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** 21 September 2020
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** UK
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** Stoptober: Smokers are being urged to quit (#1)
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** Smoking during pregnancy: Government to miss the target by a decade (#2)
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** London: Hammersmith and Fulham council prohibit staff from smoking at their desks at home (#3)
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** Scotland: Law banning smoking in front of children in cars has never been used in court (#4)
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** International
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** How the oil industry made us doubt climate change (#5)
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** New Zealand First aims to cut the price of cigarettes to $20 (#6)
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** UK
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** The proportion of people who have successfully quit smoking this year is at its highest in more than a decade, new figures show. Data from the University College London (UCL) Smoking Toolkit Study shows that in England in 2020 there has been an increase of almost two-thirds in the quitting success rate, rising from 14% to 23%, the highest since at least 2007. There has also been a surge in smokers in England trying to quit, increasing by 22% from 2019, with experts saying the coronavirus pandemic has changed attitudes.

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) calculates that more than 1 million people in the UK stopped smoking during the lockdown period. Smoking prevalence in England is also at an all-time low of 13.9%.

Health organisations including ASH, the British Lung Foundation (BLF), the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and Cancer Research UK (CRUK) have backed the Stoptober campaign calling for more people to quit smoking. Stoptober challenges people to give up smoking for 28 days, making them five times more likely to quit for good, according to research.

Scott Crosby, the tobacco control programme manager at Public Health England, said: “Stoptober is back in its ninth year and it’s a little bit different because of the pandemic. We’re really looking to raise awareness of the damage to the airways. We’ve got a viral respiratory disease at the moment and what you can do to help protect your health and boost your immune system is to quit. That’s the biggest thing you can do for your health at any time, never mind during a pandemic.”

The public health minister, Jo Churchill, said: “It has never been more important to take care of ourselves, and quitting smoking is a great way to start. With smoking rates already at an all-time low and 2020 seeing more people stopping than ever, I urge all smokers to join in Stoptober to improve their health and help England become a smoke-free society by 2030.”

Source: The Guardian, 21 September 2020

See also: Kent Live - More than a million people quit smoking in UK during pandemic ([link removed])
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** The government is set to miss its smoking reduction target for pregnant women by a decade, analysis by The Times suggests. Nearly 60,000 women in England were smokers when they gave birth in the year up to March, making up 10% of all deliveries. The government target is to reduce the rate of smokers to 6% by 2022, but analysis of annual data since 2007 suggests the target will be met between 2030 and 2040.

The 6% target was introduced in 2017. But for the year ending in March, only 37 NHS organisations out of 180 reached the 6% target or lower. Experts fear the closure of Public Health England (PHE), which was announced last month, could slow progress further.

A spokesman for the charity Action on Smoking for Health (ASH) said the reorganisation of PHE risked undermining the progress that had been made if there was no clear plan for the future of stop-smoking services. ASH is researching why the progress has stalled and said there are several causes. One is that pregnant smokers are not always referred to specialist stop-smoking services, despite national guidance saying they should be. Another reason is the drop in national mass-media campaigns that warn against smoking, which has affected the number of people stopping smoking in general. They also say improvements in data collection could be having an impact on the statistics. Funding for services to support pregnant women to quit smoking comes out of the public health grant to local authorities, which means the amount spent by councils varies.

Linda Bauld, professor of public health at University of Edinburgh and co-chairwoman of the Smoking in Pregnancy Challenge Group, said: “Radically shifting rates of smoking in pregnancy has been difficult and it is clear that it requires not only interventions once people are pregnant, but concerted national action to bring down the rates among men and women before they even conceive. National and regional public health infrastructure are vital to this, but its future is uncertain following the government decision to close Public Health England. The government must urgently clarify the future of these functions if we are to find a way to truly end smoking in pregnancy.”

Source: The Times, 18 September 2020
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A report published today by the tobacco industry funded pro-smoking group FOREST has criticised smoking bans at work as a “moral crusade” that is “waging war on choice and personal freedom.”

The report, titled “Smokefree Ideology - How local authorities are waging war on choice and personal freedom”, found that, out of 147 of councils, with an explicit policy on cigarette breaks, 88 restricted them, 49 banned them and just 10 allowed workers to smoke. The figures show 50 councils prohibited smoking and/or vaping breaks entirely, even if workers were clocked out. This included bans on smoking or vaping while walking between work appointments.

Councillor Ian Hudspeth, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Community Well-being Board, defended the councils telling the Telegraph that they were being “responsible employers.”

He went to say: “Smoking is still the leading cause of preventable death. Reducing smoking rates is the single biggest thing we can do to improve the nation’s health, as it will reduce cardiovascular disease, respiratory conditions, and cancer, meaning people can live longer in better health. The Government has rightly pledged to end smoking in England by 2030 as part of a range of measures to tackle the causes of preventable ill-health. As responsible employers and public health leaders, councils make no apology for leading by example and looking to protect the health of their employees and the wider public.”

