You see, when it comes to smoking, tobacco controllers have descended into a comfort zone whereby they feel confident in saying just about anything amongst themselves, while politicians are being fed something completely different.
Note, for example, Debs Arnott's comments in the video below:
"At least 13, 14 times a day [an average smoker] gets their pack out; they put it on the table; and the pack symbolises something. It's really important, it's about the smoker's identity"Smokers can't be allowed to enjoy an identity, now can they? This is the whole point of plain packaging which tobacco control will make sure politicians hear little of. Instead the entire campaign has said nothing else but children, children, children. But when boasting amongst themselves on the ESRC YouTube channel (comments banned, natch), and elsewhere (see a preening rundown of dirty tricks prior to the smoking ban here) we get something more truthful.
"At the time that the last government - Labour government - was in power, and they were consulting on the next steps in tobacco control, at that time there was a big fightback from the industry and so the government sort of said "well, we're interested in this but we want more evidence". And that's where research like Olivia's became so crucial, because they needed the evidence to take that next step"While it's very kind of Arnott to admit what we all know, that plain packs was a rent-seeking policy promoted to government before evidence had been produced to justify it, do you - for even a twinkling moment - believe that this 'evidence'-gathering exercise was ever going to come back to government and say, "you know what, we've found that plain packs isn't useful at all, so forget we ever mentioned it".
Of course not.
It doesn't even matter to tobacco control that the study being lauded in the video is not very good. A dedicated expert in eye-tracking technology describes here and here why he thinks that Maynard's 'science' has failings, this part being the most damning.
Well, I'm not the first to research this topic, and given the results I will be presenting, I could have chosen to go directly to some high profile publication relating to marketing and packaging, health psychology or tobacco control, where the research would almost certainly not have been reviewed by those with any expertise in eye-movements and visual attention. And here’s the point, submitting research to peer review, when you know that the “peers” reviewing are not equipped to detect errors or omissions from the submission is, in my opinion, second only to the falsification of dataBut not only is Maynard's research held up as the pinnacle of integrity and scrupulous scientific standards in tobacco control circles, it also gets a gong. The true eye-tracking expert however - who came to a different conclusion to Maynard - will, of course, be entirely ignored and get nothing.
This is how tobacco control works. They put their heads together to think up some pointless idea which will gain them taxpayer funds for another couple of years, then go about lobbying politicians for it with your money and using institutions paid for by you. In the meantime they will carry out 'research' which has only one purpose - to make the conclusion fit the policy they are pursuing. Then, when the legislation is passed by woodentop MPs, the same tobacco control industry trousers even more of our cash to 'prove' that it works. And guess what? It always does. Fancy that!
Then it's back to square one and the whole process starts again.
Now, if you can see where democracy, fairness, objectivity, integrity, transparency, or public engagement fits into any of this, do let us know.
