In the end bans usually make things worse - the case of cigarettes

The problem with banning things is that it seldom stops them. Even when you take the sort of extreme and violent steps we've seen recently in The Philipines. Yet politicians, policy-makers and their friends in academia still champion bans - de facto or de jure.

One of those bans - although it doesn't look like one because no-one's passed a law with the word 'ban' in it anywhere except Bhutan - is that of tobacco. This is a ban by stealth implemented by steadily raising the price of fags to the point where more and more people can't afford to buy them. Or at least this is the theory.

The problem is that the bigger the gap between the cost of production and the post-tax retail price, the bigger the incentive for people to (illegally) arbitrage that gap. Why take the risk smuggling heroin or cocaine when you can smuggle tobacco! Check out your local paper and you'll see a steady stream of stories about illegal cigarettes (interspersed with stories about cannabis factories). With each increase in tobacco duty, we see an increase in criminal activity around tobacco.

And this is where it ends up - with violence:

The BAT manager was stabbed and bashed by at least three men, after he refused their order that he get into a car. The kidnappers arrived at the man's Sydney home at around 10pm on Saturday June 4.

A source said the manager was forced to "fight for his life" to ward off the kidnappers, who have not been identified. He was rushed to hospital after the attack.

The attack appears to be an unprecedented escalation in the struggle between policing agencies and the syndicates driving the illicit tobacco trade. Evidence suggests the attack was linked to BAT's support of police inquiries.

The manager in question was employed (by that source of all evil, a tobacco company) to support the police in investigating smuggling and illegal tobacco. Why? Quite simply because it's a billion dollar plus criminal business.

Right now, our one-eyed approach to smoking is creating a new international criminal business smuggling cigarettes and tobacco. In the UK, trading standards departments are advised that tobacco companies are the bad boys:

Tobacco companies continue to approach local authorities and local Trading Standards teams in particular with offers to support their tobacco control strategies primarily around tackling illicit tobacco but also in relation to other areas of enforcement including age of sale regulations. Local Authorities are recommended to examine such offers critically in the light of Article 5.3 and its guidelines and only engage in any collaborative work with the industry where this is considered strictly necessary.

That's right folks - the Tackling Illicit Tobacco for Better Health Partnership (essentially a bunch of trading standards officers) thinks it just fine to refuse to work with tobacco companies - businesses selling a legal product - in catching criminals.

So what we have is a new and lucrative business for organised criminals created entirely by policies designed to promote public health. And, rather than recognise the problem, public health and its agents refuse to co-operate with the tobacco companies in reducing the criminal impact of their (public health that is) policies.

Now I call this stupid.
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Send a letter to the Prime Minister for me...

There's a chance that the Government, in its desire to assuage some Lib Dems and obsession with indulging Labour's health fascist tendencies, will include the introduction of standardised packaging for cigarettes in the forthcoming Queen's Speech.

Campaigners - some of the 425,000 plus who wrote previously to oppose this policy - are urging people to write to the Prime Minister - you can get details of the campaign at Hands Off Our Packs.

The reasons why? Well here they are:

1. There is no evidence supporting the contention that standardised packaging reduces either the uptake of smoking or overall consumption. Indeed, in the year since the introduction of plain packs in Australia rates of smoking have increased

2. There is clear evidence to show that standardised packing increases both the counterfeiting of cigarettes and the smuggling of tobacco. The beneficiaries of the policy are criminals not the public

3. The policy will lead to job losses in places like Bradford - the jobs designing, planning and managing a multiplicity of different packaging designs will be gone, replaced with a simple print job

So do write urging the Prime Minister not to introduce this egregious - and pointless - policy.

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Friday Fungus: tobacco paranoia

Imagine the shock! You peel back the cling film from that box or healthy, organic mushrooms and there in full view is the most poisonous thing on the planet:

A father-of-four was left disgusted after his wife discovered a cigarette inside a packet of mushrooms.

These weren't cooked mushrooms you understand but the raw ones. So I'm guessing that the complaining father-of-four would be washing and cooking said fungal delights. In which case there is precisely zero risk from the presence of the evil cigarette.

As it stands the complaining father-of-four has done rather nicely - reimbursement (enough to buy another, almost certainly cigarette-free, box of mushrooms) and the offer of a free trip to see the grower, a great chance to take those four kids on a fun outing to a mushroom farm!

