UK PM proposes younger-generation tobacco ban

Taking an idea from New Zealand's progressive government, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has proposed a lifetime ban on purchasing tobacco products for those born after 2008.   

Rishi Sunak is following in Jacinda Ardern’s footsteps | The Telegraph | Annabel Denham: 

October 4, 2023 - "It should alarm us that the Prime Minister thought long and hard about smoking prohibition. It would be more reassuring to learn that this was another knee-jerk idea spouted out of the Conservative government’s random policy generator as its remaining days in power dwindle.... Had Number 10 given any deep thought to a progressive cigarette and tobacco ban – which will see the age at which people can buy these products rise by one year every year so that, eventually, no one can purchase them – they would perhaps have realised how ill-conceived, illiberal, infantilising and illogical it is.

"That the idea has its origins in New Zealand – the country that locked itself down for nearly the longest time and refused to let its citizens come home, and requires Māori theory of creation to be taught in science lessons – should have raised a red flag. Sunak, who recently re-instilled hope that he could be the true heir to Margaret Thatcher and cauterise the wound seared by 2022’s mini-Budget, has now aligned himself with Jacinda Ardern. He may be putting this to a free vote, but history will remember who put this legislation on the cards.

"Much as Akshata Murty may have endeared and persuaded delegates in Manchester of her husband’s commitment to Conservative values, there isn’t a shred of Conservatism in this policy. No personal autonomy; the idea that people will make trade-offs – and sometimes choose the unhealthy option, such is the wonder of the human condition. Though more often than not nowadays, when it comes to tobacco, they don’t: the proportion of smokers has fallen significantly in recent decades: from half of adults in the early 1970s to just 14 per cent now. 

"There was seemingly no consideration of the unintended consequences – the black market that this policy will buttress and the corresponding reduction in tax revenues. And, as usual, the nannying measure is being cloaked in the language of public health and justified on the grounds that it will help protect our socialist, creaking healthcare system. 

"Here are the facts, for MPs who may soon have to decide whether to wave through this awful policy. Smokers don’t cost the NHS money, they save it. A 2017 study from the Institute of Economic Affairs estimated a net saving of £14.7 billion per annum at the rates of consumption at the time, with the costs smokers incurred significantly outweighed by the sum of tobacco duty paid and the old-age expenditures avoided due to premature mortality. 

"This policy would limit consumer choice and create a two-tier society, one in which 48 year old John could purchase cigarettes while Jane, his 47 year old wife, would need to procure them in the underground economy. Shopkeepers would be required to decide on the spot whether a customer might have been born in 2004 or 2005. 

"Perhaps most importantly, prohibition does not work. As the examples of South Africa, India and others have shown, it puts smokers or drinkers at greater risk. It hands money to black marketeers at the expense of tax paying businesses: the South African government lost over 1.7 billion Rand (£77 million) in sin-tax revenue in April 2020 after tightening restrictions that March. In the 1920s, prohibition caused a crime wave across America.

"What is the enduring appeal of these paternalistic, petty regulations? They allow politicians to be seen to do something without spending money. As budgetary constraints have tightened while welfare, pensions and NHS spending have ballooned, elected representatives have pulled this lever with ever greater enthusiasm. But they do come at a cost. To businesses, consumers, workers in the form of lower wages. And pretty soon they’ll cost the Tories."

Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/04/rishi-sunak-smoking-ban-nanny-state-jacinda-ardern/

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak Unveils Plan To Ban Tobacco Among Youth | 10 News First | October 5, 2023:

California voters approve flavored vaping ban

 California's Vaping Flavor Ban Could Be Lethal | Reason - Jacob sullum:

November 16, 2022 - "The campaign for Proposition 31, a ballot initiative that Californians approved by a wide margin last week, urged voters to 'protect kids from candy-flavored tobacco.' That slogan packed an impressive amount of dishonesty into five words. 

"The initiative's main target was nicotine vaping products, which do not contain tobacco and were already legally restricted to adults. Proposition 31 decrees that adults may not buy such products in flavors other than tobacco, thereby undermining the most promising harm-reducing alternative to cigarettes.

"Proposition 31 was a referendum on S.B. 793, a 2020 law that restricts 'characterizing flavors' in 'tobacco products.' California counterintuitively defines 'tobacco product' to include 'an electronic device that delivers nicotine,' whether or not the nicotine is derived from tobacco. Under S.B. 793, 'the taste or aroma of tobacco' is the only 'characterizing flavor' that can legally be added to vaping products. That rule ... will ... discourage smokers from switching to a far less hazardous source of nicotine....

