Christopher Snowdon's Blog, page 268

The Smoking Years

For those who didn't, or couldn't, watch it when it was on the telly earlier this month...

Sheer heart attacks

Long time readers will have seen quite a few graphs like the one below over the years (for example here and here). They show the number of people admitted to hospital with heart attacks in a country. In this case, the country in England. I have previously used NHS hospital data to show that the English smoking ban had no effect on England's heart attack rate, contrary to a claim made by Anna "pants on fire" Gilmore. (In fact, the data in that graph came from her study; she just chose not to show it in a chart.)

You can see the non-effect of the ban (started July 2007) in the graph below. Clearly, there is a consistent, gradual downward trend, but no big dips. There are slight increases in the downward trend in 2005 and 2010, but these can hardly be attributed to a ban that started in 2007.



You knew this already, right? I only mention it again because this graph comes from a new study in the British Medical Journal which looks at the the heart attack rate in England between 2002 and 2010. So, just in case you think I've been making up the data these past two years, let this assure you that I have not.

The six page study does not mention the smoking ban at all and its data clearly do not support the notion that the ban had any observable effect on heart attack admissions. The big story is that deaths from heart attack have halved since the turn of the century. This is great news, but it has obviously been a steady process which has come about for a multitude of reasons.

If someone tells you that the heart attack rate fell after the smoking ban, they are not lying, but they are not being entirely truthful either. Pick any event of the last decade and the heart attack rate fell afterwards. Pathetic as this post hoc logic is, it has been the basis of one of the biggest scientific scams of recent years.

The hubris of CAMRA

Dick Puddlecote has the story of the Campaign for Real Ale's latest head-in-the-sand efforts to save the great "community pub". You know a place is in trouble when people start putting the word "community" in front of it (see also "community Post Office"). Pub closures peaked at 52 a week in the second year of the smoking ban and the rate is now a still-worrying 16 a week.

In an expensive-looking report, the Real Ale Twats have found a correlation between smoking rates and pub closures, but choose not to draw any policy conclusions from this. Instead, they play their usual game of blaming supermarkets for selling cheap alcohol (which was being sold cheaply before the smoking ban) and pleading for tax cuts and special favours (which they didn't need before the smoking ban). The one piece of government action that could make people actually want to go to pubs again does not get a look in (the Morning Advertiser—trade mag to the pub trade—doesn't even mention the ban in its report).

Perhaps CAMRA still believes in its own self-deluding pre-ban propaganda, of which Dick has unearthed a beautiful example...

REAL ALE INVASION OF SMOKE-FREE PUBS
CAMRA is urging publicans to prepare for a boost in demand for real ales following the banning of smoking in all pubs in England from 1 July this year.

And pub goers will now be able to savour the flavour of real cask ales as the fog of tobacco smoke is finally blown out of pubs and bars throughout the UK.

In Wales, CAMRA reported a boost in demand for real ale after the earlier ban of smoking there from 1 April.

...The research also indicated that after the smoking ban over 6 million pub goers in England and Wales expect to visit pubs more often and 840000 people who never go to pubs said they will do after the ban. And 68% of smokers said the ban will not affect their pub going habits, with only 3% of adults saying that they would not visit pubs as a result of the ban.

Paul Moorhouse continued: 'We expect a minority of smokers to be put off going to the pub. But this will be offset by more use of pubs by others who will welcome the smoke-free environment. And with over two thirds of real ale drinkers being non-smokers, we expect it to be real ale that will benefit the most from this new trade. Any pubs that do not offer real ale are encouraged to stock one to attract this new clientele.'

Peace in our time, CAMRA?

The Pub Curmudgeon and The View from Cullingworth have more to say about CAMRA's uselessness.

ASH: The government in drag

I recently mentioned the possibility that ASH (England) may have lost its government funding. Maybe they have, maybe they haven't, but the anti-smoking pressure group was certainly sucking on the teat of the state in 2010/11, as its latest accounts show.

Department of Health: £220,500

ASH International: £152,657

Supporting charities: £393,833

Donations: £15,365

Total: £782,355

ASH International is funded by Pfizer, which perhaps explains ASH's eagerness to promote Pfizer's psychotic stop-smoking drug Chantix/Champix.