But then it was a cigarette - but for his attention the four children could be dying of lung cancer by now!

PS I know it's not Friday.

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Now about that cigarette smuggling...

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And its consequences:

Among its most prominent beneficiaries is none other than Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the one-eyed jihadist and smuggler who has claimed responsibility for the mass hostage-taking in al-Qaeda's name.

Nicknamed the Marlboro Man for his lucrative cigarette smuggling empire...

Enjoy the fruits of your prohibition, fussbuckets.

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Smoking and advertising - some hints why plain packs won't cut smoking rates

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For many years I've been carefully pointing out to people that advertising for cigarettes doesn't work the way they think it works. The "they wouldn't do it if it didn't work" argument is entirely true. It's just that what you think "works" means in this context isn't the same as what us marketers mean by "works".

The truth is that there's almost no relationship between the amount of advertising and marketing spend on cigarettes and the quantity sold. The advertising is targeted at the smoker not the non-smoker and aims to get that smoker to prefer one brand over another. This preference allows for the marketer to get a bigger margin because the consumer's choice set is limited by that advertising. Incidentally the same goes for soap powder, dog food and lemonade.

By way of proving this, here's US ad spend on cigarettes set against cigarette sales:

As you can see here there isn't any connection at all between advertising spend and cigarette sales - the advertising bans and restrictions have all been "shoot the messenger" campaigns made worse by the fact that the messenger wasn't talking to children or indeed any non-smoker but to smokers.

These facts suggest to me that introducing plain packaging for cigarettes will be just as pointless, just as ineffective. Inconvenience, annoyance and the further ostracising of the smoker will result but it won't make a jot of difference to either take up or consumption of cigarettes.

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So where do kids get their ciggies from then?

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In the latest piece of "stoptober" propaganda, we hear from trading standards in Bradford:

Trading Standards said its latest figures show that in Yorkshire and the Humber, 30 per cent of 11 to 15-year-olds had tried smoking at least once and that five per cent were regular smokers. 

Yet, when the stings are run there's precious few retailers selling to kids:

While figures from the last 12 months show only one shop in the city was caught selling cigarettes to youngsters in 26 undercover stings, West Yorkshire Trading Standards is urging staff to continue their work to stop underage youngsters picking up the habit. 

Now there's a chance that every single 11-15 year old who smokes is going to that one shop but somehow I doubt it. I guess a few are doing what I did and nicking the fags from mum and some others are getting older relatives or friends to buy the fags for them but I'm willing to bet that a fair few youngsters are getting their fags from out the back of a white van:

One-in-five discarded packets were for smuggled cigarettes or were fake brands manufactured for illegal sale – a 100 per cent increase on the results of a similar survey in 2011 which put the figure at 9.5 per cent. 

But of course ever rising prices and controls don't encourage smuggling!

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Now about that cigarette smuggling

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It seems that it's getting worse and this is before the nannying fussbuckets make it even easier for the smugglers by introducing plain packaging for fags:

The survey in Birmingham by MS Intelligence, a Swiss-based brand protection company, found that 30.9 per cent of packets were either bogus or purchased abroad.

A similar study conducted last year found the proportion was only 14.1 per cent - indicating that the number of illicit cigarettes smoked in Britain's second-largest city has more than doubled in 12 months. 

Even accounting for the limitations of this study, these figures demonstrate that there is a point at which sticking the price up every year stops working. And we have crossed that point - the criminals are switching from high risk heroin ans cocaine to low risk booze and fags:

Profit margins are said to be just as high because of the scale of the operation, but detection rates are lower and punishment less severe.

Recently, heroin and cigarettes have been smuggled together.

'Bring a container of cigarettes into this country and you're talking a £1.5 million profit,' said Mr O'Reilly. 'Organised crime is all over it.

'After a number of years in decline, there has been a sharp rise in illicit cigarettes.

'That's partly down to the economy - people can't afford the real product - and it is easier for counterfeiters to copy the packets.

'Plans for plain packaging are simply playing into the hands of organised criminals and counterfeiters because it will be so much easier to make copies.'

