At what point does smuggling negate the health gain from tobacco duty rises?

Until just a few years ago the words 'illegal tobacco' seldom, if ever appeared in the press and media. It's not that the smuggling of tobacco didn't take place (how many folk brought home from overseas a couple of hundred fags for Uncle George or Grandma) or even that there weren't sufficient examples to make police, trading standards and customs keen on sending out press releases when arrests were made.

Now is different. The 'illegal cigarettes' story is a mainstay of the local press (maybe only topped by cannabis factories and 'nuisance' motorcycles) and a regular item on the agenda of local councils:

During the past month, officers from trading standards gathered almost 100,000 cigarettes and 37kg of hand-rolling tobacco, worth more than £40,000, from retailers in operations that also targeted premises in Leeds, Kirklees and Wakefield.

The seizures included counterfeit, non-duty paid and incorrectly-labelled cigarettes and tobacco. Since April 2014, West Yorkshire Trading Standards has seized almost 700,000 cigarettes and 300kg of hand-rolling tobacco.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council officers have seized 14,000 counterfeit cigarettes and 5kg of hand-rolling tobacco in a joint operation with Staffordshire Police.

The operation focused on the sale of illicit tobacco at nine premises in Hanley, Tunstall and Cobridge.

A BRADFORD shopkeeper has been prosecuted for a second time for selling illegal cigarettes and counterfeit tobacco.

Hemen Ahmed Hussain, of Chislehurst Place, Little Horton, was given a 150-hour community order by magistrates for possessing 2,500 cigarettes and 3.2kg of hand-rolling tobacco with an intent to supply.

The goods were seized by officers from West Yorkshire Trading Standards (WYTS) following a visit to Baz's off-licence in Southfield Lane, Little Horton, in September last year.

A Salford couple have been jailed after smuggling 25 tonnes of fake tobacco in a fraud costing the taxpayer almost £4m.

Feng Gao and his partner Mingshu Yang shipped boxloads of illicit hand rolling tobacco into the country.

The criminal duo, of St Heliers Drive, Salford, concealed the illegal tobacco in false soles and shelves as they shipped shoes and furniture to the North West.

The reason for this explosion in illicit tobacco sales is pretty simple - in the UK up to 88% of the recommended retail price for cigarettes is tax. And this means that avoiding paying this duty is a very profitable business. A year or so ago the Daily Mirror published a list of Britain's top twenty tax dodgers - nine of this were wanted for smuggling cigarettes, a fact that tells us just how profitable the dodging of cigarette duty is these days. And with each price escalation the more attractive smuggling gets as a business proposition for the unscrupulous, corrupt and criminal.

As it stands (and it rather depends where you look for data - the tobacco companies have higher estimates than HMRC which has higher guesses than the tobacco control industry) smuggled tobacco represents somewhere between 10% and 20% of total UK consumption. I'm going to plump for the figures used by LACORS (Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services) who put the figure at 17%. And local government recognises that the smuggling problem is significant:

Increased smuggling leads to the wide availability of cheap cigarettes to the poorest people thereby maintaining high smoking rates among disadvantaged groups; and contributing significantly to widening health inequalities

The question here is whether the regulatory and enforcement agencies - police, trading standards, customs - are able to keep on top of a growing problem. And whether the duty escalator, for all its good intentions, is now having the unintended outcome of promoting criminality while, in effect, reducing the price of tobacco in our poorest communities. Moreover, the unregulated distribution of tobacco means that it sits in the same car boot or dingy flat as illegal drugs and counterfeit booze.

There has to come a point at which the gain from increasing the price is lost - it becomes so prohibitive that most people turn to illegal and smuggled product. And if this happens then the use of price as a tobacco control tool is broken. Indeed for deprived communities this is perhaps already the case meaning that, for the poorest smokers the high price is de facto a ban so they turn to illegal supply. And if the supply of illegal drugs is any sort of guide then the steady trickle of press releases from local agencies about illegal tobacco stands to become a flood as those agencies replace shouting about small victories while knowing that they are losing the battle against the smuggler and street distributor.

