France surrenders to health fascism
It was reported yesterday that France is to ban smoking in most outdoor spaces where children are present.
Areas outside cafes and bars will, I think, be exempt (for now) but the new restrictions will include parks and beaches - you know, those wide open spaces where the chances of being exposed to even a wisp of smoke must be minimal.
After the news broke two radio stations asked me to comment.
Newstalk (in Ireland) invited me to take part in their lunchtime programme. They also invited journalist Ian O’Doherty, Professor Luke Clancy (Tobacco Free Research Institute Ireland), and Erika Doyle, a Green Party councillor in Wicklow.
Ian is a smoker and arguably the only mainstream ‘libertarian’ journalist currently active in Ireland. He has attended several Forest events and in 2018 received our prestigious (!) Voices of Freedom award (see below).
Last year he wrote an article for The Spectator that deftly summed up the dire situation facing smokers in Ireland - see Ireland’s puritanical attack on smokers.
My first encounters with Luke Clancy pre-date the introduction of the smoking ban in Ireland in 2004 when there was never any mention of smoking being banned in outdoor public places.
What we are seeing today is creeping prohibition, which many of us predicted but was flatly denied by tobacco control campaigners who insisted they merely wanted to ‘protect’ bar workers and others exposed to cigarette smoke in enclosed public places.
In 2021 Erika Doyle attracted headlines when she called for smoking to be banned in all outdoor dining areas in Ireland, so you can imagine where her sympathies lay.
The irony, as I pointed out, is that Doyle and presenter Andrea Gilligan both declared that, among their friends who smoked, none would dream of lighting up around children, and all were considerate to those around them.
Ian also said he would never smoke near children - which begs the question, why do we need yet another law dictating how people behave in public places? Can’t they be allowed to use their common sense?
He also made the point that banning smoking at bus stops is ridiculous because he would never smoke at a bus stop if other people were there, but if he was the only person waiting for a bus why should it be illegal for him to light up?
Later, I was contacted by BBC World Service and asked to send a recorded message via WhatsApp so they could drop it into the news programme OS (Outside Source).
It was needed immediately because the (live) programme was about to go on air, but I wasted several minutes trying to find the voice memo app on my iPhone and figure out how it worked.
It’s simple enough, but I rarely use it so I had to remind myself. Anyway, I got it done and sent a 75-second message that was broadcast, largely unedited, a few minutes later.
My principal point was:
Anti-smoking is becoming a moral crusade. Politicians and public health campaigners have decided smoking is a BAD thing to do, and children must be protected from the sight of it.
What we need is common sense, courtesy, and a degree of tolerance on all sides.
Smokers need to be courteous to those around then, and non-smokers need to show a bit of tolerance for other people’s habits, including smoking.
You can listen to the full eight-minute item here. It begins at 10:45 and includes another message from a guy in France whose aversion to cigarette smoke can only be described as extreme.
C’est la vie.