Perhaps we need to change our attitude to smoking. Rather than the abstain or nothing approach coupled with ever more draconian price and distribution controls, we should maybe consider treating adults like, well, grown ups. Setting the facts out before them, providing support for quitters and encouraging less harmful smoking options such as water pipes and e-cigarettes.

Not going to happen though is it! The fussbuckets just plan to shout louder, ban more and control more.

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Nannying Fussbucket of the Week: Oliver Kamm and the world's first 'libertarian ban'

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I find it quite humorous that Mr Kamm lays claim to being a 'libertarian' yet, in the same breath, can support proposals to ban smoking. That's right folks, dear old Oliver proposes the world's first 'libertarian ban.

It seems that our friend Mr Kamm is quite taken with the idea - proposed by some nutty local politician in Tasmania - that we should ban the sale of tobacco to people born after the year 2000, forever.

It seems that Oliver thinks it OK - and 'libertarian' - for one individual grown up to be allowed to buy something while another individual grown up isn't. Now leaving aside the need to require ID for purchases (another great 'libertarian' idea), Oliver seems to believe this is a remotely enforceable policy. Nobody is going to buy cigs legally and hand them across to someone else, there's no chance of anyone smuggling cigarettes into Tasmania in boats and trucks and planes. And the cops have so much spare time they can add another endless (and pointless) battle against the crime of personal choice.

Somehow, I think Oliver Kamm fails on the 'I'm a libertarian' front. He's just another nannying fussbucket.

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The police, the unions, business and the public think it daft. Can we ditch the idea of plain packs for fags now?

It seems that everyone bar the paid lackeys of The Churchof Public Health is against the idea of plain packaging for cigarettes.

The police:

Health Secretary Andrew ­Lansley’s plans to force ­cigarettes to be sold in plain packets have been blasted by police.

Nearly nine out of 10 officers – 86 per cent – believe the move will lead to a rise in smuggling and sales of fake ­cigarettes, a poll claimed yesterday.

The findings also show that six out of 10 believe that the clampdown would drive teenagers towards illegal ­cigarette suppliers where they could buy counterfeit branded packs.

And senior officers make clear the problem – 24 of them wrote to the Times about it:

Sir, Plain packaging risks fuelling tobacco smuggling. We are concerned at the possibility of the Government introducing standardised packaging of tobacco products. We do not wish to get involved in the public health debate. However, our concern is very much on the impact that it could have on crime and in particular on serious organised criminals who are the target of the major law enforcement agencies.

Tobacco products are relatively small, high-value items and are smuggled in extremely large quantities, depriving the Treasury of billions of pounds in tax revenues. Those who smuggle tobacco products are often involved in other forms of serious criminality. The introduction of standardised packaging would make it even easier for criminals to copy and sell these products to the unsuspecting public, including children. This would place further pressure on already stretched law enforcement agencies and at a time when the Government needs to secure much needed tax revenues.

To my thinking that ought to be enough but we can add trade union opposition – they’re worried about jobs (like I am since 1000 of those jobs are in Bradford):

The FDT National Committee has serious concerns that these measures are ill-thought through and not evidence based, and in some parts of our sector, particularly tobacco and alcohol, could simply make it much easier for criminals to sell (unregulated and untaxed) counterfeit and smuggled goods and thus have flow-on affects such as a significant impact on jobs in our sector.

And the packaging industry agrees:

A considerable amount of the business of both Weidenhammer and Chesapeake involves the printing of cigarette cartons for the export trade. At Wiedenhammer’s Bradford site a large proportion of the work involves the production of drums for loose tobacco and, if this business disappeared, then it is estimated that turnover would decrease by at least a third. The threat to the business is, therefore, very real and...there would be major implications for investment, jobs and the tobacco packaging supply chain across the UK. 

So the police think it will increase crime and make it easier for children to get hold of tobacco; the unions and industry think it will result in job losses and the public? Well they think it’s a daft idea too:

72% of those questioned in Populus poll today say that #plainpacks will cause people to turn to the black market http://ow.ly/cqEgr

So there you have it folks – the police, the unions, business and the public all think plain packaging for cigarettes is a daft and counterproductive idea. Can we dump the idea now?

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Killer Shisha! Or maybe not?

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Health Fussbuckets and Trading Standards in Bradford have got terrible agitated about the growing number of shisha bars in the city.