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Plain packs, e-cig bans and the triumph of ignorance

Today marks the publication of the Chantler Review into standardised packaging for cigarettes, which follows the proposal from the Welsh government to ban the use of electronic cigarettes in enclosed public spaces. I haven't read the whole of Chantler's review but it's summary contains the observation that:

There is very strong evidence that exposure to tobacco advertising and promotion increases the likelihood of children taking up smoking. 

We know that advertising does not act to raise demand both generally and specifically for products such as cigarettes. So I have to assume that the 'evidence' relied on by Chantler is primarily the qualitative studies undertaken by tobacco control researchers that essentially show how children prefer pretty colours to drab colours. This may be true but there's a leap from 'I like pink' to 'I'll start smoking because I like the pink pack' that simply doesn't have evidential support.

Chris Snowden points out that Chantler finds only a 'moderate' impact on uptake - something that would be very difficult to prove one way or another especially since advertising (even where it is still permitted) has only a marginal impact on the decision of a person to experiment with smoking. More importantly Chantler says that this impact will only be realised 'over time' creating more vagueness and imprecision. I remain unconvinced that this is the best option for public intervention if our aim is either (or both) to reduce levels of smoking adoption or increase rates of smoking cessation.

Indeed, if the evidence is right that it is the person's environment (do parents, other family members and peers smoke) that plays the dominant role in the decision to experiment with smoking then the emphasis should be on smoking cessation rather than smoking adoption. And this brings us to the proposal in Wales to apply the same restrictions to using electronic cigarettes as apply to smoking tobacco.

The Welsh health minister, Mark Drakeford, said officials were considering a ban amid concerns that the products could "re-normalise" the use of conventional cigarettes.

He said there were also concerns that their spread could undermine the ban on tobacco smoking in enclosed public spaces, making it more difficult to enforce.

This is a truly egregious proposal since we know that electronic cigarettes are widely adopted by smokers to either quit or reduce their use of tobacco and that they eliminate nearly all the personal as well as all the environmental risks associated with smoking tobacco. Worse still, the argument made here contradicts the rationale for the smoking ban - protecting the health of others in the smoking environment.

Since we want fewer smokers then we should be supporting the adoption of electronic cigarettes by current smokers. Not just to benefit the health of those smokers but to reduce the probability of their children, brothers, sisters and friends taking up the habit. By seeking to denormalise electronic cigarettes, the Welsh government is describing the devices as no different from tobacco with the result that children are as likely to adopt the latter as the former. Plus, of course, increasing the likelihood that the vaper will switch back to tobacco - a point succinctly put by Tim Stanley:

Force me to stand outside and I’ll calculate that I may as well go back to the Marlboro Lights.

Although these proposals are filled with analysis and wrapped up in stuff that looks like science, they are at best selective and at worst simply ignorant. In the case of packaging, the review relies on studies by non-marketers working in tobacco control research and completely ignores the substantial body of research evidence on the role and effectiveness of brand advertising. And for electronic cigarettes, the assumption is that they will act as some sort of gateway for tobacco rather than (as the evidence suggests) quite the reverse.

It does seem that what we have here isn't an example of good evidence-based policy but rather a victory for anti-smoking obsession and a triumph of ignorance.

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The consequence of prohibition is always crime

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Bhutan banned tobacco. They're about to repeal that ban (h/t Chris Snowdon):

Now the country’s Upper House resolves that ban on import of tobacco must end. In a majority resolution on Monday (3 February 2014), the house said ban on import and sale of tobacco products must end to control the black market.

And as the proposer of the change has put it:

But for the most of us, if we consume tobacco, we will continue to be doing so illegally. That would make us criminals. And because the penalties have now been staggered, expect a bigger black market; expect many more criminals.

Prohibition always, without exception, leads to crime. And the more that people want the product, the more crime. As we move to an age of control that approaches prohibition - for drink, for tobacco and maybe for some food products - remember that the more you tax, the more you exclude people from the market, the more you create a criminal world as the only way for those people to get what they want.

And it's a nasty world filled with violence, with don't care. A world where giving kids booze and fags isn't frowned upon but is a business opportunity. A world where the criminal slowly shoves aside the legitimate and where the complicity of so many in crime breaks down the relationship with the law.

