Where do they get their advice? It is always amusing to me how the Government go about reducing the numbers of people smoking. As far as I can see from my experience of dealing with smokers who want to stop, everything the Government does is likely do have a polarity response .i.e. making people smoke more or encouraging people to smoke. And being a bit of an old cynic I could interpret this as a deliberate elicitation!
Anybody with teenage children will tell you if you tell them not to do something they're more likely to do it. So raising the age at which children can buy cigarettes is doing what?
Well first of all it's throwing down a challenge to 'get away with looking older'. Secondly those that do manage to con the 'innocent' shopkeeper will appear more of a hero to their peers and therefore more likely to be copied. And of course the proposed age increase only affects the actual buying capabilities, as the legal age at which smoking is allowed remains the same!
The Government claim to have studied models from other countries and these show mixed results. The trouble with studies is that you tend to find what you’re looking for. The big question we need to be asking ourselves as a nation is; What are we doing that is making smoking still appear so attractive to young children. Well a number of factors appear to be in play. Children basically begin smoking because their friends or parents smoke or because it makes them feel older or rebellious. We as a society need to question ourselves as to why being grown up is so attractive to children. Most teenagers tend to be repelled by anything that would make them appear remotely 'sensible or grown up' like their parents. However smoking and possibly drinking seems to be an exception.
Before the teens a large amount of children aspire to be like their parents. Hence little girls dressing up in Mums clothes and make up and little boys playing with Fake tools like Dads. If children could experience being grown up and all its problems they would soon realise that the state they are actually in really is the most appealing. How many adults actually want to appear to be older? It seems that both groups are suffering from 'grass is greener syndrome'. Children smoke to appear older, what do adults do to appear younger? They spend a fortune on cosmetics, surgery and numerous regimes, but ultimately the clock cannot go backwards and ageing is an unfortunate by-product of life that adults do there utmost to avoid.
Stopping smoking is one of the single most effective things a smoker can do to prevent premature ageing. Clearly just telling children that they will regret starting smoking when they are older is futile as any parent will tell you. Telling them not to smoke is even worse. Like waving a red rag to a bull .Even showing them what tobacco does with actual tar infested body parts seems not to be enough. There is a vast amount of information available at schools advising of the terrible effects of smoking. This still fails to significantly reduce the number of young smokers. It would appear then that they quite probably take up smoking with the knowledge of the harm that it can do. Why would they do that? Surely they don't think that they are immortal?
Well this may well be the case from their point of view. How long did it take for Christmas to come around as a child? Well I remember it seeming almost forever! So could it be that children think that they will be able to try it and stop at will, 'some time in the future.....' regardless of the damage? This is almost certainly the case; They have an inbuilt mechanism that makes them braver when they are children. Just go to Disney World and see how many young children 'don’t' want to go on the scary rides. Further, there is also conflicting advice, because adult smokers are always told how quickly they will experience better health when they stop. A presupposition that they can stop! This of course reinforces the belief in the youngster that they will be able stop. What they fail to see is that it can be much harder to do when the time arrives. (It’s actually very easy to stop but only if you understand the mechanism behind the habit forming part of the brain, or if you are by nature a positive thinker)
Unfortunately the Government and the NHS bombard adults with negative messages about how difficult it will be to stop. So by the time the child arrives at the adult place where they want to become non smokers, they have been conditioned to believe that it will be hard to quit smoking. This is why only 7% of smokers quit just using will power. It has become a self fulfilling prophecy.
So what is the answer to the question of reducing the numbers of young smokers? In an ideal world leading by example can usually set young people on the right path. So this means not smoking as a parent as a bare minimum. Making children more aware from a young age (below six) that putting foul tasting chemical laden smoke in their mouth is a bad experience. Even actually letting them taste it would also most probably be enough to turn them away from it when they're older.
That’s how Phobias work.... personally I see nothing wrong with giving them a phobia of tobacco. Not very PC of course, but an idea that could be adopted by the government anti smoking campaign designers. The same idea is used by traffic safety organisations!! In other words teach them younger. Don't wait until they start. They also do it with sex education. The nation needs to understand what role peer pressure, fashion and the media have in developing a healthy population. This means quite literally blanket banning of all smoking in any image in all media. This is in place to a certain degree, but not by any means far reaching enough. It also means removing any possibility of children seeing adults smoking. Pie in the sky? How near are we to having a blanket ban in public places?? Why not go the whole hog and have an outright ban on the sale? After all what we are talking about is saving around 350 lives every day! When you think about it, tobacco is the only product on general sale that Kills people when used as designed. Guns kill far less people and are much harder to get hold of. What would happen if smoking was banned from sale completely?
