Smoking 3
The third installment in an occasional series about smoking. Check out Smoking and Smoking 2 for more on this subject.
It’s now 4 July - Independence Day for our American cousins - and while they are busy celebrating their freedom, in the UK we’ve lost part of ours, as the ban on smoking in enclosed public areas has now been in force for four days. [So far, the one change that I've really noticed is that there are a lot more people smoking while they're driving, which can't be good for road safety!]
I’ve already said that I’m not in favour of the ban for several reasons; the over-bearing “nanny state” attitude, the removal of personal liberty and the freedom to choose, and arse-about-face way that it’s being done. For instance, we now have to have “No Smoking” signs everywhere - even though there’s a blanket ban. As someone else said, do we have “No Murdering” or “No Burglary” signs? No. Why do we need all these “No Smoking” signs when it’s banned everywhere?
So I was cheered to see on the local news this evening the story of a vicar who tried to get himself arrested for smoking - by lighting his pipe in a police station. Good man! (This link should take you to a video of the story.) Unfortunately, it’s not a police matter - this stupid regulation is dealt with by local councils - so they just turfed him out.
But I think what his story does demonstrate is that there is quite a bit of feeling out there against this new legislation, not because lots of people want to be able to smoke but because they see it as another step along the slippery slope to total governance of our daily lives.
Of course, you can argue that the nation’s health is more important and you might have a point - if all of the medical evidence against smoking is actually true. I’m currently reading Slow Burn by Don Oakley which argues that a lot of the evidence against smoking is anecdotal at best and represents clever manipulation of statistics. I must admit that at the moment (not very far through the book) I am unconvinced by some of his arguments, but he does have the figures to back some of them up. I’d certainly recommend anyone - smoker or not - to check it out for a different viewpoint, if nothing else.
Smoking 2
Back at the beginning of April, one of my early blog posts was about smoking (click here if you want to go and read it first). Well, it started out being about smoking and then turned into a bit of a lament about how pubs aren’t pubs anymore.
So, with the imminent smoking ban, I thought I’d revisit the subject and see if I could actually get across this time what I had meant to say in that earlier post.
It is not illegal to sell cigarettes and tobacco products. It is not illegal to buy cigarettes and tobacco products. Up to now, it has not been illegal to use cigarettes and tobacco products. But as from 1 July, it will be illegal to use cigarettes and tobacco products pretty much anywhere except your own house.
This is the latest development in a long-running saga which has seen the humble cigarette move from being the must-have fashion accessory (remember all those film-noir flicks from the forties where absolutely everyone smoked?), through to being the pariah of the modern age - it even beats binge-drinking as the all encompassing evil.
The Government wants people to stop smoking because it’s bad for their health, and puts a terrible burden on the health service. Non-smokers want people to stop smoking because they don’t want to passive smoke. Already banned from quite a number of places, smoking in a public building becomes outlawed from 1 July.
But if smoking is so bad for you, and the health experts insist that it is, why not go the whole way and make the buying, selling and using of cigarettes and tobacco products completely illegal? Why have this halfway house situtation? Well, partly because of the money; at the same time as trying to get people to stop smoking, the Government actually loves it when they do because they earn a mountain of cash out of it. “Oh, but that gets used up to pay for the extra health services needed by all the sick smokers”, I hear you say. No, it doesn’t. There’s still plenty left. (You could even look at it another way; if smoking is bad for you, encourage people to smoke more. That way, they’ll all die early and you won’t have to worry about paying them a pension for who knows how many years!)
I think the smoking issue really goes to the heart of the way that Government is trying to make us live our lives now; they seem to have decided that we can’t be trusted to look after ourselves anymore so they’re going to do it for us. The Nanny State as is it known is reaching ever further into people’s lives and I, for one, object. Smoking may not be good for you or others (although, there is some evidence to suggest it’s not as bad as it’s made out ) but at the end of the day it’s legal! Just like fatty food, fizzy drinks, take-away, alcohol and all the other things that they’re trying to stop us enjoying.
I’m a grown-up adult; I can make my own decisions regarding my health - if I want to smoke, drink and eat bad food why shouldn’t I be allowed?
Vitamin and mineral users: protect your rights
If you live in the UK and if you are concerned enough about your health to use nutritional supplements - particularly vitamins and minerals, but also herbals and other nutrients - then you’ve probably heard about the EU Food Supplements Directive (2002/46/EC) that came into UK law back in 2005.
This Directive, which currently covers only vitamins and minerals but which is believed to be a framework for much wider legislation to come, has two main parts:
Part one defines (by the use of Positive Lists) the vitamins and minerals that may be used in nutritional supplement products. It also defines the forms of those vitamins and minerals that are permissible.
This arrangement has left many widely used and popular vitamin and mineral forms out in the cold. Perhaps the best example of this is with Selenium. This is an antioxidant mineral that is needed for many different body functions; the most popular form in supplements is the more natural selenomethionine but this is not on the Positive List. Instead you have to settle for the more artificial sodium selenite which can actually be used as a poison.
