Christopher Snowdon is Head of Lifestyle Economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs.
Writing on this website last Monday, Steve Brine MP claimed that the government’s bizarre plan to gradually prohibit the sale of all tobacco products has the support of “two-thirds of adults in Britain … including nearly three-quarters of Conservative voters”. He was referring to a survey commissioned by the state-funded pressure group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).
However, if one looks at the results of that survey, it shows that support is lower among Conservative voters (72 per cent) than among Labour and Lib Dem voters (76 per cent). Puzzlingly, however, the overall level of support is lower than both figures, at 71 per cent.
Perhaps Reform voters, who are not mentioned in the results, are so fiercely opposed to the nanny state that they dragged the average down. If so, wouldn’t that be useful information for the Conservative Party to have in the run up to a general election?
It is a strange bit of spin to portray 71 per cent as “two-thirds” while 72 per cent is rounded up to “three-quarters”, but it is one way of selling this deeply unconservative policy to ConHome readers.
That, however, is a trivial issue compared to the big problem with Brine’s claim. The question the pollsters asked was: “How strongly, if at all, do you support or oppose a goal to make Britain a country where no one smokes?”
There is no mention of Rishi Sunak’s generational tobacco ban in that question. There is no mention of any policy at all, let alone prohibition. YouGov might as well have asked “Wouldn’t it be nice if no one smoked?” It is an aspiration, an ambition, a goal. It is so vague that it is surprising that social desirability bias didn’t make more people agree with it.
No reasonable person could interpret it, as Brine does, as showing “overwhelming support” for “the Government’s smoking ban plan”.
Why such slipperiness? Why didn’t ASH give YouGov a more specific question to ask? Why is the Government in such a rush to force this legislation through?
Could it be that the public have started to think through this policy through and are having second thoughts? When the smokers’ rights group FOREST commissioned a similar survey in January, their pollster asked a more accurate and specific question: “Do you think that when a person is legally an adult at 18 they should or should not be allowed to purchase cigarettes and other tobacco products?”
In response, 64 per cent agreed and only 26 per cent disagreed. It will no doubt be pointed out that FOREST is funded by the tobacco industry (as is the IEA to a much lesser extent). But ask yourself who is trying to pull the wool over your eyes here: FOREST, with their poll, or Steve Brine, with his highly-misleading interpretation of ASH’s poll?
Everyone agrees that people born after 2008 should not currently be allowed to buy tobacco, but that doesn’t mean that they should never be allowed to buy tobacco. Does the party of Winston Churchill really want to stop the best man at a wedding having a cigar in twenty years time?
Leaving aside the liberal objections, it is simply preposterous to ban one group of adults from buying a product that is still on the shelves for another group of adults. In New Zealand, where they have a conservative government, this ridiculous idea (which Sunak is not even proposing to implement properly) has been shelved. No other country is serious considering it. There is a good reason for that.
Brine tiresomely implies that Harry Phibbs is reading from the “the playbook of the tobacco transnationals” when he says that Sunak’s prohibition will lead to an increase in the illicit market. “But where is his evidence?”, Brine asks.
Try the United States of America between 1920 and 1933. Try South Africa in 2020, when the government used lockdowns as an excuse to temporarily ban tobacco sales. Try Bhutan, where the prohibition of tobacco was repealed after the black market became uncontrollable and smoking rates soared.
Have a look at Australia, which doesn’t have prohibition but does have the world’s highest rates of tobacco duty. The state of Victoria is currently in the grip of an “unrelenting tobacco war” as criminal gangs compete for market share by firebombing tobacconists.
Closer to home, one in six of British 16-to-24-year-olds have smoked cannabis in the past year, despite it being illegal for nearly a century. Needless to say, 100 per cent of the cannabis market is illicit.
You do not need a playbook to tell you that prohibition doesn’t work. You just need a history book. Under Sunak’s plans, there will be relatively few problems in the short term: 20-year-olds will simply buy cigarettes for 19-year-olds, and then 21-year-olds will buy cigarettes for 20-year-olds. The policy will be daft rather than dangerous.
But over time, the proportion of smokers forced onto the black market will inevitably grow before eventually, in theory, the only place to buy tobacco will be the black market. That will take many decades, and I don’t expect it to happen. I have no doubt that the neo-puritans at ASH will persuade the next government to ban the sale of tobacco entirely. That has always been their aim, even if they have only recently been brave enough to admit it.
That would not create Sunak’s “tobacco-free generation”, any more than the ban on cannabis has created a cannabis-free generation. It will simply erode respect for the law, enrich criminal gangs and deprive the government of tax revenue. Because that’s what always happens.
