Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Get me on WhatsApp 087 484 888 or you can give me a call as always on 0818 715 815. Now, you might have seen this news from the UK that legislation has been passed that would essentially phase out the selling of tobacco over time. So instead of being able to buy it when you turn 18, 18-year-olds and under won't be able to buy it from next year. Then it goes up to 19 in 2021 and so on.
In other words, teenagers will never be able to legally buy tobacco products. But if you're a 25 or 35 or 45 year old smoker, you will continue to be able to smoke to your heart's content. I mentioned the email address. It's liveline at rte.ie. And that is how Professor Lisa McNally got in touch, an honorary professor and director of public health at the University of Birmingham.
Because you were listening to me chatting to Oliver from the UK. Is that right, Lisa?
Hi, Ciarán. Yeah, I was. I was.
What has RTE Radio 1 on in your house in the UK?
Well, because, do you know what? Don't tell anyone I said this here, but it's so much better than the stuff we have over in England. So that's why I listen to RTE.
So you heard me mention this piece of legislation that I take it you're very familiar with.
Oh, yes, absolutely. I'm a director of public health. So that means that if anyone gets sick in the county of Worcestershire, it's basically my fault. So, yeah, this is something I've been following and supporting.
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Chapter 2: What is the new smoking legislation in the UK about?
No, they'll still be able to buy vapes. I mean, in the UK, we're actually quite positive about people being able to use vaping to quit smoking. The research shows clearly that it's more effective to quit smoking using vapes than with nicotine gum or patches. And for, you know, smoking is really addictive. So, you know, for some people, that's what it takes.
Has there been much pushback in the UK to this?
To be honest with you, I mean, following the debate in Parliament, it's had pretty much cross-party support. Don't forget, this was originally the idea of the Conservative government under Rishi Sunak, but then there was the election. But the first thing Labour did when they came into power was start it up again. We have had objections, of course, as you would expect from the tobacco industry.
But, you know, we're used to that. We're used to that in public health. And we've been able to pretty much deal with those objections.
So those objections, I take it that the ones we're familiar with here, that they're civil liberties. That's often the argument made. You know, the nanny state. Why are you telling us what we can and can't do?
Yeah, exactly. So the tobacco industry will tell us that we should defend the freedom to smoke. But if you've ever seen someone with a smoking related illness, as I have in my family, there's not a lot of freedom to do with it. You know, it's so many people are desperate to quit smoking.
And the other thing is what we're trying to do is prevent the tobacco industry from finding their new customer base. So what this law does, it doesn't penalise existing smokers. It makes it more difficult for younger people to start. And that's obviously not a good thing for the tobacco companies because they need those new customers.
Is the evidence that people tend to start smoking before they're 18, that they start in their teenage years? And I mean, if that's currently illegal anyway, then there's nothing to suggest that changing the law for those over 18 would change that.
You make a good point, Kieran, because a lot of people do start before they're 18. I mean, myself, I was a nightmare. I started when I was 13, but managed to quit. But in the UK alone, we have 125,000 people between the ages of 18 and 25 who start smoking every year. So that's a lot of new recruits for the tobacco industry, isn't it? And Once you're addicted, it's tough.
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Chapter 3: What additional measures does the UK smoking ban include?
Yeah. I mean, I said that the tobacco industry has always relied on this. If you look back at tobacco industry documents in the past, they talk openly about recruiting new smokers. And that's what this law is designed to try and put a stop to.
As far as I know, then there's a third major argument that's made against things like this. There's the nanny statism. There's the revenue argument. And the other one, and it's often the big one, is that it just drives people to the black market. And particularly something like this, where you've got it phased because you'd still have cigarettes for sale. So people would still see it.
They'd still be smoking in public happening. And if a cohort of society can't buy them legitimately, they'll buy them illegitimately.
That's a really good point. And what we've been clear about here, what public health directors have been saying to government is this absolutely has to be paired with proper resourcing of enforcement. So over here, it's the local authorities that would enforce this through their trading standards team. We need more funding into those teams. But to be honest with you, Ciarán, the thing is that
You know, the challenges of enforcement, I believe anyway, are not a good reason to simply give up on this and accept the devastating impact of tobacco in yet another generation. You know, you could follow that argument through into illegal drugs and other areas of life. You know, let's do this and let's put the resources in to enforce it properly.
So don't let perfection be the enemy of the good.
Yeah, and don't let tobacco company profits be the enemy of the good as well. You know, we can't just give up because some people are going to break the law. We have to enforce it properly.
