A Place to Stand

I am posting here some correspondence on the subject of the ridiculous claim made to Parliament by Jack McConnell that passive smoking kills 1,000 a year. Constitutionally lying to Parliament is supposed to be a resigning matter (earliest post is at the bottom):
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BMA
Dear Mr Darvell,
Thank you for your reply. The claim about passive smoking killing 1,000 people annually in Scotland was made by the Scottish First Minister, Jack McConnell, to the Scottish Parliament at the time he declared his intention to criminalise public smoking here. I was, at the time, of the opinion that while any such claim was untrue I had assumed that he would not be so constitutionally unwise as to lie to Parliament without some support from the medical profession.

It now seems I had overestimated both his intelligence & his integrity & that the claim used to justify this extension of state power is a lie for which he must take full responsibility.

Neil Craig
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In a message dated 1/28/05 9:26:13 AM GMT Standard Time, info.public@bma.org.uk writes:

Dear Mr Craig

Thank you for your query to the BMA website. I have checked with our Tobacco Resource Control Unit and they are not aware of any BMA statement that passive smoking kills 1000 people in Scotland. It is possible that your source may mixing this up with our 2002 statement (based on the 1997 SCOTH report) that passive smoking is responsible for at least 1000 deaths in the Uk annually.

I hope that this information is useful,



M Darvell
Public Information Manager
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This was in reply to this query:

Do the BMA stand behind the claim that passive smoking in Scotland kills 1,000 people in Scotland per year? If so what is the basis for such a claim?

Inspired by a discussion with a smoking ban supporting friend.