Re: Is a smoking ban in UK parks and outdoor spaces a good idea?
I support a ban on smoking in public places and spaces, or at least the right of local authorities and institutions to impose and police a ban on any 'managed' outdoor space which is visited by the public. Now that the indoor ban is in place (a measure which also generated a lot of specious and dishonest opposition, with the constant invocation of 'personal freedom'), some public spaces, especially thresholds, have become almost no-go areas because of heavy contamination of breathable air, not to mention the appalling pollution of the physical environment by cigarette butts and packets. Bear in mind that the tobacco lobby remains immensely powerful, and has managed to largely overcome the advertising ban by 'soft' but potent measures, including the publication of photographs of smoking celebs, and the constant stream of period 'soaps' and dramas in which smoking takes place almost continuously; this is important because it is succeeding as perpetuating an image of smoking as 'normal', rather than a carefully nurtured addiction which remains our biggest mass killer.
An outdoor public places ban will build on the incredible success of the indoor ban in transforming our phyical environment, improving our health status as a nation, and starting to expose smoking for what it really is, an expensive way of killing yourself and others. A global national ban on all outdoor smoking probably is unreasonable and unenforceable, but remember that the same charge was levelled at the indoor ban - can that really have been only eight years ago? Seems like a different universe. The fact is that the tobacco lobby is currently winning the war on maintaining the 'glamour' of the smoking habit among young people, and it is important to win this particular battle in that war. The volume of the squeals of outrage from Forest and Co. is always a good indicator of the importance of any smoking-control proposal, so you can be sure that this measure, and related actions like Plain Packaging, are likely to be highly effective in continuing to improve our health and environment.
Plain Packaging has clearly been nobbled (temporarily) at the highest political level, and we must anticipate, and be prepared for, the same high-level interventions postponing any extension of smoking control into the external environment. We don't need an 'evidence base' for this - it is simply unpleasant and unhealthy to be walking our children in parks and gardens full of cigarette smoke, and sets a bad example to them. We need to deliver this, no whiffs or butts.
Competing interests:
I'm not sure whether a lifetime spent trying to treat the appalling consequences of smoking counts as a competing interest. I was active in canvassing Ministers on the public places ban in 2007, and I believe that such interventions were critical in getting what was at the time a totally unexpected mass free-vote in favour of an indoor ban.
05 March 2015
Philip Barber
Consultant respiratory physician and lung cancer lead clinician
Rapid Response:
Re: Is a smoking ban in UK parks and outdoor spaces a good idea?
I support a ban on smoking in public places and spaces, or at least the right of local authorities and institutions to impose and police a ban on any 'managed' outdoor space which is visited by the public. Now that the indoor ban is in place (a measure which also generated a lot of specious and dishonest opposition, with the constant invocation of 'personal freedom'), some public spaces, especially thresholds, have become almost no-go areas because of heavy contamination of breathable air, not to mention the appalling pollution of the physical environment by cigarette butts and packets. Bear in mind that the tobacco lobby remains immensely powerful, and has managed to largely overcome the advertising ban by 'soft' but potent measures, including the publication of photographs of smoking celebs, and the constant stream of period 'soaps' and dramas in which smoking takes place almost continuously; this is important because it is succeeding as perpetuating an image of smoking as 'normal', rather than a carefully nurtured addiction which remains our biggest mass killer.
An outdoor public places ban will build on the incredible success of the indoor ban in transforming our phyical environment, improving our health status as a nation, and starting to expose smoking for what it really is, an expensive way of killing yourself and others. A global national ban on all outdoor smoking probably is unreasonable and unenforceable, but remember that the same charge was levelled at the indoor ban - can that really have been only eight years ago? Seems like a different universe. The fact is that the tobacco lobby is currently winning the war on maintaining the 'glamour' of the smoking habit among young people, and it is important to win this particular battle in that war. The volume of the squeals of outrage from Forest and Co. is always a good indicator of the importance of any smoking-control proposal, so you can be sure that this measure, and related actions like Plain Packaging, are likely to be highly effective in continuing to improve our health and environment.
Plain Packaging has clearly been nobbled (temporarily) at the highest political level, and we must anticipate, and be prepared for, the same high-level interventions postponing any extension of smoking control into the external environment. We don't need an 'evidence base' for this - it is simply unpleasant and unhealthy to be walking our children in parks and gardens full of cigarette smoke, and sets a bad example to them. We need to deliver this, no whiffs or butts.
Competing interests: I'm not sure whether a lifetime spent trying to treat the appalling consequences of smoking counts as a competing interest. I was active in canvassing Ministers on the public places ban in 2007, and I believe that such interventions were critical in getting what was at the time a totally unexpected mass free-vote in favour of an indoor ban.