Should smoking be banned in London parks?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/15/smoking-ban-london-parks-boris-johnson-health

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Lord Darzi: Poor air quality in London is responsible for 4,000 deaths each year

London is the world’s pre-eminent city: a centre of commerce and enterprise; a cultural, economic and political powerhouse surpassed by none and equal to any.

Many Londoners lead healthy lives – eating well, exercising often, and enjoying fulfilling jobs and social lives. Yet too often London is an unhealthy place. Waistlines are expanding, as we eat too much and exercise too little. Despite half of Londoners living close to school or work, just 13% get there by walking or cycling. And more than a million people in the capital still smoke.

Nearly 500 children take up smoking every week – two classrooms full a day. Every year more than 8,000 Londoners die prematurely from tobacco. The city’s air is more polluted than any other part of Britain. It is shocking that poor air quality in the capital is responsible for more than 4,000 deaths each year.

A year ago I was asked by Boris Johnson, London’s mayor, to chair an independent commission to examine London’s health and how it might be improved. Our report to the mayor, Better Health for London, has now been published and its message is simple: this can be the healthiest major city in the world.

Every day, we make hundreds of choices that affect our health – how we get to and from school or work, what we choose to eat, how we spend our free time. We must make each of those millions of individual decisions that little bit easier. Because in that difference is everything: making small changes individually will make a huge difference collectively. Achieving this ambition will require joint action from across the public sector: from the NHS, from the mayor, from local councils, from schools, and from Transport for London. It will also require more action from employers.

Our report puts forward measures, unprecedented in their scope, to combat the threats posed by tobacco, alcohol, obesity, lack of exercise and pollution, which harm millions. Together, the proposals amount to the biggest public health drive in the world.

Alongside a concerted campaign to get Londoners to eat better and exercise more, the mayor should use his powers to make Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square smoke-free, and direct the Board of the Royal Parks to do likewise. Every London council should act to rid every local park of smoking.

The scale and scope of these proposals will doubtless meet opposition. Critics will say this is the nanny state. To them I say this: we face a public health emergency. If London is to be a strong and vibrant city, and Britain is to be a strong and vibrant country, we must act, and act with pace and with purpose.

This plan has been developed for London. Yet it could just as easily apply to other big cities in the UK – London should be a leader, not an exception. I passionately believe that Britain’s local and city governments can become the defining locus for better health. For every individual and family, health comes first. All of us had better start acting like it.

Lionel Shriver: Outdoor smoking bans are just spiteful

When smoking in enclosed public spaces like pubs and restaurants was banned in the UK in 2007, the prohibition was justified by concern for the health of employees. Multiple studies have demonstrated that systematic exposure to secondhand smoke in confined spaces results in measurable damage to non-smokers. For smokers, the law is inconvenient, but not insane.

Clearly, freedom does not extend to the right to harm other people. But the rabid anti-smoking lobby has never been satisfied with merely protecting the health of non-smokers, and appears to have lost any compunction to defend further curtailments of smoking with legitimate medical research. Thus when the proselytising New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg, banned smoking in pubs and restaurants, he didn’t stop there. He banned smoking on beaches and in public parks – a measure the London Health Commission is urging Boris Johnson to ape. Such a ban would apply to 40% of the city’s acreage.

Note that this commission is citing no hard scientific evidence that smoking outside has any quantifiable effect on the health of passersby. The carcinogens that outdoor smokers contribute to London’s atmosphere equate to the ludicrous proportion of therapeutic ingredients in homeopathic cures. Yet according to Bloomberg the banning of smoking from open spaces like Brighton beach and Central Park have helped life expectancy in New York to increase by three years over his 12-year tenure. Where are the studies to substantiate this claim? Don’t bother with a Google search. There aren’t any.

The reasoning behind laws that restrict a citizenry’s liberty is important. The pub and restaurant smoking ban was justified by solid medical data. The proposed ban on outdoor smoking is justified only with self-righteous disapproval. The reasoning runs: “We don’t like smoking, so we’re going to make the smoker’s life as unpleasant as possible.” This measure would be purely punitive, like giving smokers a smacking.

Moreover, apparently in public spaces we grown-ups are now obliged to exhibit exemplary behaviour for children, and lighting up sets a bad example. So I guess the next laws will dictate that on walks through Hyde Park you have to maintain good posture, say “please” and “thank you”, and smile at strangers. Anyone in a bad mood will be subject to a summons. Because the all-hallowed children must learn from their elders to exercise, every adult entering Hampstead Heath must hit the dirt for a set of 25 press-ups.

If you’re not a smoker – as I’m not – you may imagine this has nothing to do with you. Wrong. We’re perched on one steep slippery slope. Laws to protect “public health” are potentially infinite, especially once they no longer have to be supported by any research whatsoever. Is it really such a big leap from banning smoking in public parks to banning consumption of fast food in the same places? After all, chips and cheeseburgers – they’re not very good for you, are they? Perhaps the powers from on high will decide that picnics in Kensington Gardens can only comprise quinoa salads and raw broccoli. Indeed, there’s a perfect contiguity between Bloomberg’s outdoor smoking ban and his attempt to control the size of a soda. The two proposals hail from the same bossy, paternalistic, micro-managing sensibility.

So long as smoking remains legal, politicians should limit this activity only when it infringes on the rights of others. If Boris is concerned with London’s air quality, he’s better off banning lorries and black taxis from the capital – because there’s evidence that, even coughed into the open air, diesel fumes are carcinogenic. By contrast, outdoor smoking bans aren’t sound public health policy. They’re merely spiteful.