UK smoking ban is just the start. Could your home be next?
The man behind the ban on smoking in pubs and enclosed public spaces hasn’t finished yet. He wants to extend prohibition to private homes. Jonathan Owen reports on a smoking revolution
From today, smokers will have to huddle outside in the rain like miserable outcasts because cigarettes have been banned from almost every enclosed public space. But the war is far from over: even in victory the enemies of nicotine intend to show no mercy, fining companies that let their employees drop butts and even hunting down addicts to their own homes.
The Government’s top smoking adviser is calling for a new government tobacco task force that can identify anyone who still dares to puff away in apparent privacy and persuade, cajole or bully them into quitting. “We can apply powerful social pressure on parents not to smoke in the house. It must be completely taboo for parents to smoke indoors when there are children present,” said Professor Robert West of University College London. “We’re talking about thousands of children whose health is adversely affected by passive smoking.”
Today the air will be clean in many English public places for the first time. The biggest smoking ban anywhere in the world will affect 3.7 million businesses, including 200,000 pubs, bars and restaurants. Those who have never lit up will be free at last from the risks of passive smoking, as England experiences a social revolution of the kind enjoyed by Scotland, Ireland and Wales before it. But in every revolution there are losers - and this time the miserable ones will be those who have failed or refuse to give up, despite the hugely expensive campaigns and legislation aimed at getting them to do so.
Segregated as never before, forced outside and reviled, pro-smoking advocates can barely contain their fury at what is happening. “The Government has manufactured a climate of fear about the effects of passive smoking and used it to justify draconian legislation out of all proportion to the actual risk,” said Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ rights group Forest. He warns that there is increasing anger over “institutionalised bullying” and that if smokers are penalised further, the Government is going to have a serious revolt on its hands. “The more smokers are told what to do, the more they will reach for their fags in defiance.”
But they will not even be able to retreat to the living room if Professor West gets his way. The man behind the NHS’s stop smoking campaign is urging ministers to take the hardest of lines. “Society has to wake up to this problem and deal with it,” he said.
Every year 17,000 under-fives are admitted to hospital suffering from the effects of passive smoking. And of the 12,000 deaths from the same cause each year, only 500 are from exposure to smoke in the workplace. Respiratory diseases such as asthma and pneumonia are far more common in children who have a parent who smokes. They are three times more likely to develop lung cancer in later life than children of non-smokers.
“The jury is still out on whether more will stop smoking at home,” said Professor West, who is not convinced by the Department of Health’s hope of a knock-on effect. “My own view is that the ban will make little difference one way or the other.”
Dr Douglas Bettcher, director of the World Health Organisation’s Tobacco Free Initiative, told The Independent on Sunday: “There is no doubt that breathing second-hand tobacco smoke is very dangerous to your health. It causes cancer and other diseases that might lead to death. We know that there is no safe level of human exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke.”
A confidential government briefing document obtained by the IoS states that provisions are already in place for extending the ban to outdoor areas: “The Health Act 2006 does include powers to make non-enclosed places smoke free if there is a significant risk that people there might be exposed to significant quantities of smoke.”
Ministers are believed to be considering a range of options to reduce the number of smokers. These include testing pregnant women for carbon monoxide levels and referring smokers for treatment, as well as introducing stop-smoking clinics in schools. Parents who buy cigarettes for young children and allow them to smoke in the home are expected to be given extra parenting help as part of the Government’s scheme to target help at families where children are at risk of a poor home life.
Some Primary Care Trusts around the country have already started “smoke-free home” schemes where parents are encouraged to quit smoking for the sake of their children’s health. But supporters warn that cuts to anti-smoking programmes have created a postcode lottery of provision.
A recent Populus poll found that 91 per cent of people supported a ban on smoking near children, and 62 per cent thought there should be a ban on smoking while driving.
Fears that the ban on smoking in public places will lead to crowds of office workers huddling in doorways dropping thousands of cigarette butts have prompted ministers to prepare to impose tough new littering penalties.
From today pubs, clubs and restaurants can be required to provide bins for cigarette butts and clean them up. The Government is also planning to change the law so that employers can be fined if they fail to stop workers dropping cigarette ends on the street.
And despite this being a day of rejoicing for them, anti-smoking campaigners are still calling for a massive increase in funding for tobacco control programmes, paid for by putting up the taxes on smoking yet further. They estimate that £250m a year is needed.
Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) wants a ban on tobacco products being displayed in shops or sold in vending machines. It also wants an end to brand names, logos and colours so that all cigarettes are sold in the same kind of packaging - an idea that the tobacco industry, predictably, opposes fiercely.