The supporting charities are the British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK, so if you don't like indirectly funding neo-prohibitionist pressure groups, you might want to avoid them in the future and donate to other charities.

The Department of Health grant is for a project called 'Capitalising on Smokefree'. This is the third year in a row that taxpayers' money has been diverted to this mystery project. Although we pay for it, no details have ever been made public. If I was a cynic, I would say that it involves ASH being given money to manufacture support for Department of Health policies.

And that leaves £15,365 of donations from the public, meaning that one of the country's most powerful and influential "charities" gets less than 2% of its income from the general public's voluntary donations. However, it gets 28% from involuntarily donations through the tax system and a further 50% from donations given to different charities which are then diverted to ASH.

I do believe that means that ASH continues to be what it has always been: a fake charity. They are the government in drag; they are the Department of Health's sockpuppets; they are the state lobbying the state. Why are smokers being forced to pay for their own vilification?


UPDATE:

Number 11 in ASH's list of 'objectives' for 2010/11 is:

To be sensitive to the concerns of the smoker.

Wow. Just wow.

They said it couldn't happen

Can something be banned just because some people don't like the smell of it? Of course it can. It's happened all over the world and now—thanks to that non-existent slippery slope—it's happening with perfume and aftershave.

New Hampshire May Ban Perfume for State Employees
State employees in New Hampshire who douse themselves in Chanel before heading into the office may be in for a shock. If New Hampshire's House Bill 1444 passes, state employees would be banned from spritzing their favorite perfumes during the work week, the Union Leader reports.

This seems rather silly. After all, getting a whiff of perfume isn't a health issue.

"It may seem silly, but it's a health issue," Michele Peckham, the state representative sponsoring the bill, told the Union Leader.

I stand corrected. It's just that Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (for that is the 'health issue') is a load of old cobblers (more details at Quackwatch).

"Many people have violent reactions to strong scents."

Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Maybe they associate fragrances with 'man-made chemicals' and maybe they have a psychological problem. Whatever the source of the problem, it is not one that has any grounding in science.

Susan McBride, a constituent with a sensitive nose, started the conversation about banning offensive scents in the workplace back in 2008 when she sued the city of Detroit, claiming that the scent made it tough to breathe, thus keeping her from doing her job, Yahoo! Shine reports.

Readers of Velvet Glove, Iron Fist might remember this lady. She's nuts.

The city awarded McBride $100,000 and a city ordinance against scented body products. 

More fool them. Now they've opened the floodgates to every hypochondriac, tree-hugger and chemophobe in the USA.

Expect this one to run and run. After all, it's new secondhand smoke...

'Quit-or-die approach not working' shocker

Surprise, surprise...

Despite recent ecstasy-related deaths, Vancouver dealer says business is booming

Sam's workday usually starts late in the afternoon as Vancouver's aggressive partiers begin looking for a way to chemically enhance their fun.

Most nights of the week, a host of twenty- and thirtysomethings call Sam's work phone throughout the evening and into the early morning looking for ecstasy and cocaine. Despite recent headlines about the deadly PMMA-laced ecstasy pills, Sam's phone still rings with clients searching for a good time.

Backstory here.

The cowardice of public health

The Lancet is unhappy about a recommendation from the NHS Future Forum that doctors "make every contact [between doctors and patients] count", ie. they pester us about our diet, drinking and smoking every time they see us. I share The Lancet's unhappiness. It's an awful idea and doctors won't do it anyway (I've said it before, but since I criticise public health so much, it bears repeating: every GP I've ever met has been likable, sensible and not at all like their evil twins in public health. Never mistake 'public health professionals' for real medics).

Lecturing the patient on their lifestyle choices during this time is likely to appear rushed and inappropriate, especially if doctors see the task as a box-ticking exercise. There is a high risk that such an approach will leave the patient feeling frustrated, resentful, and reluctant to return.

Indeed so. Mandatory hectoring would be a terrible idea. It's not that I think that health advice is a bad thing, it's just that it should be relevant and timely.

Having said that, if I'm going to receive health advice I'd rather it came from a qualified GP who has actually met me, not some distant bureaucrat with an advertising account and an axe to grind. This is where I part company with The Lancet, which doesn't seem to approve of the concept of advice at all.

Effective, evidenced-based public health measures do not include nudging people into healthy behaviours or getting NHS staff to lecture patients on healthy lifestyles. They include measures such as raising taxes on cigarettes, alcohol, fatty foods, and sugary drinks, reducing junk food and drink advertising to children, and restricting hours on sale of alcoholic drinks. 

Quelle surprise. This is, after all, The Lancet, where whatever the question is, bans and taxes are the answer.

Here we see the true moral cowardice of public health. They know that any doctor who harasses his patients in the same way that 'public health professionals' harass the population will be assaulted on a daily basis, so they hide behind the government, goading it on to ever greater illiberalism. The public will still feel "frustrated" and "resentful" at having their money and liberties stolen, but they will vent their frustration on politicians, not GPs. Like all bullies, 'public health professionals' are cowards at heart.

The government should show true leadership and make effective legislation the cornerstone of their public health strategy. Focusing on other approaches is foolish. The nudge and nag approaches need one thing: the firm elbow.

The firm elbow, indeed—for when nudging and nagging is no longer enough! You can't say you haven't been warned. Does anyone else find it perverse that politicians want people to get health advice and doctors want to make laws? When exactly did this job swap happen? And would The Lancet care to set up a Doctors' Party and run for office so we can see just how much popular support there is for the firm elbow?

Etta James RIP

High prices and smuggling: nothing to see here, says BHF

Last week, the Economist produced an article about sin taxes which made the fairly obvious statement that...

...when duties rise so do the incentives to get around them, by buying abroad or on the black market. This is particularly common with cigarettes, which are easy for individual smokers to import. In 2000 non-duty consumption reached a peak of 78%, according to the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association—a consequence of the weak euro as well as a sudden increase in taxes of inflation plus 5%.

Pretty uncontroversial, but not to the British Heart Foundation, who have a letter published today:

SIR – Your article on sin taxes in Britain ("The high cost of virtue", December 31st) took at face value claims by the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association that cigarette smuggling in Britain peaked in 2000 as a result of high taxes and a weak euro. In fact, the affordability of tobacco has not changed greatly in the past ten years, while cigarette smuggling has halved. Tobacco smuggling is weakly affected by price.

If smuggling is only "weakly affected by price", it would be interesting to know what the real reason is for people buying and selling contraband tobacco. Maybe they just do it for a laugh. Why does Ireland, Britain and Canada have the worst smuggling problems if not for the fact that they have the highest prices? How much tobacco is smuggled from high tax countries to low tax countries? None at all because the whole point is get a cheaper price.

Contrary to the BHF's glib assertion, cigarettes have, in fact, become both more expensive and less affordable—the price has risen by about 90% since 2000. Inflation has risen by 30-40% in that time and although I cannot get precise figures on average wages, I am confident they have not risen by 90%. It should also be remembered that smokers are more likely to be on lower incomes, and the people who buy smuggled tobacco are likely to be on still lower incomes. Affordability measures based on median wages do not tell the whole story, despite both the heavy emphasis placed on them by both the anti-tobacconists and the temperance lobby.

Secondly, notice that the BHF uses the peak of tobacco smuggling (2000) as their baseline. According to HM Revenue and Customs, the illicit cigarettes made up 11% of the market in 2009/10. This is a decline since the 21% peak of 2000, but BHF make no mention of the illicit rolling market, which continues to make up half of the entire rolling tobacco market. Nor do they mention counterfeit cigarettes which were hardly ever seen in 2000, but which are a major problem today.

As I wrote at the ASI recently, the connection between price and tobacco smuggling has not gone unnoticed by customs officials in Ireland who have spotted the Laffer curve that has taken shape as prices have risen.

Initially, tax rate rises do increase tax revenue, however beyond a certain point tax rate rises may actually start to decrease revenue. The main causes for such decreases are that high levels of taxation either cause economic activity to reduce (the disincentive effect of higher taxation) or economic activity to switch to the shadow economy.

This is all pretty obvious stuff unless you happen to be an anti-smoking campaigner, in which case the laws of economics that apply to ever other product can be rejected as tobacco industry propaganda.

Campus smoking bans

Who would say something as stupid as this?

"We don't want your car to be a safe haven"

Read my blog post at the Adam Smith Institute to find out...