Source: The Telegraph, 21 September 2020
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** A law which banned drivers from lighting up in front of children four years ago is yet to produce a conviction.

Police reported just six motorists to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) for smoking while minors were inside the car between December 2016 and March 2019. None of the referrals resulted in a prosecution.

Prosecutors also say “fewer than five” drivers have been reported to them this year for breaking the anti-smoking laws. None of the cases pursued has produced a guilty verdict. An anti-smoking charity welcomed the findings and said it showed the law, which prohibits motorists puffing a cigarette in front of under-18s, was being obeyed.

Joseph Carter, head of Asthma UK and British Lung Foundation Scotland, said: “We’re pleased to see such low levels of law enforcement have been needed. Smoking in a car can create pollution levels 35 times greater than those deemed safe by the WHO [World Health Organization], and no child should be exposed to this level of harm. We hope the low case number indicates a cultural shift towards smoke-free and clean air for all.”

Source: Daily Record, 20 September 2020
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** International
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** Marty Hoffert was one of the first scientists to create a model which predicted the effects of human-made climate change. He did so while working for Exxon, one of the world’s largest oil companies, which would later merge with another, Mobil. At the time, Exxon was spending millions of dollars on ground-breaking research. It wanted to lead the charge as scientists grappled with the emerging understanding that the warming planet could cause the climate to change in ways that could make life difficult for humans. Hoffert shared his predictions with his managers, showing them what might happen if we continued burning fossil fuels in our cars, trucks, and planes.

But he noticed a clash between Exxon’s findings, and public statements made by company bosses, such as the then chief executive Lee Raymond, who said that “currently, the scientific evidence is inconclusive as to whether human activities are having a significant effect on the global climate.”

So, what changed? The record-breaking hot summer of 1988 was key. The big news in America, it gave extra weight to warnings from Nasa scientist Dr Jim Hansen that “the greenhouse effect has been detected and is changing our climate now.” Political leaders took notice. Then UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher acknowledged the great new global threat: “The environmental challenge which confronts the whole world demands an equivalent response from the whole world.”

In 1989, Exxon’s strategy chief Duane Levine drew up a confidential presentation for the company’s board, “We’re starting to hear the inevitable call for action,” it said, which risked what it called “irreversible and costly draconian steps. More rational responses will require efforts to extend science and increase emphasis on costs and political realities.” Researchers argue this was just the start of a decades-long campaign to shape public opinion and to spread doubt about climate change. Naomi Oreskes, professor of the history of science at Harvard University and co-author of Merchants of Doubt later discovered that decades before the energy industry tried to undermine the case for climate change, tobacco companies had used the same techniques to challenge the emerging links between smoking and lung cancer in the 1950s.

As John Hill wrote in the 1953 document, “salesmen in the industry are frantically alarmed, and the decline in tobacco stocks on the stock exchange market has caused grave concern”. Hill recommended fighting science with science. “We do not believe the industry should indulge in any flashy or spectacular ballyhoo. There are no public relations [medicine] known to us at least, which will cure the ills of the industry.” As a later document by tobacco company Brown and Williamson summarised the approach: “Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public.” The tobacco companies may have eventually lost their battle to hide the harms of smoking, but the blueprint drawn up by John Hill and his colleagues proved to be very effective.

David Michaels, author of The Triumph of Doubt says: “By cynically manipulating and distorting scientific evidence, the manufacturers of doubt have seeded in much of the public cynicism about science, making it far more difficult to convince people that science provides useful - in some cases, vitally important - information. There is no question that this distrust of science and scientists is making it more difficult to stem the coronavirus pandemic.”
It seems the legacy of “the tobacco playbook” lives on.

Source: BBC News, 20 September 2020
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** New Zealand First, a political party, says it would lower tobacco excise so that the average
pack of cigarettes is no more than $20.

Party leader Winston Peters announced the policy on Wednesday, saying the party intended to stop punishing smokers with high excise tax and help them quit. Peters says it will support New Zealand’s ASH’s surge strategy, making alternatives to smoking affordable and widely available. He will remove tax from smoking cessation tools, and says vaping products are far safer than they used to be. He states that big tobacco would not benefit from his party’s policy, and he had not been lobbied either by them or vaping companies.

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern said she would not lower taxes on cigarettes - and this was non-negotiable. She went on to say: “The leader of New Zealand First has always taken a different view on that, but we maintain the perspective that ultimately we want people to stop smoking in New Zealand, and that has been one of the tools that around the world is used to help reduce smoking.”

Source: RNZ, 17 September 2020
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For more information call 020 7404 0242, email [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or visit www.ash.org.uk

ASH Daily News is a digest of published news on smoking-related topics. ASH is not responsible for the content of external websites. ASH does not necessarily endorse the material contained in this bulletin.

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