to 18. However, as far as I’m aware, it’s still legal to smoke from the age of 14, just not to buy tobacco products. Perhaps this should be addressed.
Another future measure I would like to see is a ban on smoking in front of children, whether in the street or at home. It breaks my heart to see a parent with a child, often a very young child in a pushchair, with the parent smoking away. Not only is it damaging the child’s health, it also surely makes them much more likely to take up smoking when they are older. Smoking around a child amounts to child cruelty. And again, I can think of things most parents wouldn’t do in front of their children. Why does smoking have to be different?
With housing in such short supply, and people living closer and closer together, in flats or terraces, it is inevitable that smoke will drift into other people’s homes. Earlier this year, one couple were already investigated by environmental health officers after smoke found its way into a neighbour’s house. Quite right too – there’s no reason why smoking should be treated more lightly any other environmental nuisance. But perhaps we need stronger laws enshrining the right of people not to have to breathe the smoke of others in any situation.
Ultimately, of course, the solution to all these problems would be to ban smoking altogether. Of course some people would still do it, but other people would always have the absolute right to complain if they were bothered by tobacco smoke. It may seem impossible that smoking could ever be banned outright, yet 30 years ago, who could believe that smoking could be banned from all indoor public places? In 30 years’ time we may well see that total ban, with this foul habit, which is only allowed now due to an anomaly of history, finally consigned to the ash-tray of the past.
