From John Baker.
ANOTHER day, another control measure to safeguard the Island’s health.

This time the Health department are proposing measures to ban the display of cigarettes in shops in Jersey in order to stop young people from taking up smoking, so soon cigarettes will become under-the-counter goods with all the accompanying sleazy connotations.

Perhaps Health officials should have the courage to state openly that their intention is to ban smoking altogether, rather than pretend that these measures are taken to benefit non-smokers or to save the children.

The proposed ban on displaying cigarettes so that smokers have to ask for them to be brought out from under the counter is plainly aimed at stigmatising them and has little to do with young people picking up the habit – under-18s can’t buy cigarettes legally anyway.

And the idea that an adolescent would be subject to hypnotic allure simply by seeing cigarette packets in the newsagents is the stuff of absurdist satire. In fact, in other jurisdictions such as Iceland this has proved not to work as health officials had expected. Its main impact was to put a number of small retailers out of business.

People who smoke have been subjected, nationally, to a systematic long-term project to demonise them, such that they are seen not only as prey to a filthy habit but, worse, as threatening the health of others through exposure to cigarette smoke and imposing a burden on the Health Service.

It’s only a matter of time before smoking parents with children are forced to smoke outside their houses, for fear of child abuse.

Another inevitable measure is smokers being forced to pay for health treatment, or threatened with the withholding of treatment until they give up smoking. You can even see pet owners who smoke being investigated by the RSPCA for animal abuse. Ludicrous? No, just a logical extension of current policies and principles.

Many would say ‘serves them right’, and would support any measure, however draconian, to eradicate smoking and smokers. That such an attitude is gaining ground in society, and that smokers are seen by many as being on a par with child abusers, is an indication of the success of the stigmatisation project.
It would be far more honest for the States to ban smoking altogether. This would fail, of course, and would lead to the criminalisation of thousands of people.

These measures are about making smokers feel bad about themselves and encouraging society to shun them until they learn to behave in a government-approved way. What happened to freedom of choice? And where will that be when small corner shops have all been put out of business and we are left with branded convenience stores selling a limited range of product at inflated prices?

Oh, and you non-smoking drinkers who raised a glass to the pub smoking ban? You’re next, so don’t be smug. Already the regime is making noises about binge drinking, banning outdoor drinking, alcohol awareness advertising campaigns (such as are appearing on TV already) and raising taxes to punitive levels, and with good reason as the arguments used to stigmatise smoking – the damage to society and public health – apply in spades to alcohol, which is demonstrably more damaging to personal (liver failure, heart disease) and societal (violence, alcoholism, work absenteeism) health than smoking.

Welcome to Jersey, the new Nanny State. If a ban on the display in shops of tobacco products succeeds, then anti-drinking laws will follow as surely as night follows day.
Château des Mielles
Petite Route des Mielles,
St Brelade.