Nurses for Reform Blog

I have been reading the Public Health White Paper, Health Lives Healthy People: Our Strategy for Public Health in England.

The paper makes much in its introduction of wanting to move away from the Nanny State model of public health management.  A paragraph states:

The dilemma for government is this: it is simply not possible to promote healthier lifestyles through Whitehall diktat and nannying about the way people should live. Recent years have proved that one- size-fits-all solutions are no good when public health challenges vary from one neighbourhood to the next.

However, it then goes on for the next 96 pages to tell us why and how by, Whitehall diktat, local authorities, businesses and voluntary organizations are going to implement the nannying agenda for them.

Another thing that I find amazing in this paper is the way that smoking is addressed in the Executive Summary between mental health and some infectious diseases, as if the choice to smoke is an illness to be cured.

Increasingly, people do not trust government, nowhere was this more evident than the debacle over the MMR vaccination.  Also, when there is conflicting advice over the number of portions of vegetables we should eat, how much wine we should or should not drink and whether or not butter is good for us, how on earth does the Department of Health think that the public will take its prescriptive initiatives seriously?

Finally, I would strongly suggest to the Department of Health, that it is time to separate national issues such as the management of pandemic influenza, for which I concede that there is a role for government, from life style choice issues which will only be addressed when we have health and welfare systems that promote personal responsibility rather than promising everything to everyone.

Today is National No Smoking Day and true to time-honoured tradition the government have announced that cigarettes and other tobacco products will have to be kept under the counter from 2012 in large stores and 2015 for small shops. The government is also considering even more censorship, possibly via plain packaging for cigarettes.

Away from all the government’s blather concerning enterprise, freedom and personal responsibility, the illiberal jack-boots of the do-gooders are again on the march. But this time the unintended consequences of their actions could well turn out to be demonstrably counterproductive. Indeed, once instituted, these measures will be a bridge too far for even the most ardent enemies of freedom. My guess is they will end up ushering in a world of more smoking via criminality and a vast sea of cheaper, untaxed and illicit tobacco.

Back to the future

Stigmatised, marginalised and treated with no sense of proportionality, British smokers are being reduced to the perilous and irrational status that a number of minorities suffered in Germany around 1934 and 5. Today, 23% of Britain’s are being made to feel guilty for who and what they are and everyone else is being encouraged to ‘un-normalise’ them.

In an over zealous quest for puritanical national-health-hygiene, advertising billboards have already been torn down and are now illegal. Smokers have been forcibly barred from entering many premises (restaurants, pubs, clubs and hospitals etc.,) and they are excluded from all forms of public transport. Even on a long distance twelve-carriage train, there is no room for any degree of tolerance. Forced to pay for this persecution with £5.50 in tax on every £6.50 pack of cigarettes, smokers are now the twenty-first century’s equivalent to yesterday’s racial and sexual minorities. Marginalised, persecuted and exploited smokers are the people many in society now feel comfortable in vilifying.

Time to stand up and be counted

Simultaneously pitied, hated and left out in the cold smokers are the new minority that I believe all health workers should now be protective of. For when a terror starts to strike, it is not good enough to blindly stand by and obey politicians’ orders. While I choose not to be a smoker, I recognise it is time for good people to stand up on the side of common sense, proportionality and basic tolerance. Being a British libertarian who has always hated racism, homophobia and cruelty, I have a keen sense of when things are going too far and when in the name of the public or collective good, persecution is being unacceptably legitimized.

The tide of inevitability is now turning to favour tolerance

Up until now, the greatest weapon in the armory of the intolerant has been their use of the psychology of inevitability. There is no point in resisting their commands because all resistance is futile: the future belongs to the cleansed and the pure – not the smoker.

And yet, slowly but surely, the tide is starting to turn. Devoid of commercial free speech (advertising), a seat on a train, a chair in the corner of a pub, the right to view a packet of fags above a shop counter, or for it to have a distinctive wrapper, the future is now increasingly clear.

As has already happened in Ireland, the sense of inevitability will turn to favour freedom. For there cheap tobacco is now widely available and being successfully marketed by ever more powerful criminal gangs. It is rumoured that the former IRA is a major provider and even counterfeit cigarettes are now thought to be available virtually everywhere in the country. Indeed, in recognition of the unintended horror that has been created, the Irish government is now actively avoiding any tax hikes on cigarettes for fear of making an already dire situation into a total, meltdown disaster.