Christopher Snowdon is Head of Lifestyle Economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs.
Writing on this website last Monday, Steve Brine MP claimed that the government’s bizarre plan to gradually prohibit the sale of all tobacco products has the support of “two-thirds of adults in Britain … including nearly three-quarters of Conservative voters”. He was referring to a survey commissioned by the state-funded pressure group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).
However, if one looks at the results of that survey, it shows that support is lower among Conservative voters (72 per cent) than among Labour and Lib Dem voters (76 per cent). Puzzlingly, however, the overall level of support is lower than both figures, at 71 per cent.
Perhaps Reform voters, who are not mentioned in the results, are so fiercely opposed to the nanny state that they dragged the average down. If so, wouldn’t that be useful information for the Conservative Party to have in the run up to a general election?
It is a strange bit of spin to portray 71 per cent as “two-thirds” while 72 per cent is rounded up to “three-quarters”, but it is one way of selling this deeply unconservative policy to ConHome readers.
That, however, is a trivial issue compared to the big problem with Brine’s claim. The question the pollsters asked was: “How strongly, if at all, do you support or oppose a goal to make Britain a country where no one smokes?”
There is no mention of Rishi Sunak’s generational tobacco ban in that question. There is no mention of any policy at all, let alone prohibition. YouGov might as well have asked “Wouldn’t it be nice if no one smoked?” It is an aspiration, an ambition, a goal. It is so vague that it is surprising that social desirability bias didn’t make more people agree with it.
No reasonable person could interpret it, as Brine does, as showing “overwhelming support” for “the Government’s smoking ban plan”.
Why such slipperiness? Why didn’t ASH give YouGov a more specific question to ask? Why is the Government in such a rush to force this legislation through?
Could it be that the public have started to think through this policy through and are having second thoughts? When the smokers’ rights group FOREST commissioned a similar survey in January, their pollster asked a more accurate and specific question: “Do you think that when a person is legally an adult at 18 they should or should not be allowed to purchase cigarettes and other tobacco products?”
In response, 64 per cent agreed and only 26 per cent disagreed. It will no doubt be pointed out that FOREST is funded by the tobacco industry (as is the IEA to a much lesser extent). But ask yourself who is trying to pull the wool over your eyes here: FOREST, with their poll, or Steve Brine, with his highly-misleading interpretation of ASH’s poll?
Everyone agrees that people born after 2008 should not currently be allowed to buy tobacco, but that doesn’t mean that they should never be allowed to buy tobacco. Does the party of Winston Churchill really want to stop the best man at a wedding having a cigar in twenty years time?
Leaving aside the liberal objections, it is simply preposterous to ban one group of adults from buying a product that is still on the shelves for another group of adults. In New Zealand, where they have a conservative government, this ridiculous idea (which Sunak is not even proposing to implement properly) has been shelved. No other country is serious considering it. There is a good reason for that.
Brine tiresomely implies that Harry Phibbs is reading from the “the playbook of the tobacco transnationals” when he says that Sunak’s prohibition will lead to an increase in the illicit market. “But where is his evidence?”, Brine asks.
Try the United States of America between 1920 and 1933. Try South Africa in 2020, when the government used lockdowns as an excuse to temporarily ban tobacco sales. Try Bhutan, where the prohibition of tobacco was repealed after the black market became uncontrollable and smoking rates soared.
Have a look at Australia, which doesn’t have prohibition but does have the world’s highest rates of tobacco duty. The state of Victoria is currently in the grip of an “unrelenting tobacco war” as criminal gangs compete for market share by firebombing tobacconists.
Closer to home, one in six of British 16-to-24-year-olds have smoked cannabis in the past year, despite it being illegal for nearly a century. Needless to say, 100 per cent of the cannabis market is illicit.
You do not need a playbook to tell you that prohibition doesn’t work. You just need a history book. Under Sunak’s plans, there will be relatively few problems in the short term: 20-year-olds will simply buy cigarettes for 19-year-olds, and then 21-year-olds will buy cigarettes for 20-year-olds. The policy will be daft rather than dangerous.
But over time, the proportion of smokers forced onto the black market will inevitably grow before eventually, in theory, the only place to buy tobacco will be the black market. That will take many decades, and I don’t expect it to happen. I have no doubt that the neo-puritans at ASH will persuade the next government to ban the sale of tobacco entirely. That has always been their aim, even if they have only recently been brave enough to admit it.
That would not create Sunak’s “tobacco-free generation”, any more than the ban on cannabis has created a cannabis-free generation. It will simply erode respect for the law, enrich criminal gangs and deprive the government of tax revenue. Because that’s what always happens.