The district has seen a near six-fold increase in the number of shisha lounges over the last five years. There are known to be 17 lounges, up from the three which were operating in 2007

The Freedom of Information data, released by Bradford Council, following a request from The British Heart Foundation, has prompted the charity to issue a warning about the dangers of inhaling the flavoured tobacco through waterpipes. Dr Mike Knapton, associate medical director at the BHF, said: “Contrary to popular belief, shisha is not safer than smoking cigarettes. 

In fact the most frequently relayed myth about the shisha crops up again:

...a typical one-hour-long shisha smoking session involves inhaling 100–200 times the volume of smoke inhaled from a single cigarette 

Except it isn't quite like that now is it? This from an earlier occasion featuring our National New Puritan Broadcasting Service:

The BBC stands accused of relying on research which has been neither peer-reviewed nor published. The Department of Health and the Tobacco Control Collaborating Centre stand accused of issuing 'science by press release.'

..and the real evidence?

"There are numerous studies on this issue and there is absolutely nothing new in this scare-mongering report. The bottom line is that shisha smokers actually experience the same carbon monoxide exposure as cigarette or cigar smokers do."

However, to return to Bradford's own fussbuckets, there's an interesting twist. Shisha is worse for another reason, these people tell us:

...flavoured tobacco is smoked over coals and fumes from these fuels add new toxins to the dangerous smoke...secondhand smoke poses a serious risk for non-smokers, particularly because it contains smoke not only from the tobacco but also from the heat source, such as charcoal

So I guess we need to start a campaign to ban real fires from pubs too? And stop barbecues? We've been told for all these years that 'secondhand' tobacco smoke is uniquely dangerous, yet now the New Puritans are saying what we've always said - that if cigarette side-stream smoke is bad for you so must be any other kind of smoke or particle filled fumes! Such as diesel...

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Tenets of the New Puritans #4: Bad lifestyle is an illness - and the doctors can help you

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Part of the New Puritan attack on our lifestyle choices depends on the characterisation of us – or those of us who choose to smoke, drink and eat fatty, salt-laden foods – as victims rather than as free individuals making personal choices.

Tobacco companies spend billions of dollars every year to get children and teens to use tobacco. They need 5,000 new smokers everyday, because some smokers quit or die. Today your child learned how advertising tries to get youth to smoke.

And…

Disturbing new marketing methods are being deployed by food firms to ensure youngsters develop an appetite for products high in salt, sugar and fat.

Or…

Add to these other forms of advertising (magazine ads, billboards, Web sites and brand-related clothing and products), signage at sporting events, sponsorship of sports and TV & radio programs....... and most young people will have seen approximately 100,000 alcohol ads by the time they turn 18.

The message is clear, the companies that make cigarettes, brew and distil alcohol and sell hamburgers are enticing us into dangerous addictions. The sheer weight of advertising leaves us with no choice, we are drawn inexorably towards these products and the counter-weight of health promotion and protection does not work. We are victims, we are ill.

This means, of course, that there is an answer – not just the regulation and control of the companies serving us with bad habits but the development, indeed the medicalisation, of these sad addictions. This has been dubbed the Nutt Solution after the former government drugs advisor of that name.

Professor Nutt doesn’t like alcohol:

Last week I attended a discussion group chaired by the Observer's health correspondent Denis Campbell where one of the other experts, a public health doctor, asserted that alcohol should be treated differently from tobacco (and by inference other drugs) because there is no safe dose of tobacco whereas alcohol is safe until a person's drinking gets to "unsafe" levels. Its health benefits for the cardiovascular system are also often used to support the claim that in low doses alcohol is safe, for how else could it be health-promoting?

The myth of a safe level of drinking is a powerful claim. It is one that many health professionals appear to believe in and that the alcohol industry uses to defend its strategy of making the drug readily available at low prices. However, the claim is wrong and the supporting evidence flawed.

Which on the face of it doesn’t fit well with his supposedly liberal views on drugs:

Nutt had criticised politicians for "distorting" and "devaluing" the research evidence in the debate over illicit drugs.

Arguing that some "top" scientific journals had published "horrific examples" of poor quality research on the alleged harm caused by some illicit drugs, the Imperial College professor called for a new way of classifying the harm caused by both legal and illegal drugs.

