The absurdities of a ban on smoking
The absurdities of a ban on smoking
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
By Martin Wolf
Published: June 23 2006 03:00 | Last updated: June 23 2006 03:00
Smokers are the new lepers. One already sees them huddled in doorways. Soon the health bill now before parliament will ban smoking in all workplaces in England, including pubs, restaurants and private clubs. But the government revealed on Monday night that the ban might eventually apply to doorways and entrances of offices and public buildings, as well as to bus shelters and sports stadiums. Smokers are to be driven out into the wilderness, as befits their pariah status.
As a life-long non-smoker, I wonder what is driving these assaults. Is it an attempt to improve public health, as campaigners suggest? Or do smokers serve a need every society seems to have - for a group of pariahs that all right-thinking people can condemn? I strongly suspect the latter.
John Stuart Mill himself said that: "As soon as any part of a person's conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others, society has jurisdiction over it." The discovery of passive smoking has, for this reason, given the anti-tobacco lobby its success. It has overwhelmed the protests of libertarians. Riding a tide of moral indignation, the government has enacted a draconian law banning smoking even in private clubs. Now it plans to extend that ban outdoors.
So how many lives might this extension "save" (or, more precisely, prolong)? Indeed, how many lives might the ban itself save?
According to a survey published in 2003 by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, a mere seven out of 37 studies showed a statistically significant impact of passive smoking on lung cancer. But pooling the results of all the studies indicated that passive smoking increases the risk of death from lung cancer by 25 per cent.* This sounds dramatic. But these studies probably contain biased or inaccurate samples: some smokers may, for example, be classified as non-smokers. Moreover, the risk for non-smokers of death from lung cancer is itself only 10 per 100,000. So the increase generated by passive smoking comes to just 2.5 per 100,000.
If every non-smoker were exposed to sufficient quantities of second-hand smoke this would amount to a maximum of 1,000 deaths a year in England, since it contains some 40m non-smokers (both children and adults). Even 1,000 a year would be less than 0.2 per cent of all deaths in the country. In practice, however, the exposure - and so the number of extra deaths from lung cancer caused by passive smoking - must be very much smaller than this. Many people already live in an overwhelmingly tobacco-free environment. Indeed, if that were not the case, studies comparing those having low exposure to tobacco smoke with those having high exposure would be impossible.
Moreover, the government's ban does not even go near to eliminating passive smoking. As for the proposed extension to open spaces, it can add nothing. The notion that people would be exposed to dangerous quantities of passive smoke in open bus shelters or the doorways of buildings seems ludicrous. It also seems next to impossible to police fairly: where do doorways stop and who decides?
These difficulties do not, as it happens, apply to the places where the most damaging forms of passive smoking occur, in homes. That is where vulnerable children are likely to be most exposed and most damagingly affected.
If the government were engaged in a serious health endeavour, as opposed to gesture politics, it would outlaw smoking in the home. This would be perfectly feasible, or at least as feasible as the much discussed possibility of banning smacking. Children could be encouraged to "shop" their parents. Random visits could be arranged. Surely a government that has given us the antisocial behaviour order would find it neither difficult nor, still less, inappropriate to police the behaviour of adults in their homes.
There is a precedent, although not a happy one: Montgomery County, in Maryland, US, did ban smoking in the home a few years ago, but then retracted the ban under global ridicule. Yet why the ridicule should have won out is far from obvious. All those people who think that the risks from passive smoking justify comprehensive legislation on public places must see the still stronger case for protecting children at home. Indeed, I wonder why the UK government does not ban the noxious weed altogether, as Bhutan has done. That would be in accord with policy on a range of prohibited drugs.
Note: I am opposed to any such policy. I am merely pointing out the absurdities of current plans. Harm to others is a necessary justification, for government interference. But it is not sufficient. Intervention should also be both effective and carry costs proportionate to the likely gains. The bans already planned may well not meet these standards. Their proposed extension outdoors would fall vastly short. An extension into the home would be logical, but also intolerable. This is gesture politics at its worst.