Well most probably the whinging freedom of choice pro smoking action groups would be up in arms initially. Freedom of choice? Are they really saying that they think people should be allowed to kill themselves anyway they see fit? And in doing so set a great example that will lead many children along the same path? It is my experience when dealing with people who defend freedom of choice that it's only their choice that they defend vigorously. Would they also defend the choice of those who wish to exist in a society that doesn't allow children to become embroiled in a habit likely to kill them when used as designed? Because until the problem item is totally removed the wheels of disease and death caused by smoking will continue to turn.
Of course we now slip into the realms of the world of politics where the Government of a democracy is supposed to enforce the wishes of the majority. Mr Spock from tv.s 'Star trek' espoused the view where the need of the many outweigh the need of the few, and was prepared to die for it. I know its fiction on TV but that’s how it should be. Why is there urgent policy not in place to get rid of tobacco outright, instead of their target of a two percent reduction by 2010! That's another 638750 deaths!! The majority of the population do in fact want that? Well does Government really work that way? Could it be so influenced by big business or huge tax revenues that it allows itself to be dragged into the mire of hypocrisy? Are we really able to do without the eight billion pounds generated by tax on tobacco? A tax on something that makes people feel good but also kills them! Is the government the ultimate Drug dealer? Is Alistair Darling the man on the corner with the bling and the gold tooth?
Where else would he get the money from?
Well as far as I can see the only reason people smoke tobacco is because it makes them feel good. Nicotine addiction is a myth. (Dave to add link to the 'myth about nicotine') This then presents the question what else could people be doing to make themselves feel good? The sky really is the limit. Let’s just say that instead of spending five pounds on a box of cigarettes every day you could spend five pounds on something else to make you feel good that doesn't kill at the same time? What did people do before Walter Raleigh brought back the weed? And let’s hope that G Daddy Brown doesn't then put in place a feel good tax because at the end of the day that's what he's getting from smokers. Smokers are paying the government to feel good. And in the big picture of things the loss of the revenue could be absorbed. On the other hand he could raise taxes (shock horror) to cover the loss or cut back arms spending. Wouldn't a responsible society want to pay for our children’s future health?
According to the Royal College of Physicians A ban on smoking in public places would save the British economy £4bn a year, according to latest research. Most of the savings identified in the study, would come from increased productivity as workers took fewer cigarette breaks. The report, 'Going Smoke-Free', also refutes the "myth" that banning smoking at work would increase smoking in the home. The government has announced moves to ban public smoking in all public enclosed places, except pubs and bars that serve minimal or no food, and a consultation exercise to this effect is under way. And this is just public places! An outright ban would also save around 1.4 billion in anti smoking advertising and the cost treating smokers in the NHS. Of the 12,000 deaths caused each year by passive smoking, just 500 are due to smoking at work. Professor John Britton, chairman of the college's Tobacco Advisory Group, said: "The big problem with passive smoking is the number of people affected by smoking at home." How do we address that? The evidence shows that, if you make public places smoke-free, a lot of people who smoke quit. "You become used to the idea that smoking is not normal and you don't do it in front of other people. To have loopholes or exceptions is illogical and counterproductive," he said. Prof Britton said children who passively smoke face increased risks of cot death, asthma and other respiratory problems. The £4bn predicted savings to the UK economy would come from increased productivity, lower NHS costs and reduced insurance, cleaning and fire-related bills. Prof Britton said the impact of a smoking ban in Ireland and other countries had been examined and added: "Wherever smoke-free policies have been introduced they have been very popular and very successful, with no policing or compliance issues to speak of." The popularity of the measures increase substantially between the government announcing them and implementing them and then still more after it happens. So really revenue cannot be used as an issue.
The simple facts are raising the age where children can legally buy tobacco will have very little effect on reducing the number of young smokers. The other government technique in practice at present on TV in NHS backed campaigns of trying to frighten or humiliating people into stopping is equally useless. When smokers are frightened or worried or stressed or unhappy it's a negative state which makes them feel bad. What do smokers do to make them feel good again? That’s right ..........smoke.
By now the answer to the question of how to get people to stop smoking and how to stop children from smoking should be clear. Teach people other strategies to make them feel good. Remove tobacco completely from society so children cannot be led up the garden path by peers and role models and for goodness sake let’s start realising that good feelings can happen without narcotics. It's not that hard, in fact feeling good is remarkably easy, something 12free teach in thier booklet. Individuals, who find good feelings hard to come by, need to address the question of what it is that they are not coping with that necessitates anesthetizing. And what about the freedom of choice brigade? Well sadly they are the poor individuals without freedom at the end of the day, they only have two choices....to smoke or not, having only two choices is not my idea of freedom!
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