So all you health fascists, be careful what you wish for in your wet dreams of controlling other folks personal choices.

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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 tobacco smuggling...

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The smuggling that ASH and others say isn't happening. They need to tell their friends:

A public health report for Lancashire, produced for the first time in 2011, focuses on what the directors of public health in the county believe are the main current challenges in tackling health inequalities between richer and poorer communities.

The report said not only does the sale of illicit tobacco locally undermine all other efforts to reduce smoking rates, it also discourages people who smoke to quit, encourages those who smoke to smoke more and is linked to local and large scale organised crime. 

A little off message there! Isn't smuggling supposed to be declining not rising, less of a problem not more of a problem? Not in the Red Rose county it seems:

They are hoping readers will make more calls about illegal traders to police and Trading Standards so that the unscrupulous counterfeit and illicit tobacco sellers - often linked to the criminal underworld - can be brought to justice.

Illicit tobacco is more likely to be sold in poor and disadvantaged communities, often to children.

See what you've done, you nannying fussbuckets? You've made it more worthwhile for the smugglers to take the risk. And those smugglers don't care who they sell to do they!  And those standardised packs you want won't help either will they.

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A surprising comment about lung cancer...

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From a doctor too:

Nearly 80% of people diagnosed with lung cancer now, in 2012, are non-smokers. All of the anti-smoking campaigns imaginable are not going to make a difference for this 80%.

Maybe a few numbers will make it even clearer. In 2008, the last year from which we have numbers available, there were 158,592 deaths from lung cancer in the United States, including 70,051 deaths in women. (Note that in the same year, there were 40,589 breast cancer deaths in women.) Using the 80% statistic, 126,874 of these deaths could not have been prevented by anti-smoking campaigns.

Perhaps we need to start looking at how we diagnose earlier and treat better rather than incanting the magic words "stop smoking, stop smoking"?

Update: It isn't. of course, quite that simple - here's a little challenge to the good doctor's argument (lifted from the comments below)
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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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Why tobacco duty is now counter-productive...

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I am grateful to Mr Worstall for digging out the stat from the bowels of HMRC reporting:

Key findings for hand rolling tobacco (HRT)
• The illicit market share for HRT was estimated to be 38 per cent in 2010-11, with associated revenue losses of £660 million.

So there you have it folks. For roll-ups (where brand is far less significant than for cigarettes) four out of ten of them are made with "non-UK duty paid" tobacco. And most of that is smuggled.

Instead of thinking about the loss of revenue, let's think instead of the children who are taking up smoking because the man in the van doesn't care who he sells to.

The policy has to change. The strategy of bashing us over the head with taxes, health warnings and restrictions isn't working. As we heard (and I reported) recently, in West Yorkshire:

30 per cent of 11 to 15-year-olds had tried smoking at least once...

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It's for the kids...

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“This is not about curbing the freedoms of existing adult smokers; it’s about giving kids one less reason to start smoking in the first place.” 

...the ones whose Dad's are going to lose their jobs no doubt:


...or the ones shot and killed in the turf wars of smugglers and counterfeiters

If you get a chance before Friday tell the government that the police, business and the unions oppose plain packs, that there's no evidence at all to support their introduction and that the idea won't stop one single "kid" from taking up smoking.

The consultation is here.

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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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A reminder how the Tobacco Control Industry is killing people...

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Most smokers want to give up smoking. But most of those who want to give up fail to do so. Yet the Tobacco Control Industry - ASH and its associates in any number of local NHS "smoke free" bodies - persist in denying the value of harm reduction strategies and insist on abstinence or nothing.

And this approach means that people are dying unnecessarily - here's the facts (well American facts):

i) There are approximately 46 million tobacco smokers in the United States.
ii) While three-quarters say they want to quit smoking, and about one-third try to quit each year, fewer than 10% succeed.
iii) The FDA-approved smoking cessation aids simply do not work: They improve quit rates only minimally, if at all, therefore …
iv) About 450,000 American tobacco nicotine addicts die prematurely each year from smoking-related causes.

You see, while it is the nicotine that we get addicted to, it isn't the nicotine that kills us. It's the smoke.  Which means that if we remove the smoke, we reduce the harm and save lives.

