Health Bill: peers urged to say no to denormalisation

Tuesday April 28, 2009

The government’s plans to ban the point of sale display of tobacco and outlaw cigarette vending machines are the latest steps towards a bully state, says Neil Rafferty

Members of the House of Lords are currently debating the government’s Health Bill which includes provisions to ban the display of tobacco and prohibit vending machines ….

Government ministers across the UK have often used the term ‘denormalise’ to describe the motivation behind their anti-smoking policies. They say their intention is to denormalise smoking as an activity, but the inevitable result, and arguably the real agenda, is the denormalisation of smokers as individuals.

It is difficult to ignore the Orwellian nature of ‘denormalisation’. It could have come straight from the pages of 1984, where a totalitarian authority seeks to control not only the actions, but the thoughts and feelings of its oppressed citizens. With the invention of ‘newspeak’ Orwell showed us how language and propaganda can be used to achieve conformity and obedience, whether through the creation of phantom threats, or the relentless drive to make everyone think and act the same way, lest they be guilty of a ‘thoughtcrime’.

In their never-ending war on tobacco, our government ministers will, occasionally, shift the focus from denormalisation to the importance of ‘protecting children’. This, we are told, is the central justification for the proposed ban on tobacco displays as well as the banning of cigarette vending machines.

Measures

The government claims all these measures will help to reduce youth smoking rates, even though the evidence fails to stack up. In the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, youth smoking rates actually increased for 18 months after a tobacco display ban was introduced. Meanwhile in Iceland, youth smoking rates have remained virtually unchanged, despite a ban being in place since 2001. And of course children who can currently afford to buy two packs of 10 in the space of a week or month will simply buy one packet of 20.

The government’s consultation paper on the future of tobacco control even included the suggestion of banning smoking in cars and homes if children are present. Our government is prepared to use the police to invade our homes and violate our privacy all for the sake of a cigarette.

But the ease with which the government’s ‘child protection’ claims are dismantled confirms the real agenda behind these measures is, once again, the ongoing campaign to denormalise smokers.

Stigmatising

Denormalisation is about shaming adults into changing their behaviour. It is about stigmatising them and placing them apart from the rest of society until they learn to behave in a manner which is approved of. So when a smoker has to ask for his packet of cigarettes to be pulled from its hiding place beneath the counter, the government hopes he will experience shame and social embarrassment, as if he was asking for a pornographic magazine or a treatment for a sexually transmitted disease.

The government would have us believe that smokers are wretched individuals, locked in the grip of a chronic addiction and nothing more. They refuse to accept that smokers pursue their habit out of choice, and all those who persist must be subject not only to a public shaming but to a seemingly endless torrent of ever more intrusive laws until they submit.

Meanwhile publicly funded information films tell us ‘If You Smoke, You Stink’ as if somehow it is the government’s job to lecture us about our personal odour. The agenda is clear: smokers must be portrayed as ugly, ignorant, even immoral.

But of course smokers are just ordinary, decent people who happen to have a risky habit. And yet they are being stigmatised and marginalised by the politicians whose wages they pay. It seems our government, often accused of running a ‘nanny’ state is in fact much worse. It is a bully, determined to belittle those it dislikes until they agree to do as they are told.

Language

And what’s next? We can already detect the language of denormalisation in the debates over alcohol and food. Ministers are proposing new measures to clamp down on so-called binge drinking, including increasing the price of alcohol and restricting access, despite the fact the only a tiny percentage of the UK population has a problem with excess drinking, while the vast majority can enjoy a drink safely, responsibly and regularly.

We see yet more publicly funded information films focusing not on the health effects of excessive drinking, but how it may lead to you finishing your evening in a dishevelled state, or how being drunk will inevitably repel a member of the opposite sex. The message is, getting drunk is not normal behaviour and those who drink to excess, even occasionally, deserve to be shunned and marginalised. It is all integral to the government’s desire to create a ‘culture of responsible drinking’.

Meanwhile we see increasingly fevered press coverage of the ‘obesity epidemic’ along with government threats to control the salt and sugar content of our food. The government seems to believe we are like children, oblivious to the potential health effects, failing to recognise that we eat these foods because they taste good. The language of denormalisation will soon be the main ingredient in the great food debate.

Freedom

Smoking, drinking and eating fatty food are choices. They may not be the healthiest choices an individual can make, but that is the nature of freedom. Real freedom is about having the ability to choose how you want to live your life as long as you do not force that choice on others.

The proposals laid out in the consultation paper on the future of tobacco control are the enemies of choice. They are simply another stage in the government’s rolling programme of interference and intrusion into the lives of free individuals.

Governments are not elected to tell us how to behave. They are not elected to bully, cajole and denormalise. If government has a role in public health it is to warn people of potential risks to their health in a measured and matter-of-fact way and then leave us alone to choose for ourselves.

The anti-smoking campaigners say ‘it is about time’. We say ‘enough is enough’.

Link
Say No To The Nanny State