Thanks to Cameron, Clegg and Lansely’s plans announced today these criminal gangs will now be eyeing up mainland Britain. Through cheap illicit tobacco they will be looking to increase their customer base and ultimately the overall number of people who smoke. Moreover, in time, they will want to spread the habit down the age range to the naive and vulnerable – in particular teenagers and young adults.

If I were a former terrorist or a member of a criminal gang at the cutting edge of Western Europe’s illicit tobacco trade, I think I would now consider ways of not only surreptitiously supporting groups like ASH and the even the public health policies of the Coalition government but I would do anything in my power to try and keep the nanny state’s sense of perpetual advancement entrenched in the UK’s psyche.

Today in Ireland, my nightmare would be that my side starts to lose the long-term sense of inevitability. If I were a die hard Al Capone, I would fear the Irish government taking a more pragmatic and tolerant stance towards tobacco, and the smoker, for if they do this it would put me out of business.

For NFR, the lesson of National No Smoking Day is simple: life is not black and white. As humans we are riven with shades of grey. When it comes to the purveyors of tobacco it is perhaps better to accept the devils we know rather than the ones we don’t. As a non-smoker this is not easy. But as a practical Brit, my nose for commonsense and fair play tells me it will be for the best. Prohibition has never and will never work.

This is one of the daftest ideas I have seen for a long time.

A community healthcare trust is suggesting that a smoking quit kit with a free voucher for nicotine replacement therapy patches is something that you should give your date for Valentine’s Day.

Apart from the fact that this is probably one of the least romantic ideas going, I would like to know, at a time when the NHS is supposed to be making huge financial savings, just how much this is going to cost?

Finally, it is up to an individual whether or not they wish to smoke.  This is yet another example of the nanny state interfering with peoples life style choices and in my opinion it is unacceptable.

Today is the day when we find out whether David Cameron really has the nerve to deliver on his promises to have a “Bonfire of Quangos” or whether this will be a PR exercise somewhat akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic where we see lots of mergers but no real changes!

NFR believes that we are at a turning point with the way that healthcare is delivered in the UK.  If the coalition government do not have the will to abolish such time and money wasting quangos as the Health Protection Agency what hope is there that they will have the courage to push through the much needed market-oriented reforms that will take the NHS from being a failing service to a more customer focused system.

This is a truly shocking story reporting the views of the Chief Medical Officer of Wales Dr Tony Jewel.  He has stated  that people should be banned from smoking in their own homes to protect children from the effects of passive smoking.

His remarks give me real cause for concern.  First, there has been a wealth of research questioning the so-called dangers of passive smoking. Second, this is a gross invasion of private property.  What does he propose is done to enforce this ban? Government CCTV cameras in everyone’s home? !

This report from Daily Telegraph, details the decision on health and safety grounds, to make appropriate provision for smokers in the Royal Bournemouth Hospital grounds.

I am not here to debate whether people should or shouldn’t smoke, but people do have the right to make their own life style choices and this is not something that they should be persecuted for by state bodies such as the NHS.

I was listening to a discussion on this subject on the radio yesterday and what struck me about the sanctimonious comments, complaining that smokers were taking NHS resources, was that no-one stopped to consider just how much smokers contribute to the government coffers given the amount of tax there is on a packet of cigarettes now.!

Standing in opposition to the principals of of life, liberty and property local government minister Grant Shapps has decided to introduce a busybody tyranny that will benefit many anti-freedom minded activists and campaigners.

If this press release is anything to go by David Cameron’s talk of a non-coercive big society will be still born.  When will these fools learn that what we want is less national and local regulatory interventionism? When will they learn that to build a truly free society you want less politics?

While I make no comment on the health issues surrounding smoking, I am very concerned about this article and the rise in public health vigilanteism.

That children should be encouraged, either actively or passively, by teachers and the police to assault smokers in public because they do not agree with their personal choices is something that we should be very worried about.

This type of action has led to dreadful horrors in the past and society should be very worried about the public persecution of individuals merely exercising their freedom to make life style choices.