We see tobacco control people wanting to ban e-cigarettes - despite their proven effectiveness as a smoking cessation aid. And to ban smokeless tobacco products like snus despite the almost complete absence of any evidence indicating harm.

As the author who pointed out the facts above observes:

Despite the demonstrated benefits of harm reduction, and the lack of efficacy of the approved pharmaceutical products (such as patches, gum, and medications), public health spokespersons, governmental and private, adhere to the mantra, “there is no safe tobacco product.”

While inexcusable, their rationales for such unscientific policies understandably derive from deep-seated mistrust of tobacco companies and their phony promotion of ostensibly “reduced risk” products like “light” or filter-tip cigarettes.

But this “won’t be fooled again” policy — ignoring the fate of the millions of addicted smokers — enforces an abstinence only, “quit or die” approach.

But rather than grasping the opportunities presented by a harm reduction approach to tobacco control, the New Puritan fundamentalists focus instead on ineffective, unproven controls such as plain packaging.

And as a result people who might not have died are dying.

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Consultation on plain packaging for cigarettes - what you need to tell the government

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The government has launched a consultation on the introduction of plain packaging for tobacco products - be warned the questions are loaded and partisan. However, you do get the chance to make your comments. My advice - be moderate in your comments, provide evidence where you can and stick to the core objections:

1. The proposals fail to understand the role of brands:

"Branding fulfils many significant and positive functions for both consumers and markets. Take it away and consumers lose out and markets become commoditised, with price rather than quality being the influencing factor. As well as calling on Government to consider carefully whether plain packaging will yield any positive impact in practice, we will also encourage it to look at all the possible negative impacts."

2. Plain packaging makes counterfeiting and illicit sale of cigarettes more likely:

BASCAP (Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy) is concerned that plain packaging requirements would increase the prevalence of counterfeit goods in the market and reduce brand owners' ability to take action against such activity, besides undermining the ability of consumers to make informed purchasing decisions. Trademarks serve these important functions in the market for all branded goods. Plain packaging [is] likely to increase rather than decrease burdens on already overstretched public agencies working to enforce intellectual property protections in the face of escalating counterfeiting and piracy in the United Kingdom and worldwide."

3. Plain packaging threatens jobs:

Mr Barber said: “These proposals could have serious implications for our business as tobacco packaging is vital to our turnover. It could cost up to 50 per cent of the jobs here."

4. The proposals will damage businesses:

...a report from Deloitte titled “Potential impact on retailers from the introduction of plain tobacco packaging”, February 2011, states that the operator of a service station can expect to incur additional staff costs of between A$9,000 and A$34,000 due to the extra work that would be required to handle plain packaged tobacco products.

I'll leave you to add your comments on how the proposals are illiberal, anti-business and based on the flimsiest of evidence. I would also urge - as well as responding to the consultation - for you to write to your MP making the above points - this is an unjustified idea without evidence that will destroy jobs, promote crime and damage personal liberty.

The consultation is here - be prepared to give an hour of your time.

http://consultations.dh.gov.uk/tobacco/standardised-packaging-of-tobacco-products/consult_view


And just for the record, I am a non-smoker.
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Plain packaging for tobacco will mean hundreds of job losses in Bradford

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The packaging industry is important to Bradford and much of it is geared to supply the tobacco industry. Introducing plain packaging is a big threat to these jobs. Here's Paul Barber from Weidenhammer:
 

“These proposals could have serious implications for our business as tobacco packaging is vital to our turnover. It could cost up to 50 per cent of the jobs here."

And the same goes for Chesapeake which produces packaging for Philip Morris and BAT.

Plus these businesses recognise the agenda of the New Puritans - plain packaging for fags will be followed by plain packaging for booze and crisps.

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"Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk." - A budget for smugglers

Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie -
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by !

The decision of the Chancellor to raise duties on alcohol and tobacco is, yet again, a great gift to Britain’s smugglers. With each rise in duty, with each imposed cost increase, the damage to legitimate business – pubs, corner shops, small brewers and such all dying, strangled by an unholy alliance between the New Puritan, the treasury mandarin and the criminal.