How long did you smoke for?
It started when I was 13. We're talking about 1980s Liverpool, Ciarán. I think it was almost compulsory. But I managed to quit in my late
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Chapter 4: How does vaping fit into the new smoking legislation?
Sharon, how long did you smoke for?
I smoked for 31 years.
31 years. And how long since you gave up cigarettes?
10 years. I'm 10 years off them.
What caused you to give them up?
I got very sick and ended up in hospital on oxygen. I couldn't breathe. And I was kept in hospital then for nearly a week. And they told me if I continued to smoke, that within a year I would be on oxygen 24-7. So I said, no way. I won't go around with a tank of oxygen hanging out with me.
And how many cigarettes were you smoking a day then, at your peak? Up to 40. Wow, okay, 40 cigarettes. How did you find the time to smoke 40 cigarettes a day?
Very easy. I don't mean that in flippant, but I don't know, it was just in the morning time, say, when I'd get up in the morning, I could have four or five one after another within the space of an hour, an hour and a half.
First thing, before anything else, you'd have a cigarette?
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Chapter 5: What has been the public response to the smoking ban in the UK?
Do you have the vape with you all the time?
I would have it, but I wouldn't. I mean, if I'm at something, say I was at a wedding, I wouldn't go outside to vape. I don't see the point of that. So I just wouldn't have a vape all day. I can go the full day without it. Or then there'll be days I could be vaping a fair bit throughout. It depends on the day, really. But I could go two or three days even without a vape.
So you're way less reliant on the vape than you were on the cigarettes?
Oh, completely. Oh, yeah. Same when I was smoking, if I woke up during the night, I'd light a fag.
You would not. In the middle of the night, in bed.
Yeah, if I wanted, when I woke up during the night, I couldn't go back to sleep. I'd say, here, shut up and have a fag.
And would you have it in the bed or would you go somewhere else to smoke it?
No, no, no. I'd sit on the edge of the bed and open the window.
And what were you smoking? What brand?
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Chapter 6: What are the arguments against the smoking ban?
It cost me, bought the vapes there, it was €20 to buy the actual vape itself. And then the juice I use is €7 and I'd get about a month out of a bottle of juice.
Ah, that's good going. Tell me this, do you buy the flavoured vape or just... Tobacco flavoured. Oh, tobacco, okay. So if we banned flavoured vapes, you wouldn't be impacted by it, you'd be happy enough?
Yeah, yeah, I would be, yeah. Now, the ban that I crack up altogether, I think, even though I might use it all the time, but I like to know I can use it if I need it.
Yeah. Well, what about then the suggestion that we follow the UK's lead, Sharon, and we phase out smoking the way they're doing it?
See, I know people say, oh, it's all right for you to say because I did smoke, but I do hate to see the younger kids smoking. Like, I was 19 when I started, so it wasn't that I was only a young one, like,
Yeah. You should have known better, Sharon, by 19.
Well, I should have known better. I know I should have, yeah.
But sure, I was... That's your look, yeah.
...aneagious. I should never... It was the biggest mistake. Now, when I look back, it was the biggest mistake my life's ever started. The fact that my mother, father, nothing spoke like. And my idea then, don't ask me.
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Chapter 7: How do smoking rates in Ireland compare to the UK?
They were drinking through the entire prohibition years, right?
Yeah.
But the only people who are going to have any advantage out of this are the sellers who are going to sell you that product.
Yeah, but even if they were available in the black market, there'd be barriers to getting them. It'd be harder to get them compared to today. You know, you can walk into any shop, newsagent, and buy them. And if you're in the pub, get a token and put it into the cigarette machine. You'd have to find someone. You know, it's...
You know, you can buy drugs in the black market today, put it that way, but it's harder to buy, as easy as it is by all accounts, it's harder to buy cocaine than it is to buy 20 Benson and Hedges.
Yeah, but even when you're taking the prohibition basis of it, right?
Yeah.
You're still going to be selling cigarettes for the next 80 years. Because remember, the person who hits 18 today, if today it starts and someone hits 18, right? The fellow who is 19 can buy them legally. So you've got another 80 years or even 70 years before he dies and no one's smoking. And that's assuming that no one behind him, he's not filtering cigarettes down.
A 19-year-old doesn't give them to an 18-year-old or a 20-year-old doesn't give them to a 17 or 18-year-old. And you'll always find that that goes backwards. As where if you have no product there, you can't feed them down the line.
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