Minister: Smoking joy for poor
LONDON, England -- Britain's health minister has come under fire for saying that smoking is one of the last pleasures left for the poor.
John Reid, himself a former smoker, told a conference in London he did not think the worst problem on run-down "sink" housing estates was smoking, but that it had become an obsession of the middle class.
"What enjoyment does a 21-year-old single mother-of-three living in a council sink estate get? The only enjoyment sometimes they have is to have a cigarette," he said.
He also criticized the professional lobbying against smoking.
"Be very careful, that you do not patronize people because sometimes -- as my mother used to say -- people from those lower socio-economic backgrounds have very few pleasures and one of them is smoking."
Reid made his comments amid signs that Britain could follow Ireland and some cities in the United States by banning smoking in public places.
Anti-smoking groups criticized his remarks. The director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), Deborah Arnott, said on Wednesday: "Smoking is the single greatest cause of the large difference in life expectancy between the rich and the poor.
"If John Reid's contribution to the white paper on smoking is let the poor smoke, then his policy on obesity must be let them eat cake," she told the Press Association.
"Any government that cares about improving public health must act to protect workers from second-hand smoke. Second-hand smoke kills more poor people than any other group in society."
ASH added that the Irish Health Minister Micheal Martin, who promoted the Irish ban on smoking in the workplace and enclosed public places earlier this year, could be proud of an initiative that would save thousands of lives.
"It would be nice to think that our health secretary had a similar ambition, but unfortunately what he said suggests that maybe he doesn't," a spokesman said.
But smokers' lobby groups praised Reid for his "bravery" in the current anti-smoking climate.
"I think it is very refreshing that a politician is prepared to say the unsayable," Simon Clark, director of Forest (Freedom of the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco), told Reuters.
It was important that politicians appreciated smoking was a pleasure for people of all classes, he added.
Britain's Labour government is considering a ban on smoking in public places but may leave legislation to local authorities.
People from those lower
socio-economic backgrounds have very few pleasures and one of them is smoking.
