Brian Monteith: You can stick that in your pipe and smoke it

Published on Thursday 11 March 2010 08:59

IT WAS all going to be so beautiful in Holyrood's Walt Disney world where politicians know best, tell us what is and isn't good for us – and when we fail to listen, bully us into submission.

Yesterday was No Smoking Day, so I lit up my pipe in protest.

I remember when First Minister Jack McConnell, cheered on enthusiastically by Nicola Sturgeon, told us how our brave new world, this modern Scotland, would ban smoking in enclosed public spaces, de-normalising smoking so that fewer people would inhale tobacco.

I myself had no problem with extending smoking bans in enclosed public places, except that I objected to the tone of the approach – the abuse of smokers by making them pariahs would not have been allowed if they were another minority such as homosexuals, Jews or Pakistanis – and nor did I agree that private businesses such as pubs, restaurants and especially clubs were public places. They were private domains where the licensee had the authority to refuse entry.

The defenders of lifestyle management and social engineering – the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Scottish Nationalists – told us to ignore the economic threats that the hospitality trade feared would engulf them. The fall in smoking and an improvement in the nation's health would be worth it.

Before the ban was debated, I attended a one-day seminar at a hotel right next door to the Holyrood parliament hosted by the Scottish licensed trade. All 129 MSPs were invited to come and meet publicans and hoteliers from their constituencies. I was the only MSP to turn up.

The Health Bill was passed with great celebration by the bullies and their hangers on. After a year from the introduction of the ban in March 2006, a seminar was organised in Edinburgh to tell the world how Scotland was leading the way in tobacco control – more trumpets blared when an unbelievable drop in heart attacks by 17 per cent was proclaimed.

It was unbelievable because it was a lie, and it wasn't the first to be told.

In fact, the truth can be found on Chris Snowdon's website velvetgloveiron fist.com, but it's rather long and complex so, to put it simply, the health statistics were distorted and did not compare lemons in 2006 with lemons in 2007 – they compared lemons in 2006 with cucumbers in 2007.

Similar claims about a fall in smoking rates were exposed last month. Rather than the big fall that was claimed, the Office of National Statistics has revealed the number of smokers in Scotland fell from 25 per cent before the ban to 24 per cent after it. As smoking has been falling for the last 20 years, this change is of no statistical significance and cannot be attributed to the ban.

Now the truth about the effect on our licensed trade is out in the open, too – on Monday, we were told that three Scottish pubs are closing every week and it is the community-based pubs that are closing the most.

I'm not going to try and claim that all of the problems that our pubs face are due to the smoking ban. They face new and complex legislation that was meant to make licensing simple but it has ended up more complicated and more costly.

They have been banned from having any drinks promotions such as happy hours or a half and a nip for pensioners on quiet afternoons, and let's not forget people have less in their pockets to spend. Any one of these would be a burden, but all three and the smoking ban? It's just too much for some and they are closing.

The reason is simple – booze in supermarkets is cheap, can be promoted legally with discounts and people can still smoke and drink at home. I remember warning this would cause far more fires at home – scaremongering I was accused of – but the sad fact is that deaths from fires caused at home by cigarettes have doubled.

Politicians remain in denial, they will not accept the smoking ban as a contributory factor to pub closures, nor do they admit that the health gains have been exaggerated and they go all quiet when you mention that the number of smokers refuses to fall or the deaths from fires.

Instead, they become more extreme in their reactions – banning cigarettes out of sight in newsagents, urging more tax hikes and thinking of how to ban it in cars and at home, using the presence of children as the excuse.

Not content with demonising smoking tobacco, they now demonise drinking alcohol, consuming fatty foods and other behaviours they think they know better about. Without a doubt, we will end up with more alcoholics and more fatties as every descent into prohibition has shown.

The smoking ban has given us some nicer pubs with clean air by pushing smokers out into the streets. It could have been achieved without a ban by asking pubs to meet clean air standards.

We would then have fewer pubs closing, fewer deaths from home fires and still have achieved a slow but falling rate of smokers. I'm away to enjoy my pipe.