Until you realise that people like Professor Nutt want the medical profession to control the distribution of ‘drugs’ (and such people include alcohol and nicotine in this distribution). And Professor Nutt actively promotes misinformation about alcohol through education:

The teaching module shows the students how the drinks industry makes its own voluntary codes and them blatantly ignores them. It shows how the Portman Group [that has responsibility for alcohol education] whilst appearing to be concerned about alcohol harm is actually dominated by the drinks industry. Also it is revealed that the public health message in the UK is left to the drinks industry. The myths surrounding alcohol are discussed and then the students are asked to make up their own mind about the issues. Profit motives of the drinks industry, the tax income and political agendas are exposed and compared with the cost to society, mortality and shortening of life caused by alcohol use.

Professor Nutt is the most prominent figure – there are others such as former Liberal Democrat MP, Evan Harris – is a campaign to liberalise drugs laws and tighten laws on drinking so as to, in effect, medicalise the distribution. A process we see beginning to happen with smoking:

The parliament in Reykjavik is to debate a proposal that would outlaw the sale of cigarettes in normal shops. Only pharmacies would be allowed to dispense them – initially to those aged 20 and up, and eventually only to those with a valid medical certificate.

The important fact here is that, with drug distribution under the control of doctors, it opens up the market for pleasure drugs to the pharmaceuticals industry. Indeed, the market for nicotine replacement therapy worldwide already exceed £3bn – and we can expect this to increase substantially as the industry targets countries such as China, India and Indonesia.

It is but a short step from this position with smoking (and no doubt currently illegal drugs) to a similar position on alcohol – registered addicts only able to purchase alcohol with a doctor’s certificate. And a new market for “alcohol replacement therapies” produced and marketed by the big pharmaceuticals businesses.

In the food industry this process of medicalisation is already well advanced – witness all the adverts telling us of Omega 3, good bacteria and reduced cholesterol plus the enormous market for vitamin supplements. Again the medical profession has attacked these adverts – not because the products are unhealthy but because they amount to self-prescription. We can see the EU’s regulation of vitamin products as part of this process with doctors and the pharmaceuticals industry combining with government to destroy a successful industry that competes with them.

Some of the most popular vitamin and mineral pills are likely to be banned after a vote in the European Parliament this week.

Some of the most popular vitamin and mineral pills are likely to be banned after a vote in the European Parliament this week.

The vote, on Tuesday, is expected to put the finishing touches to a new EU law designed to crack down on the sale of the pills. Critics say that the law – which has already been approved by EC governments, including Britain, and the European Commission – will plunge countless people into distress, and put hundreds of health food shops out of business.

The law – which opponents believe is being pushed through at the behest of multinational drug companies wanting to stamp on competition from alternative products – is being promoted by the commission as a safety measure. But the commission itself admits that "scientific research has recently established real or potential benefits to health" that could result from some of them.

We see in this how the message of “safety” combines with the interests of powerful lobbies (the medical profession and pharmaceuticals) and the desire of New Puritans to ensure pleasure is purposeful.  And at the core of this is the view – put forward by Professor Nutt, that some people are addicts, trapped into dependence from their first drag or their first sip:

Although most people do not become addicted to alcohol on their first drink, a small proportion do. As a clinical psychiatrist who has worked with alcoholics for more than 30 years, I have seen many people who have experienced a strong liking of alcohol from their very first exposure and then gone on to become addicted to it. We cannot at present predict who these people will be, so any exposure to alcohol runs the risk of producing addiction in some users.

Note that the good professor wraps his bias up in science – there is no evidence to support his contention – and plays the “I’m a doctor” card to provide support for his mission against alcohol. These potential addicts – who could be anyone – require protection and, since we don’t know who they are everyone is at risk. Ergo everyone should be protected – alcohol, like cigarettes, must be controlled.

By the doctors of course!

