Does this study threaten smoking in the home?
It's fairly obvious what's going on. This [study is] the first (latest?) move towards a de facto ban on smoking in the home.Of course. It was always somewhere along the prohibitionist timeline after ad bans, smoking bans, display bans, plain packaging and banning smoking in cars, which is why I'm still confident of proving Tom Harris MP wrong about his insistence that politicians are not crazy.
But the Department of Health recently held a consultation on whether the smoking ban should be extended into people’s private vehicles and homes. Now, I know this caused a great deal of perfectly understandable outrage among a lot of people. So let me make this clear: the government will not, under any circumstances, legislate to stop people smoking in private. It would be a crazy move and, believe it or not, ministers are not crazy people - they’re politicians and they recognise political realities.
And if they did attempt to legislate in this direction, I would risk the wrath of those who don’t believe Scottish MPs should vote on English matters by voting against it.
But as I say, I won’t need to, because it’s not going to happen.He's already wrong if he included cars in his definition of 'private', but it's a moot point because homes will be included soon. Admittedly, we're not near that point in this country ... yet, but some geezer in Hong Kong is quick out of the blocks.
An anti-smoking activist and community-health specialist has urged the government to ban smoking in cars and even homes to protect children's health.
Professor Lam Tai-hing was speaking after a new study, published yesterday, showed that second-hand smoke can make children prone to heart attacks and strokes later in life, in addition to other known risks such as lung cancer, middle-ear disease and respiratory disease.
"Smoking in front of children should be seen as poisoning and abusing them," he said. "There are laws that protect children against being abused, why is it we don't consider second-hand smoking as a kind of abuse?"Yes, it's the very same study highlighted by Forest - a piss poor one at that - being used exactly as Simon Clark predicted it would.
Prof Tai-hing may well be insane and undeserving of his professorship if he can't discern between proper science and the junk kind, but politicians will listen to him anyway, just as they will in the UK when the idea is raised over here.
Only a matter of time, Tom. Only a matter of time.
