Show me the smoking gun

New figures suggest the smoking ban has produced a pretty small reduction in the number of people who smoke.

But we are told that making people quit is not the point of the legislation. According to a spokesman for the Department of Health:

The primary aim of the legislation is to reduce the risk from exposure to second-hand smoke."

The BBC adds:

Doctors estimate second-hand smoke kills more than 600 people a year.

But no evidence is provided about the impact of the ban on passive smoking. Lucky for the Department that. The best study on the impact of bans on passive smoking suggests that all they do is shift the burden of second-hand smoke from adults to children.

This evidence is compelling and yet smoking ban advocates simply ignore it.

Every time one of them blithely talks about the ban reducing passive smoking they should be presented with the evidence and asked to address it.

Comments

[Chris Rose]

Where does this figure of 600 people a year dying from passive smoking come from? Has there been any scientific study of the phenomenon and, if so, what methodology was used?

It seems to me that this is one of those statistics that gets passed around from person to person and gains authority only because it is endlessly repeated.

[Vincenzo Rampulla]

Just some thoughts: Wasn't there something in the news this week that said that half of smokers are smoking less?

Whilst DoH may talk about the legislation in terms of a single primary aim, there seems to be lots of secondary aims and effects: protecting pub/club workers from excessive exposure to smoke, promoting healthier lifestyles (though, no doubt, there is the argument that people are just drinking more), persuading those smokers who want to give up smoking to do so, etc, etc.

And surely the longer term effects will be a reduction in the NHS bill on smoking related illnesses?

[Martin Graham]

Agreed, there are numerous motivations behind this policy.

Reducing passive smoking is key. As for Mr. Finkelstein's objection that this merely exposes children to more passive smoking, well the health of a child is the parent's responsibility. As a libertarian, I'm sure Daniel agrees.

Before the ban, smokers with kids were poisoning two categories of people with smoke: strangers in public places; and their own children at home. Now they have been stopped from poisoning strangers, which is a step forward, surely. The fact that some smokers remain foolish or wicked enough to poison their own children does not mean the ban is a bad idea.

Another key motivation for the ban was to reduce the amount of smoking. Some friends of mine who smoke have reported they have cut down (by about half) the number of cigarettes they smoke while at the pub, not through conscious effort, but because the "stepping out" ritual has presented an obstacle to chain-smoking. This has health benefits for these smokers and cost benefits for the NHS.

[Andrew Blackmore]

I am an non smoking supporter of the smoking ban. I live in Ireland, where we have had the ban, and received large unwavering support from the first day.

However, one thing I have noticed is that the "passive smoking risk" reason for the smoking ban is a red herring. The real reason is that these days most people do not like the smell of second hand smoke on people's breathe, cloths, in buildings, and food, and they do not like the look of fags, ash, ashtrays, used matches, cigarette boxes. Smoking is now very uncool.

The problem is that the goverment cannot make a case for banning something because "it smells" or "it looks horrible", or "it's uncool", so they use convenient medical reasons instead.

People who support the smoking ban will say things like "don't have to wash cloths day after going to pub, can now taste my meal, I don't have a sore throat, or coughing problem the day after going out, etc". They will not say things like "feel reassurred that I have a slightly lower risk of lung cancer in 30 years".

To test my theory, ask people who support the smoking ban over the next few years why they like it, and also check out the massive approval ratings I predict that it will get.

This means that pointing out holes in the passive smoking evidence is completely irrelevant, it's not really meant to be taken seriously, it's just to keep the smokers quiet for a bit while the ban settles in!