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Tenets of the New Puritans #3: Healthy living, hedonism and the curse of the clown

In appreciating the ideology of the New Puritans we have to understand first that these are not bad people hell bent on destroying our pleasures. Rather they believe – fervently in many cases – that it is those very pleasures that are destroying us and damaging society. It is as the only song goes:

Cigarettes and Whisky and wild wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane
Cigarettes and Whisky and wild wild women
They'll drive you crazy, they'll drive you insane

To which sins we must now add the humble hamburger:

We worry so much about the many dangers to our children, like drugs and pedophiles and violence. But we often take for granted what might very well be the largest danger of all to our kids: the hundreds of billions of dollars spent each year on ads designed to get them hooked on junk food.

That's why I think it's important that this week more than 550 health professionals and organizations signed an open letter to McDonald's, imploring the fast food giant to stop marketing junk food to kids.

We have to understand the mindset of those “550 health professionals and organisations” since they are the shock troops of New Puritanism. And what they want is for us to adopt their ideology of “healthy living”. And a great deal of resource is invested in promoting this ideology through the health service and through local councils

In this section you will find a number of improvement tools, examples of good practice and case studies that address issues of health inequalities and health improvement. The information is divided into subject areas and includes those with high impact and high importance on the current government agenda. We showcase successful case studies from across all sections of the health improvement and health inequalities agenda - from smoking and teenage pregnancy to sexual health and the built & natural environment.

So say the LGID – the ‘improvement and development’ arm of the Local Government Group (what used to be the LGA). And goes on to provide hundreds of examples of what local councils and their ‘partners’ are doing – much of it good advice, some of it excellent and impactful but all of it entirely wedded to the New Puritan ideology of ‘healthy living’.

The problem isn’t that good diet, exercise and moderate behaviour are being promoted but that things that fall outside the ‘healthy living’ prescription – alcohol, “fatty foods”, salt and fizzy drinks – are condemned outright. Hence the letter from those “550 health professionals and organisations”. And such condemnation does not require good evidence but instead just two things – the fact that consumption is a pleasure and the suggestion, ideally from a doctor or “healthy living expert”, that that consumption might be bad for you.

Armed with these two findings, the New Puritans set about persuading the authorities to start controlling these bad pleasures:

‘We really need to be careful about when these adverts are being shown.

'A 9pm watershed for junk food adverts would ensure that they are banned from not just children's programmes during the day but programmes shown at night where families view them together.
'Parents also need to limit their children's screen time and talk to them about the motives behind advertising.'

Britain is said to be on the brink of an obesity epidemic.

The last line – unsupported by evidence, baldly stated – shows how the New Puritans are winning the argument. This is not prohibition but control and such regulation is needed to protect society from that obesity epidemic (as if getting fat is something that we can catch). This will be followed by calls for stronger labelling, health warnings and other elements of the New Puritan “denormalisation” strategy.

And remember, New Puritans are not evil, they are pleasant people who care deeply about society. They are holding out against decadence and hedonism – seeking to protect us from our actions. Importantly, we are infantilised – powerless in the face of advertising’s might and the corruption of “big business”. By accepting that we are unwilling puppets, we allow the New Puritans space to promote another of their beliefs – that the ‘wrong’ lifestyle choices can be cured by doctors. That sin should be medicalised, that the sinner is a victim of “Big Tobacco”, the “Beerarchy” or “the Evil Clown”

I will look at corporate backing for New Puritanism on another occasion but remember that this is now – since the capture of the NHS by New Puritans – a massive, successful and expanding industry supported by multi-million pound public budgets. So it is no surprise that big industries such as pharmaceuticals are at the forefront of the attack on booze, fags and hamburgers.

The idea of “healthy living” seems harmless yet has become the soft smiling face of the New Puritan mission – a mission to “denormalise” those unapproved pleasures. Most importantly, the New Puritan sees what we eat as a mean to an end – to a “healthy life”. Food as pleasure, indulgence, as a joy isn’t acceptable – if we are to get pleasure from food is should be from knowing we eat only that which is “good for us”. For the New Puritan, all aspects of our lifestyle must be purposeful and eating a McDonald's or grabbing a Snickers from the countline is not purposeful – such hedonism has to be stopped:

A new Food Commission campaign will call for supermarkets, grocery stores and pharmacies to stop displaying snacks at the checkouts and to put such products out of temptation's reach.

While we have yet to reach the point where one taste of cheap chocolate or one hamburger leads inexorably to a squalid death from heroin addiction, the message remains that such things are indulgent and dangerous – and there are healthy alternatives!

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