*Smoking in Public Places, www.parliament.uk/post/pn206.pdf
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
By Martin Wolf
Published: June 23 2006 03:00 | Last updated: June 23 2006 03:00
Smokers are the new lepers. One already sees them huddled in doorways. Soon the health bill now before parliament will ban smoking in all workplaces in England, including pubs, restaurants and private clubs. But the government revealed on Monday night that the ban might eventually apply to doorways and entrances of offices and public buildings, as well as to bus shelters and sports stadiums. Smokers are to be driven out into the wilderness, as befits their pariah status.
As a life-long non-smoker, I wonder what is driving these assaults. Is it an attempt to improve public health, as campaigners suggest? Or do smokers serve a need every society seems to have - for a group of pariahs that all right-thinking people can condemn? I strongly suspect the latter.
John Stuart Mill himself said that: "As soon as any part of a person's conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others, society has jurisdiction over it." The discovery of passive smoking has, for this reason, given the anti-tobacco lobby its success. It has overwhelmed the protests of libertarians. Riding a tide of moral indignation, the government has enacted a draconian law banning smoking even in private clubs. Now it plans to extend that ban outdoors.
So how many lives might this extension "save" (or, more precisely, prolong)? Indeed, how many lives might the ban itself save?
According to a survey published in 2003 by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, a mere seven out of 37 studies showed a statistically significant impact of passive smoking on lung cancer. But pooling the results of all the studies indicated that passive smoking increases the risk of death from lung cancer by 25 per cent.* This sounds dramatic. But these studies probably contain biased or inaccurate samples: some smokers may, for example, be classified as non-smokers. Moreover, the risk for non-smokers of death from lung cancer is itself only 10 per 100,000. So the increase generated by passive smoking comes to just 2.5 per 100,000.
If every non-smoker were exposed to sufficient quantities of second-hand smoke this would amount to a maximum of 1,000 deaths a year in England, since it contains some 40m non-smokers (both children and adults). Even 1,000 a year would be less than 0.2 per cent of all deaths in the country. In practice, however, the exposure - and so the number of extra deaths from lung cancer caused by passive smoking - must be very much smaller than this. Many people already live in an overwhelmingly tobacco-free environment. Indeed, if that were not the case, studies comparing those having low exposure to tobacco smoke with those having high exposure would be impossible.
Moreover, the government's ban does not even go near to eliminating passive smoking. As for the proposed extension to open spaces, it can add nothing. The notion that people would be exposed to dangerous quantities of passive smoke in open bus shelters or the doorways of buildings seems ludicrous. It also seems next to impossible to police fairly: where do doorways stop and who decides?
These difficulties do not, as it happens, apply to the places where the most damaging forms of passive smoking occur, in homes. That is where vulnerable children are likely to be most exposed and most damagingly affected.
If the government were engaged in a serious health endeavour, as opposed to gesture politics, it would outlaw smoking in the home. This would be perfectly feasible, or at least as feasible as the much discussed possibility of banning smacking. Children could be encouraged to "shop" their parents. Random visits could be arranged. Surely a government that has given us the antisocial behaviour order would find it neither difficult nor, still less, inappropriate to police the behaviour of adults in their homes.
There is a precedent, although not a happy one: Montgomery County, in Maryland, US, did ban smoking in the home a few years ago, but then retracted the ban under global ridicule. Yet why the ridicule should have won out is far from obvious. All those people who think that the risks from passive smoking justify comprehensive legislation on public places must see the still stronger case for protecting children at home. Indeed, I wonder why the UK government does not ban the noxious weed altogether, as Bhutan has done. That would be in accord with policy on a range of prohibited drugs.
Note: I am opposed to any such policy. I am merely pointing out the absurdities of current plans. Harm to others is a necessary justification, for government interference. But it is not sufficient. Intervention should also be both effective and carry costs proportionate to the likely gains. The bans already planned may well not meet these standards. Their proposed extension outdoors would fall vastly short. An extension into the home would be logical, but also intolerable. This is gesture politics at its worst.
*Smoking in Public Places, www.parliament.uk/post/pn206.pdf
posted by Carlos T Mock at 9:53 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home