Important questions about the state of civil liberties in Britain

Thursday June 2, 2011

Chris Snowdon reviews a new report, Civil Liberties: Up In Smoke, by Simon Davies of Privacy International

What do reformers do when they have achieved everything they ever dreamed of? After campaigned for smoking bans in Britain, Ireland, New York and many other parts of the world, the anti-smoking lobby found themselves with smoke-free legislation that was so comprehensive that it was not immediately obvious where they would go next. The secondhand smoke issue had been served them well for 20 years, but it had now surely been squeezed dry. With smokers exiled not just from all public buildings, but from all private buildings that were accessible to the public, it was difficult to make the case for further restrictions on health grounds.

Instead, as a new report from Privacy International argues, the movement shifted from an evidence-based approach to a morality-based approach. The outdoor smoking ban recently brought into force in New York City has been introduced partly, say its advocates, to protect children from the sight of smokers. The same moral argument is used by the SmokeFree Movies campaign which aims to prevent smoking being depicted in films. A growing number of university campuses and workplaces have introduced total outdoor smoking bans on the basis that tobacco use sets a poor example and does not send out ‘the right message’.

When an outdoor smoking ban was proposed in a town in Australia, the mayor admitted that there was no public health justification for the law but, when questioned on the implications for civil liberties, said: “It’s only the minority who are disadvantaged. Smokers have become marginalised. This is mainstream.” This is a telling comment. The musician Joe Jackson— who writes the preface to this book — once observed that smokers are the only group in society whose minority status is used as a justification for abuse. Certainly, they are the only minority that can be safely described as “filthy” or “dirty” at dinner parties.

None of this could have happened without tobacco control lobby’s conscious decision to pursue what they call the ‘denormalisation’ of smokers. Citing numerous unnerving examples of intrusion and harassment, Simon Davies shows just how effective this campaign of stigmatisation has been. It is now considered acceptable not just to force smokers onto to street, but to force them off the street, have them sacked from their jobs and, in some instances, even evicted from their homes. They face prying eyes and CCTV surveillance at work and on the street, they are banned from fostering children and can be fined for dropping ash on the pavement.

Discriminated against by the NHS, taxed to the tune of around £2,000 a year by the Treasury and now told they cannot smoke in a park because the mere sight of them will traumatise children, smokers exist in what Davies calls “a shrinking zone of normality”. It is, he says, “open season” on smokers.

All of this would, in the normal course of events, excite the interest of those who stand up for civil liberties. Occasionally it does, but smokers are generally not seen as a social group that deserves protection. Those who point out that smokers are a minority group who are being systematically stigmatised, belittled and discriminated against are told that they don’t count as a legitimate minority because they could end the torment at any time if they just stopped smoking. By implication, the only groups deserving respect are those whose minority status was decided at birth and cannot be changed.

This seems to me to be a peculiarly narrow view of tolerance. Of course we should not be prejudiced against people on the basis of race or sexuality, but this is hardly a badge of tolerance. Rather, it is the minimum standard of basic decency in a civilised society. Tolerance is something very different. It requires us to respect other people’s choices and to accept that our desires will sometimes be in conflict with the desires of others. The tolerant person strives to resolve these conflicts while treating everybody with dignity and respect. There is none of that in tobacco control. Instead, anti-smoking lobbyists treat compromise and mutual respect as a threat to their agenda. So extreme has this agenda become that they are probably right.

Civil Liberties: Up in Smoke asks important questions about the state of civil liberties in Britain for those whose lifestyle choices make them outsiders. After carefully weighing up the arguments on both sides, it concludes that the line between paternalism and intimidation has been crossed. Open season indeed.

Chris Snowdon is a writer and blogger

Civil Liberties: Up in Smoke by Simon Davies of Privacy International, can be downloaded from the Forest website