Smoking out the truth

In 1997 Tessa Jowell, then the new Labour Minister for Public Health, announced that she would like to see smoking banned in all public places and one of the first actions of the government that year was to set up an Anti-smoking Conference that vigorously promoted this view. It is now 2005 – and yet there is today no total ban nor the imminent likelihood of one. I was fascinated therefore by Ian Wilmore’s premature masterclass on the ‘brilliance’ of the ASH campaign on smoking in pubs and how they have allegedly defeated the ‘plodding but powerful’ drinks and hospitality trade bodies. As no doubt one of the ‘plodding’ pupils for his lesson I wonder why he considers this is a war to be lost or won and certainly why he considers us the enemy. He suffers from the delusion that anyone not for him must be against him. What in fact we have is a different agenda and a different audience. Even without statistics the industry has always known that smokers congregate in pubs and that a precipitate ban would diminish that customer base. In bigger pubs with a food or family market this might not be a huge disadvantage and no-smoking restaurants are being introduced rapidly and extensively to reflect customer demand. But very many liquor-led businesses especially in areas of economic deprivation just will not survive anything more than the slightest downturn. The move to wider and deeper smoking restrictions has to be managed – to reduce the social impact of job losses and business failure. The trade’s job has been how to reduce dependence on the traditional smoking regular as he (and she) continues to become a rarer creature. We have been at the forefront of education and awareness programmes that have successfully reached the level of 56% of pubs offering no-smoking areas – and this number is growing all the time. All of this has been achieved voluntarily and in tune with the changing public mood but without the need for legislation and yet more enforcement red tape. Self serving statistics have certainly been bandied about but ASH resolutely fail to accept any but those that reinforce their case. Anything or anyone that has disagreed with their prevailing wisdom has been attacked unmercifully. Richard Smith, editor of the British Medical Journal, was for example hit by a firestorm of criticism for publishing a major Californian study that came to the conclusion that there was little or no risk posed by ETS. Similarly the colossal success in exceeding the Charter targets horrified ASH and they had to scrabble for the fact that there were insufficient written policies in place to diminish the observable fact of thousands of policy notices on pubs, bars and restaurants up and down the land. It was this patent success that has led the government yet again to consult on the delivery of smoking restrictions and to push implementation out to the end of the decade and maybe beyond. This has been a considerable communications and lobbying achievement - but it has not been Ian Wilmore’s I suggest. The Government has a mission to reduce smoking prevalence and the current consultation targets a reduction from 1 in 4 adults to 1 in 5. This is entirely laudable as an objective. It would perhaps be more honest to declare that smoking bans in public places are really to do with limiting smoking opportunities - away from home. The potential collateral damage to individual businesses, their owners, employees and families should be weighed in the balance against the promotion of ASH’s reputation as an effective pressure group. Nick Bish is chief executive of the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers