Tobacco Control – the real smokescreen

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Angela Harbutt of Liberal Vision criticises the "clichéd view of evil tobacco" having disproportionate control over policy, following a Central Lobby article from Lord Faulkner of Worcester.

I read with interest Lord Faulkner's article. In it he paints a somewhat clichéd view of "evil tobacco" pulling copious strings behind the scenes to achieve their corporate ends. Were that the truth then I would be tempted to say don't worry. All efforts have been singularly hopeless...

...Tobacco bans on advertising; promotion; sponsorship; advertisements in retailers, pubs, clubs and shops; mandatory and increasingly large health warnings and grotesque pictures on tobacco products; a smoking ban; a ban on cigarette vending machines; and now a ban on the display of tobacco in shops. Not to mention the eye-watering levels of tobacco duty.

The truth of the matter is that there may well be vested interests at work influencing the political agenda. But we should stop worrying about "Big Tobacco" and turn our attention to "Big Tobacco Control". We now have an army of local and regional organisations (Smokefree partnerships) funded with public money through local government grants, NHS and PCT funding. We have nine university departments dedicated to tobacco control – receiving money from European as well as UK government (and NHS/PCTs). There are also charities entirely dedicated to tobacco control lobbying, funded, at least partially, from various parts of government. That is not to mention the funding that comes from pharmaceutical companies with vested interest in nicotine replacement products. It's a web of complicated funding and cross-funding that seems intent on concealment.

If there is a need for transparency – it is a need for government to come clean on just how much public money is being spent on Tobacco Control and just how far the tentacles of Tobacco Control have reached into government health policy. It might not be a bad idea to also get a truly independent body to evaluate how effectively this money has been spent. In August 2010 Eric Pickles MP announced that the government was going to stop "government lobbying government". This must surely apply to Tobacco Control.

I have been a smoker for about 8 years and a campaigner on personal freedom issues for about five years. What drove me to campaigning? A richly funded and politically active health lobbying industry that has agitated constantly to price out of reach, limit access to, or otherwise bully people into ending consumption of, things deemed undesirable or unhealthy.

Along with many like me, I have blogged about these issues, raised my voice on the media and met in smoke-cleansed pubs with those that share my views to talk about how we can stop further erosions to our personal freedoms.

Up until now I have never been funded by tobacco. Almost all of those that I know who share my views have never been funded by tobacco. We write and speak out unpaid, unprompted and undirected because we are passionate about defending our rights to be treated as adults. Politicians who denounce all who object to their nannying approach as "stooges of tobacco" are either foolish or disingenuous. They are certainly wrong. The vast majority of those speaking out against plain packaging today, and in the coming weeks, are doing so because they have decided that enough is enough. If we lose the fight on plain packaging on tobacco this year, we will be fighting a losing battle against plain packaging on a swathe of other products in the years ahead.

I am now to be paid by Forest (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco) to work on handsoffourpacks campaign which is fighting the introduction of plain packaging. In doing so I am continuing my fight against the nanny state and against the arrogance of the political classes who seem unable to comprehend that some free-minded people disagree with them.

Angela Harbutt writes for the blog Liberal Vision and works on the Forest campaign handsoffourpackswhich opposes the introduction of plain packaging on tobacco.

Response: Lord Faulkner of Worcester

For Angela Harbutt to compare "Big Tobacco" to organisations devoted to improving public health is laughable, but hardly surprising from someone who admits to being funded by FOREST, an organisation set up with funding from the tobacco manufacturers.

It is the business of the NHS to work to improve public health and of our universities to research the causes and prevention of disease. More than 100,000 premature deaths a year in the UK could be prevented if young people are stopped from taking up smoking and addicted smokers helped to quit.

The stringent regulation imposed on tobacco will not spread to "a swathe of other products" as she suggests, because tobacco is not a product like any other. No other legal consumer product kills when used as intended.