UK Government Pushes Ahead with “Unworkable” Partial Smoking Ban

The British government has just published its latest health bill for England and Wales, which included a partial ban on smoking tobacco. In the clash between individual liberty and public health concerns, there will inevitably be problems about where lines get drawn. However, the Blair government has miscued with its partial ban, upsetting the health constituency with exemptions that have been accurately labeled “unworkable.”

Tobacco, like all other drugs both legal and illegal, poses huge health problems. However, the most popular way of ingesting it, inhalation of fumes from the burning plant, means that not only does the smoker get a nicotine hit, but those around him are treated to the smell and lung damage. The Tobacco Institute notwithstanding, the scientific evidence is pretty clear that second hand smoke isn’t as healthy as unadulterated air. A plug of chaw or a pinch of snus is a vastly different thing, and one would like to believe that tobacco-users could resort to chewing the noxious weed as a socially acceptable solution (presuming cuspidors are in ample supply).

Be that as it may, UK Health Minister Patricia Hewitt says she’d like a total ban on smoking tobacco in public, enclosed spaces. However, her predecessor in the job, John Reid, drafted the bill for the election manifesto with only a partial ban. David Taylor, Labour MP and chair of the all party parliamentary group on smoking and health, said, “As the smoke clears, we find John Reid’s fingerprints all over a reversion to a Bill that was in our manifesto - but the clear message we got during the general election campaign was that it would be unworkable and unenforceable.”

What’s unworkable and unenforceable? The exemption from a smoke-free environment is for pubs that don’t serve food and for private clubs and discos. Now, pub grub has improved radically in the last thirty years, but if publicans have to choose, reporting in the Times suggests that 8,000 pubs out of the 42,000 or so currently serving food will cease to do so. But, does food mean bangers and mash, curry veg and shepherd’s pie only or does it extend to salt and vinegar crisps, dry roasted peanuts and pork scratchings? And if a pub declares itself a private club, charging a pound for immediate membership, does that beat the rule? People who have tried to get a drink in a restaurant in Salt Lake City or Tulsa, Oklahoma can tell stories of ways to evade these tobacco rules that will boggle the mind.

Even worse, though, is the fact that eating along with drinking alcohol reduces the damage the booze does. Nick Bish, chief executive of the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers, which covers about 28,000 pubs, said, “It is well-known that food and alcohol are complementary, and it is advisable not to drink on an empty stomach. If the Government creates a situation where pubs cannot serve food because they want to cater to smokers, that will not be good for public health.” A total ban was good enough for Scotland and Northern Ireland, why not for England and Wales? Or why not go back to the 1840s and smoke whatever wherever? Compromises of this sort only encourage bending the rules to the breaking point.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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