Last year, Brian Lenihan, then Irish Finance Minister explained all this:

I have decided not to make any changes to excise on tobacco in this Budget because I believe the high price is now giving rise to massive cigarette smuggling. My responsibility as Minister for Finance is to protect the tax base. I have full confidence in the effectiveness of the current multi agency approach but early in the New Year I want to explore what further measures we may need to stem the illegal flow of cigarettes into this country.

But let’s explore a little further and remember that this isn’t just about cigarettes but, in the UK, concerns beer as well. Pete Brown, beer writer extraordinaire, wrote today about the problems with beer and observed that people have shifted from fine ale to cheap wine and cheaper spirits:

Liver disease is increasing because people are switching from beer to stronger drinks.  We already know this though, because this has been true of every major alcoholism epidemic in history.  In the gin epidemic of the eighteenth century, beer was part of the solution, not the problem, as the immortal cartoons by Hogarth show.  It should be seen as that today.

But why is this? And why has the big drop in alcohol consumption been in on-sales – drinking in the pub – rather than off-sales – drinking at home? Firstly, the big brewers have shifted their attention from the boozer to the fridge – their volume now comes from people buying boxes of 24 bottles rather than going to the pub and drinking six pints.

Secondly, the smoking ban – people have started drinking at home or at a pre-arranged ‘smoky-drinky’ in some friend’s garage.

And thirdly, the price of booze makes smuggling and illegal production worthwhile – and you’re not going to get those products in the pub. And, if you’re smuggling, it makes sense to concentrate on the strong stuff which means wine and spirits rather than beer. The shift from beer to stronger drinks isn’t simply down to choice, it’s down to an ever larger chunk of the market being in the hands of criminals.

Kipling’s poem rather romanticises the smuggler but the true picture isn’t like that at all. These smugglers are the same sort who’ve been in the illegal import game for years, they already operate and control a multi-billion pound business doing just that:

An online report published by the Home Office in 2006 has estimated the UK drugs market to be worth £4.645bn in 2003/4^[8], with a margin of error of +/- £1.154bn.

And, as we know, the people who run this smuggling business are prepared to use murder as a business tool.

So tell me New Puritans, would you prefer your daughter to get cigarettes from the corner shop or from the same man who sells cocaine, heroin and crack?

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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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Prohibition doesn't work does it? More evidence from Bradford...

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The sale of 'illegal' cigarettes and tobacco is growing - according to this article it 'costs' the HMRC "£10 million a day". We all know it's growing and we all know the reasons - high rates of duty and the ease of smuggling. Here's one example from a court case in Bradford:

Steven Brocklehurst, for Mahmad, said his client took over the shop in May last year, at which time it became apparent there were people who, on going abroad – particularly to Poland – would buy tobacco as part of their duty free allowance and sell it on to the shop owner.

“Clearly it was a process that had been going on for some time with the previous owner,” Mr Brocklehurst said. 

So these nice Eastern European folk were funding their trips home by gaming the margins between UK prices and Polish prices - a margin made up almost entirely of tax. And the problem is growing - here's the chap from West Yorkshire Trading Standards:

“The fact that so many cheap, illicit cigarettes are on sale is seriously undermining Government efforts to encourage people to quit smoking. In addition those who deal in illicit tobacco are evading tax which has an obvious damaging effect on legitimate business and the wider economy.” 

And look at the downside risks - 60 hours community work and a fine of less than two grand.

Denormalisation - prohibition by another name - simply doesn't work, does it!

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Plain packaging...

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Chris Snowdon has - via the good offices of the Adam Smith Institute - published a paper on the lunatic idea of introducing plain packaging for cigarettes. It is an excellent read filled with real facts, references to real research and a commitment to liberty.

In addition Conservative Home have given Chris some space to set out his argument - it's certainly worth reading the comments thread. No sign of much support for the idea.

For my part I wrote about this - from the perspective of a professional and experienced marketer:

Firstly, brands do not act to recruit customers to a given product – we choose to buy the product and then we select the brand. Nobody starts buying bread because they saw a Warburton’s ad – they buy bread because, well, they want bread! What the brand provides is a heuristic – a short cut, if you will – allowing the consumer to make a choice quickly and confidently. What we do know is that it is the search for a benefit that makes consumers choose to buy a product rather than the shininess of the brand presentation.  Or is you prefer: we buy bread because we want to eat it not because the advert featured a brass band playing chunks from the New World Symphony!