"The bill's author, state Sen. Jerry Hill (D‒San Mateo), declared that the industry 'wants to keep killing people with its candy-, fruit-, mint- and menthol-flavored poison.' Contrary to those warnings, there is no evidence that nicotine vaping products are 'killing' anyone. In fact, they are much less dangerous than cigarettes.... According to a 2018 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 'Laboratory tests of e-cigarette ingredients ... suggest that e-cigarettes are likely to be far less harmful than combustible tobacco cigarettes.' The British Royal College of Physicians likewise says 'vaping isn't completely risk-free but is far less harmful than smoking tobacco.' 

"The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acknowledges vaping's potential to reduce smoking-related deaths. 'E-cigarettes, as a general class, have markedly less risk than a combustible cigarette product,' says Brian King, director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products. The FDA nevertheless seems determined to ban nicotine vapes in flavors other than tobacco, the same policy that California has adopted....

"According to survey data, three-quarters of adult vapers prefer the flavors that California has banned. A 2022 study asked 851 vapers how they would respond if the government banned the flavors they prefer. While 29 percent said they would switch to whatever flavors were still allowed, 28 percent said they 'would find a way' to obtain forbidden flavors, which suggests that California-style bans could drive consumers toward potentially dangerous black-market options; 17 percent said they would 'stop vaping and smoke instead,' which would expose them to a potentially deadlier risk; and 13 percent said they were not sure.... 

"Last year in the American Journal of Public Health, 15 prominent tobacco researchers warned that ... 'While flavor bans could reduce youth interest in e-cigarettes, ... 'they could also reduce adult smokers' vaping to quit smoking.' Supporters of California's ban were so focused on portraying themselves as righteous protectors of children that they did not even acknowledge this danger. The consequences may prove lethal."

Read more: https://reason.com/2022/11/16/californias-vaping-flavor-ban-could-be-lethal/

"Why California Wants to Ban Vaping," The Truth about Vaping, Apr. 13, 2015:

UK Medical Adviser wants to destroy tobacco industry

Chris Whitty: The smoking industry must be destroyed | The Telegraph: 

November 3, 2022- "The cigarette industry should be destroyed for the benefit of public health, Prof Sir Chris Whitty, the UK Government’s Chief Medical Adviser has said. Sir Chris, who is also Chief Medical Officer for England, warned that smokers faced an appalling death, and said ministers are currently considering whether to bring in new policies to limit smoking.

"An independent review by Dr Javed Khan, which was published in June, recommended that the Government enact measures to ensure England was smoke-free by 2030, which could include stronger taxation, and limiting further where people can light-up. However the Government has not yet said which recommendations it will follow. 

"Speaking at a symposium on medical ethics held by the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, Sir Chris said: “Smoking is the biggest driver that we could easily deal with in the sense of the inequalities we see across the UK. It is an appalling way to die, it kills people in multiple ways. Everyone in this room I suspect would agree that getting smoking down to zero and destroying the cigarette industry should be an aim of public health, and I would say that very categorically.'

"Sir Chris said that there was a 'legitimate point' about adults being allowed to make their own choices, but warned that governments often faced lobbying from vested interests. But he said it was important for the state to intervene in industries that were based on addiction. 'Where the current Government has decided to go into these markets has not yet been decided, and that’s going to be up to the ministers who are currently in post,' he added.... 

"In 2019, the Government set an objective for England to be smoke-free by 2030, meaning only five per cent of the population would smoke by then. But the Khan review found that without further action, England will miss the smoke-free 2030 target by at least seven years, and the poorest areas in society will not meet it until 2044

"Dr Khan’s recommendations include raising the legal age of smoking each year until nobody can buy tobacco, and banning smoking in many public areas, such as outside of hospitals and in the majority of new social housing." 

Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/03/chris-whitty-smoking-industry-must-destroyed/

The "terrible science" behind smoking bans

We Used Terrible Science to Justify Smoking Bans - Jacob Grier, Slate:

February 13, 2017 - "In the early 2000's, as jurisdictions across the country fought over expanding smoking bans to bars and restaurants, anti-smoking advocates seized on ... research showing that secondhand smoke exposure can affect coronary functions to promote fear of secondhand smoke..... A decade later ... better studies with much larger sample sizes have found little to no correlation between smoking bans and short-term incidence of heart attacks....

"England, which implemented a smoking ban nationwide, presented the first opportunity to study the matter on a national scale. Researchers there credited the ban with a heart attack reduction of just over 2 percent nationwide.

"A 2008 study covering the entire country of New Zealand — a population smaller than England’s, but bigger than the American towns previously studied — found no significant effects on heart attacks or unstable angina in the year following implementation of a smoking ban; hospitalizations for the former had actually increased....