The Department of Health is, however, finalising proposals for the introduction of graphic picture warnings on tobacco packs, which are expected to come into force next year. Ministers are also considering placing information on where to get support to quit smoking on packs. Officials are looking into a ban on the display of tobacco products behind shop counters. The age at which cigarettes can be bought legally will rise from 16 to 18 this autumn. The move will be accompanied by a nationwide advertising campaign that will target teenagers.
A Department of Health spokesperson said: “In line with other countries, we expect smoke-free legislation to increase the number of smoke-free homes, as awareness of the risks of second-hand smoke is raised. We will take stock after 1 July and look at what further action is needed on tobacco control.”
Martin Dockerell, Ash spokesman, said: “Around one in four adults smoke and that number is falling but only very slowly - around 0.4 per cent per year. We’ve seen in other countries how easy it is to allow smoking rates to creep back upwards. Any sense in the Department of Health that the smoking box has been ticked would be a disaster.”
Although the ban in England has been motivated by concerns over the dangers of second-hand smoke to non-smokers, a bitter debate continues over the scientific evidence. Tobacco companies dispute the claims of medical experts such as the WHO and US Surgeon General who say that second-hand smoke kills and that there is no safe level of exposure. Imperial Tobacco is unmoved by the concerns, stating that “a ban on smoking in public places cannot be justified on health grounds”.
But in an effort to go on enjoying the profits of one of the world’s most lucrative industries, worth an estimated $400m (£200m) globally, behind the scenes tobacco companies are racing to develop a range of smokeless nicotine products in anticipation of even greater restrictions to come.
England is the last part of the UK to bring in a smoking ban. It follows Scotland, which banned smoking last April, and Northern Ireland and Wales, where bans began earlier this year. In Scotland and Ireland, doomsday predictions of the negative effects on business have yet to materialise. Instead, restaurants and pubs have invested millions in transforming traditional beer gardens into open-air smoking dens, with people puffing away under parasols and outdoor heaters. In Ireland, a study of bar workers before and after the introduction of the ban in 2004 revealed a reduction of more than 80 per cent in “particulate matter” caused by tobacco smoke. In Scotland, which banned smoking in public places more than a year ago, the Scottish Licensed Trade Association claims there has been a 20 per cent drop in sales and some bar staff have lost jobs. But in a country where 19 per cent of 15-year-olds smoke and an average of 13,000 Scots die every year from tobacco-related illnesses, the ban is regarded as having brought the biggest change to everyday life for decades. In both countries, though, the expected decline in smoking has yet to happen.
International opposition to smoking continues to grow. Britain is supporting new proposals from the World Health Organisation at a meeting in Bangkok tomorrow. More than 140 countries that have already signed up to an international treaty on tobacco control will be asked to ban all smoking in public indoor places like the UK, as well as pressure people - particularly parents - not to smoke at home.
Smoking causes more than 100,000 deaths in the UK each year and costs the NHS about £1.7bn annually. In anticipation of a surge in smokers wanting to stop, £56m has been allocated for stop-smoking programmes this year. Meanwhile, the market for nicotine replacement therapy products is worth more than £100m, a 40 per cent increase since 2002, according to research analysts Mintel.
The Department of Health estimates that less than 10 per cent of England’s 10 million smokers will quit. But the latest statistics, for April to December 2006, show that the number of smokers that managed to quit actually fell by 10 per cent last year - 188,000 compared to 208,878 for the same period in 2005. Even so, the Government says that it is on track to reach its target of reducing smoking to 21 per cent of the population by 2010.
Despite all this, Chris Ogden, director of the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association, remains confident his product will survive: “The predicted ‘meltdown’ in tobacco sales [in Scotland and Ireland] has not materialised,” he said. “Smokers adapt to the new rules and after an initial dip in consumption, sales volumes recover.”
Additional reporting by Marie Woolf, Liam Collins, Nina Lakhani and Paul Kelby
Opinion: Fanning the flames of dissent
The debate has always inflamed passions - not least among smokers who have experienced years of price rises and curbs on where they can and cannot smoke. Here six influential smokers have their say.
‘I am appalled at it. They are treating us like children. I’m not a schoolboy. Mr Brown thinks he’s a prefect’
David Hockney, Artist
‘We’re suppressing everyone these days, not allowing adults to make their own minds up’
Antony Worrall Thompson, Chef
‘The alleged danger of so-called second-hand smoke is so phoney it stinks to high heaven’
Joe Jackson, Musician
‘You would have to search the world very hard to find a single government that would say it was abolitionist’
Paul Adams, British American Tobacco
‘Smokers should not be discriminated against simply because they smoke’
Chris Ogden, Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association
‘I’m inventing bike sheds to attach to buildings so it’s somewhere people can go to smoke’
Joanna Lumley, Actress
Further viewing: ‘Thank You for Smoking’, Jason Reitman’s satirical comedy about spin in the tobacco industry, is available on DVD
Have Your Say: UK smoking ban is just the start. Could your home be next?
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