3rd

http:/www.georgespeller.com
george@georgespeller.com

August 2010
Kris Hopkins MP
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA

Dear Mr Hopkins

Thank you for your reply to my email concerning EDM 406. You will be aware that the Health Act was
passed with an agreement for a review in 2010 – thus EDM 406 should not actually be necessary. Many
people, however, believe that the negative impacts of the smoking ban have been disproportionate to the
imagined gains, and a review would reveal these problems. I am surprised that you appear to assume that
a review would necessarily result in a reduction of the smoking restrictions – if, as you claim, the ban has
been a success you should have nothing to fear from a review and would have your views vindicated.

I am tempted to wonder how you know that a vast majority of people support the ban in its present form –
they certainly did not before it was enacted, and there is no reason to suppose that any subsequent
“surveys” have been conducted in an objective fashion. Naturally I assume that you don’t support the
“majority view” just because it’s the view of the majority – I confidently expect better of my elected
representatives. I therefore assume you have considered the facts available and come to a conclusion. The
problem is that the “facts” are not always what they seem. As an example the tobacco display ban was
passed on the basis of faulty information deliberately passed to MPs and the Lords – the full story by
Chris Snowden is available at
http://www.velvetgloveironfist.com/pdfs/thedarkmarketredux.pdf

My contention is that much of the “data” used to justify the smoking ban was equally faulty particularly
in respect to “passive smoking”, a concept first invented in pre-war Germany.

You say that the ban has been an undoubted success. I wonder how this success has been measured?
The alleged reduction in heart attacks? When official hospital admission figures are inspected it is found
to a myth – known by commentators as the “Helena Miracle” after the American town in which it was
first claimed. The same manipulation of data was used in Scotland recently and you can read the full story
here:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7451/

Also the figures speak for themselves :

Perhaps it was a success in terms of protecting pub workers? It is closing down 40-50 pubs a month and it
is estimated that 10,000 staff have lost their jobs. Not a success for them. In any case there is no reason
why a landlord cannot hire only smokers who, presumably, would be well aware of the “risks” they are
already taking.

UK Pub Closures 2004-2009

It has discouraged people from smoking? This was never a stated intention – any liberal person will tell
you that protecting people from themselves is not a fit reason for draconian laws. This is why this covert
intention was never mentioned. It’s hardly reasonable after the event to claim a success on that basis. In
any case there is evidence to indicate that smoking rates are up by two percentage points in Ireland and at
least one in the UK. Underage smoking has also increased as a result of youthful nonconformist attitudes.
Eg in Scotland:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article601421.ece
It should also be borne in mind that excise income from tobacco relates only to normal sales, not to
“imported” tobacco.
Finally please find the time to read the somewhat intemperately titled
Ten Reasons why the Smoking Ban Stinks
(1) It disregards property rights. The air in a pub ‘belongs’ neither to smokers nor nonsmokers, and certainly not to
politicians, but to the publican, and it is the publican who should decide the smoking policy on his or her own
premises.
(2) It sets a terrible precedent by blurring the boundary between public and private. A law court is a ‘public place’ –
a nightclub is not, and neither politicians nor doctors have the right to legislate what people do in it. If we concede
to them that right, they will inevitably extend it to our cars (as they are now trying to do) and then to our homes
(which has already happened in parts of the US).
(3) It removes freedom of choice – not only the smoker’s freedom to enjoy a legal habit, but everyone’s freedom to
work out their own compromises and solutions.

(4) It is anti-democratic. The government’s own Office for National Statistics found 68% opposed to a total ban, but
like every other smoking ban in the world, it was imposed regardless. The only opinions which have been heard are
those of medical authorities and lobby groups, and directly or indirectly, the pharmaceutical companies which fund
them.

(5) It is socially divisive and encourages intolerance. Government is blatantly stigmatising a particular group, who
must change their behaviour or be excluded from ‘correct’ society (a recent NHS campaign used the slogan ‘If you
smoke, you stink’). Well-intentioned or not, antismoking authorities have created tremendous animosity between
friends, neighbours and family members. They have also encouraged people to think that government can, or
should, intervene to stop other people doing whatever they personally don’t approve of.

(6) It is hypocritical, since tobacco remains legal and the Treasury makes around £10 billion per year from taxing it.
And, incidentally, there is a smoker-friendly bar in the House of Commons.

(7) Despite ever more frantic and contrived efforts to ‘prove’ otherwise, it is bad for business. Pubs and clubs are
dying, and although the ban may not be the only factor, few people in the trade would deny that it’s a significant
one.

(8) It is technologically backward, since it is not difficult, with decent modern air filtration, to make smoke virtually
unnoticeable, and certainly harmless.

(9) It does not stop people smoking. Even if we find it appropriate in the first place to ban smoking in pubs in order
to pressure people into quitting, it doesn’t work. In many countries smoking rates have risen since bans have been
imposed.

(10) Finally, and most importantly, the government claims to be setting aside all these considerations in order to
tackle a deadly health threat: ‘secondhand smoke’. But there is no actual proof that even one person has died from
this phantom menace. After 40 years of studies, antismokers can still only produce computer projections based on
dubious statistics, and ‘relative risk ratios’ which sound scary but mean nothing in the real world. That’s why we
see, for instance, posters telling us that tobacco smoke contains various nasty-sounding chemicals, without
mentioning that they are present only at infinitesimal, harmless levels.

If we accept that such feeble evidence justifies a smoking ban, we are setting the level of acceptable risk so low as
to justify banning just about everything else, too: cooking (which produces carcinogens), candles, incense, open
fires, perfume, etc. Thousands of products, from household cleaners to cosmetics, contain higher levels of toxic
chemicals than tobacco – and are still harmless.

Ultimately, the problem here goes way beyond ‘to smoke or not to smoke’. There is a worrying general trend
towards more and more intrusive legislation, justified by more and more dishonest and misleading junk science and
fearmongering. (Typical of this are recent claims that the continuation of a long-term decline in heart attacks is
‘caused by’ smoking bans, and the invention of a new threat, ‘thirdhand smoke,’ on the basis of no scientific
evidence whatsoever).

What’s needed is not just the repeal of the smoking ban and other petty, oppressive laws, but a return to healthy
scepticism, fairness, and common sense.

www.joejackson.com
(from http://takingliberties.squarespace.com/taking-liberties/2010/7/7/ten-reasons-why-the-smoking-ban-stinks.html)

In view of recent statements concerning the “Un-Britishness” of a proposed burqua ban could not the
blanket smoking ban be reconsidered in a similar light?

Remember – if your views are those of the majority you have nothing to fear from a review which might
set the minds of fifteen million angry smokers at rest once and for all.

George Speller
Also sent by email to facilitate use of hyperlinks