There is a process that allows submission of dossiers of information, to apply to have an ingredient added to the Positive Lists. Currently, there are about 500 dossiers submitted from the UK being evaluated by the European Food Safety Agency.
Part one came into UK law on 1 August 2005. So far, because of the derogation granted to any ingredient which has had a dossier submitted but not had a decision yet, nothing has really changed in the UK market. But derogation ends in December 2009.
The second part of the Directive is the part that could really restrict consumer choice. This part of the Directive seeks to set maximum permitted levels for all ingredients on the Positive Lists.
Let’s take vitamin C as an example. The vitamin that everyone knows about - you take it when you’ve got a cold (that’s because it’s an immune system booster), sailors used to eat oranges to avoid scurvy (scurvy is caused by a vitamin C deficiency). Many supplement products contain 500mg or 1,000mg of vitamin C per tablet; many supplement users take several tablets a day. Linus Pauling, who for many years was a great advocate of vitamin C supplementation, used to take upwards of 20,000mg a day and lived healthily to a ripe old age.
But the EU-sanctioned RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) for vitamin C is just 60mg - hardly enough to even notice. The RDA is supposed to be the minimum amount required to prevent a deficiency in the particular nutrient - but what about trying to promote optimal health? What about the fact that if you smoke you use up more than 60mg with each cigarette?
And it’s the EU RDA’s that are likely to be used as the basis for the maximum permitted levels, which are going to be set over the coming months, unless something is done.
There is a framework in place - agreed between the supplements industry and the Food Standards Agency (one of the government bodies, along with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency - MHRA, and Trading Standards, that police the supplements industry) - that allows for high-potency supplements to remain on sale, even in the light of this Directive. It involves the use of label statements that highlight possible adverse effects of consuming too much of the nutrient.
This framework allows for a much more flexible relationship between what is already a highly regulated industry and the Government, whilst also protecting consumer choice and safety. The EU system of maximum permitted levels will not do so.
So, help protect your rights as a supplement consumer. Sign the e-petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/uksaysnotofsd/, get all your friends and family to sign it, also sign the Consumers for Health Choice petition at http://www.consumersforhealthchoice.com/phpPETITION/, or in your local health food store, and write to your local MP* and tell him or her your views on the directive and what you want them to do to protect your freedom of choice.
Together, we can win this!
*If you don’t know who your local MP is, you can find out by using this locator.
Smoking
Smoking is an emotive subject. The popular view now seems to be that smokers are, at best, deluded fools hastening themselves to an early grave and, at worst, murderers.
I’ve never smoked (well, I say never - when I was 19 I smoked for about half a day but stopped because I couldn’t see what the fuss was about) but I have lived with smokers all my life. My mum smokes, my paternal grandparents smoked, my maternal uncles smoke - many the Christmas I sat after dinner in a room with up to 8 other people, all smoking, watching the air gradually fill with blue smoke.
But I’ve never been a smoking Nazi; if you want to smoke, I don’t mind. Indeed, there are certain instances where I WANT people to be smoking. The major one of these is in a pub.
There’s been a trend over the last few years to turn pubs into family entertainment. Woe betide the pub that doesn’t do food these days, or have a family room, or a kids play area, or a non-smoking policy. But I’m sorry that is not what a pub is for. Even though as a kid I spent quite bit of time in various pubs (nods to the Martello and the Windsor Tavern at this point), I don’t agree with kids in pubs. (Sorry to those friends of mine that have kids and like a drink). A proper pub is not a suitable place for children.
Proper pubs, though, are fading fast. What do I mean by proper pub? Well:
- You can smell it from the other end of the street; a proper pub has a distinctive smell, of died-in-the-wood ale, smoke, and long-term drinkers.
- It’s generally on the corner of the street - preferably with those green tiles half way up the building. You know, those green tiles that you only ever see on pubs.
- It is quite dark inside; the hardened drinker doesn’t want to see himself too well in the mirror above the bar.
- You can buy crisps and peanuts - maybe even chocolate - but you can’t buy dinner. Dinner is something you have before you come in or after you leave.
- You can smoke and they sell cigars from behind the bar.
- Regulars have their own seat and their own glass.
Most establishments that call themselves a pub these days aren’t proper pubs. You have to put up with kids running about (we’ll leave the poor parenting rant to another day), you have to put up with people eating all round you, you have to put up with clean air and no atmosphere.I’ve never got this whole “passive smoking” idea either. As I said, I grew up with a family of smokers and it doesn’t seem to have done me any harm. I don’t have asthma - a friend of mine, from a family of non-smokers, is way worse off than me there - it hasn’t stunted my growth (6′ 4″), and it doesn’t seem to have effected my ability to think for myself. So what’s the big deal?
I agree that smoking may not be the best thing that you can do for yourself (after all, you’re setting fire to something and then breathing in the results) but it is legal, so if you want to smoke, go to it. In fact, I’ll buy you a pint!
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