Smokers: the only minority group whose minority status is used as justification for abuse
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).” Mark Twain
I was pleased that Chris Snowdon featured a quote by Joe Jackson in an article for The Critic, published yesterday.
'The tyranny of the non-smoking majority’ took aim at some deserving targets including ASH and Peter Kellner, the former president of YouGov and a former board member of ASH.
Writing for The Grocer, the self-proclaimed 'bible of the UK food and drink industry since 1862', Kellner claimed that ‘Public backing for smoking reform is stronger than ever’.
He based this on a YouGov poll commissioned by ASH last week in which 59 per cent of respondents said they want to see smoking banned outside pubs and restaurants.
According to Snowdon, however, it:
contradicted another YouGov poll, conducted on the same day, which found that only 32 per cent of respondents thought that there were “too few restrictions on where people can smoke”, but surveys are notoriously sensitive to the way questions are framed.
What also caught my eye was the inclusion of a quote by an old friend of Forest:
Back in 2004, the musician Joe Jackson made the shrewd observation that smokers are “the only minority who are not only abused but whose minority status is quoted as justification for abuse”.
It's a great quote that originally appeared in The Smoking Issue, an essay that was written by Joe and published by Forest with this disclaimer:
This essay was written for his website (www.joejackson.com) in response to many enquiries, interview requests, etc. Joe has agreed to allow the smokers’ lobby group Forest to print and circulate his essay. He is a supporter of Forest, but wishes it to be known that the essay was not commissioned by Forest, and he has received no money from tobacco companies or anyone else.
Copies were sent to MPs and journalists, and I remember Joe handing one to John Reid, the then Labour health secretary, with whom he shared a stage at a fringe meeting at the 2004 Labour Party conference in Brighton.
In 2007 Joe updated The Smoking Issue and gave it a new title, Smoke, Lies and the Nanny State.
Personally, I preferred the original which, in my view, was more concise, but both are still worth reading.
Joe's 'minority' quote also appeared on a billboard (or was it an ad van?) that Forest paid for as part of our 'Fight The Ban: Fight For Choice' campaign.
Two decades on it's as relevant as ever.
Update: ASH has hit back at Snowdon.
A link to The Critic article on the ASH Daily News bulletin is headlined, ‘Tobacco industry-linked lobbyist critiques polling showing support for anti-smoking measures’.
There’s also an editorial note:
Author of the opinion piece, Christopher Snowdon, is the Head of Lifestyle Economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs, a think tank with a history of receiving funding from the tobacco industry.
Meow.