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Medical journal calls for total UK smoking ban

Press Association

Friday December 05 2003

The Guardian



A leading medical journal today called for an outright ban on smoking and
cigarettes, a demand described as "health fascism" by smokers' groups.


An editorial in the Lancet argued that 80% of people in the UK were
non-smokers, saying they had "the right to freedom from exposure to proven
carcinogens".


An estimated 1,000 people die in Britain each year from inhaling second-hand
tobacco smoke, the editorial claimed. It warned that passive smoking not only
killed, but also made it harder for smokers to quit.


The journal cited a report by the Royal College of Physicians, which
estimated that, if all workplaces in the UK became smoke-free, 
300,000 more people
would give up the habit. That move alone, the report said, would save 150,000
lives.


The Lancet suggested that an aggressive taxation policy was not enough to put
people off smoking, arguing that price was not the main factor in whether or
not they should give up the habit.


"Availability and acceptability are more important," it said. "If tobacco
were an illegal substance, possession of cigarettes would become a 
crime and the
number of smokers would drastically fall.


"Cigarette smoking is a dangerous addiction. We should be doing a great deal
more to prevent this disease and to help its victims. We call on Tony Blair's
government to ban tobacco."


Bans on smoking in public places had already been introduced in parts of the
US and Canada, Thailand, and southern Australia, the Lancet said. Ireland,
Norway and the Netherlands were introducing bans on smoking in workplaces or
inside public areas next year.


In Britain, the government had said that more had to be done to persuade the
public of the merits of a ban, but this was questioned by the Lancet.


The journal said that ordinary citizens were better at facing facts than the
government, "perhaps because the UK public does not have to consider directly
the £9.3bn per year raised in tax revenue on tobacco".


Compared with that figure, the £1.5bn that smoking-related diseases cost the
NHS each year seemed "paltry", it added.



Last month, the heads of the 18 Royal colleges of medicine wrote a letter to
the Times, in which they condemned the government's failure to introduce
legislation banning smoking in public places.


But Forest - the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco
- said that it had reacted to the Lancet's demand with "amusement and
disbelief".


Director Simon Clark said: "The Lancet has done us a favour. We now know
exactly where we stand.


"Not only does the health lobby want to prohibit smoking in public places, it
wants to ban tobacco and make smoking a criminal offence. There speaks the
true voice of the rabid anti-smoking zealot.


"Such extreme views represent a stunning own goal. Smokers are not victims,
nor should they be treated as criminals.


"Like it or not, people choose to smoke, just as they choose to drink
alcohol, eat certain types of food, or take part in extreme sports. Do we ban
everything that is potentially dangerous, and turn the practitioners 
into social
outcasts?"


Meanwhile, the British Medical Association (BMA) has written to MPs who were
successful in the ballot for private members bills, urging them to back
legislation to protect children from passive smoking.


A Tobacco Smoking (Protection of Children) Bill has been drafted by the BMA,
and seeks to ban smoking in enclosed public places where children might be,
such as shops, restaurants, trains and buses.


A survey carried out by the Office for National Statistics last year had
shown 86% support for smoking restrictions at work, 88% for restrictions in
restaurants, and 87% for similar measures elsewhere.


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