"A clever study led by researchers at RAND Corp. in 2010 tested the possibility that the large reductions identified in small communities were due to chance.... The conclusion of the study was blunt: 'We find no evidence that legislated U.S. smoking bans were associated with short-term reductions in hospital admissions for acute myocardial infarction or other diseases in the elderly, children or working age adults'

"A 2012 study of six American states that had instituted smoking bans came to a similar conclusion. So did a 2014 study, which is notable for being co-authored by some of the same researchers who had previously published papers suggesting that the Colorado towns of Pueblo and Greeley had experienced reduced rates of heart attacks after implementing smoking bans. When Colorado enacted a statewide ban, the authors had an opportunity to see if their earlier results could be duplicated across the larger population of nearly 5 million people. No effect appeared. As an additional test, they re-examined the data excluding 11 jurisdictions that had already implemented comprehensive smoking bans: The statewide ban still showed no effect....

"Rates of heart attack are not the only possible negative of secondhand smoke exposure.... There are also potential impacts on respiratory health, and of course lung cancer....

"'No clear link between passive smoking and lung cancer,' read a 2013 headline in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, hardly a pro-tobacco publication. That was a report on a cohort study tracking 76,000 women that failed to detect a link between the disease and secondhand smoke. The finding comports with existing literature suggesting that the effect is borderline and concentrated on long-term, high levels of exposure....

"There were good reasons from the beginning to doubt that smoking bans could really deliver the promised results, but anti-smoking advocacy groups eagerly embraced alarmism to shape public perception. Today’s tobacco control movement is guided by ideology as much as it is by science, prone to hyping politically convenient studies regardless of their merit and ostracizing detractors.

"This has important implications for journalism. As health journalists take on topics such as outdoor smoking bans, discrimination against smokers in employment or adoption, and the ever-evolving regulation of e-cigarettes, they should consider that however well-intentioned the aims of the tobacco control movement are, its willingness to sacrifice the means of good science to the end of restricting behavior calls for skeptical scrutiny."

Read more: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2017/02/secondhand_smoke_isn_t_as_bad_as_we_thought.html
'via Blog this'

A Tale of Two Articles

The main venue for my political writing online is web mag Nolan Chart. I've published between 100 and 200 articles over the 3 years I've been there. Some were hits, some were  flops.

I love it when a NC article of mine that originally flopped suddenly gets new life. The classic examples were my June, 2008 article "Government and Anarchy", and "Health Care vs. Pizza" from that July, both of which received less than 100 reads when first published, but both of which went on to break 1,000 reads the following year. For that I have to thank (1) the anarcho-libertarians who criticized the first article, but also linked to it; and (2) Barack Obama, who turned health care into a major issue in the U.S. last year. 

This summer may be seeing two new examples. The first was an article I wrote in October, 2008, "Barr and Nader agree to debate." That one is completely dated, except for one thing: as an update I included a link to the debate, the entire hour of which the Barr campaign had archived on You Tube. The Barr 2008 campaign has taken down its web site long ago; however (I discovered in June) it has left its videos up on YouTube, including the debate video. Accordingly, I rechristened the above article "Barr / Nader / Baldwin debate 2008",  rewrote its abstract to describe it as a portal to the debate, and moved it to the "Libertarian History" section of the chart. The result? The article went from 77 reads in the first five months of this year (15/month) to 123 over the next three (almost 3 times as many). 

Even more dramatic has been the change in my article "Smokin'" (another June, 2008 article, which was actually a 2000 review of the Fraser Institute book, Passive Smoke). That one has gone from 81 reads in the first seven months of 2010 (12/month), to 64 in August alone; more than 5 times as many. What accounts for that? 

In August I became a Wikipedia editor -- one of millions, so that is not a big deal. It has, though allowed me to clean up minor errors in articles when I'm reading Wiki, which I do frequently. One should not edit articles on oneself (or anything else one is personally involved in), so I have not edited the text of the Wiki article on me. However, since that article was flagged for being completely uncited, I've been adding footnotes to some of the claims. One was that I oppose "restrictions on public smoking" (which is close enough; what I oppose is government restrictions on smoking on private property), and I added "Smokin'" as a cite for that. 

I also added "Government and Anarchy" as a cite to the claim that I oppose anarchism, which has also given that article a boost: it has 140 reads for August, the most it's ever received in a month – not bad for a 3-year-old article at all. 

Unfortunately neither change can be seen by accessing the widget on the right side of this page; that leads to an older, cached version of the Wiki article. To see the changes, one has to go to the "George Dance (politician)" page on Wikipedia. 

Whether those two articles will continue their surges, and end up passing the 1,000-reads barrier, is unknown at this time, but I'm optimistic.