Secondly, packaging serves two purposes – identification and appeals to impulse. In the first instance we put our product into easily identified packaging as part of that heuristic, as a quick means of identifying our particular version of a given product. And, where purchase is often impulse driven, we use packaging to make the product stand out from other similar products. So yes packaging can assist purchase – but only where it isn’t a considered purchase.

The rest of this piece can be read here - suffice it to say that the scale of ignorance about the purpose of brands and the point of packaging beggar's belief. Anyone would think they had an agenda!

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In which I agree with Cllr Greenwood...

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The nannying fussbuckets have been badgering at the West Yorkshire Pension Fund:

Health campaigners have criticised West Yorkshire Pension Fund after research found it has £125 million invested in the tobacco industry.

Apparently this is unethical because these health campaigners don't approve of the investment. However, Cllr Greenwood, as Chairman of the Fund responded correctly:

“Decisions should be taken entirely on commercial grounds.” 

Hallelujah! Perhaps the anti-smoking fanatics will go away now (but somehow I doubt it)

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The Mafia would like to thank health campaigners and social activists for making them even richer!

Those who advocate prohibition, ‘denormalisation’ and the state punishment of selected lifestyle sins continue their campaigns:

• MPs are recommending two “drink free days”, minimum pricing and allowing licences to be removed on “health grounds”
• The BMA are urging the banning of smoking in cars and restrictions on smoking in the home
• Stella Creasy continues with her campaign to cap the APR that lenders can charge on loans
• Other ‘campaigners’ are calling for a ‘fat tax’ such as that introduced in Denmark
• And gambling is in their sights as another ‘lifestyle sin’

Setting aside whether a liberal society should indulge in these bans, controls and zealous regulation, there is a massive downside to such actions. A downside that ‘campaigners’ never mention. And it looks like this:

According to a new report by Italian anti-crime group SOS Impresa, as reported by Reuters, "Organised crime has tightened its grip on the Italian economy during the economic crisis, making the Mafia the country's biggest "bank" and squeezing the life out of thousands of small firms, according to a report on Tuesday."

The Italian Mafia has over 65 billion Euro in liquid assets.

You don’t get the connection with the nannying fussbuckets who want to dictate how you live your life? Let me explain – starting with:

The high tax-induced price of tobacco products in the UK has led to many smokers seeking alternative cheaper sources of cigarettes and handrolling tobacco (HRT), both legal (duty-free and crossborder shopping) and illegal (smuggling and bootlegging). The TMA estimates that in 2009 this non-UK duty paid consumption (NUKDP) accounted for 21% of the cigarettes and 58% of the HRT smoked in the UK.

And:

Seizures of contraband alcohol smuggled from France have surged to around three times their normal levels this summer, say officials. French customs officers in the Channel ports of Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer confiscated 82,000 litres of illegal spirits in the past month.

Plus:

The use of loan sharks is increasing and going to "get worse", according to experts in the South West. The Bristol-based Illegal Money Lending Team claims it is already a serious problem across the region. Spokesman Alan Evans said they were "really concerned" and that with harder times ahead "this problem will get worse". Since its launch three years ago the team has recorded a 700% increase in referrals which are still growing.

I’m sure the picture is becoming clearer – the Mafia (or for that matter any other organised crime group) gets its money from a willingness to trade in things we’ve banned, to smuggle so as to avoid taxes and to fill gaps in the market created when honest providers are forced out by legal changes.

Organised crime is the biggest beneficiary from high tobacco taxes, from strict controls on drink and from restrictions on gambling or lending. And criminals, unlike legitimate businesses, don’t care if you get hurt – so we’ll get dangerous fake cigarettes, poisonous vodka and loan repayments enforced with a baseball bat rather than a court order.

So next time you think a ban or a new tax is a good thing, consider the Mafia. Ask yourself how much money criminals will make from your proposal.

And then don’t do it.

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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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