News & Comment
BBC's guide to rolling your own cigarette attacked as "breathtakingly irresponsible"
Saturday 7th May 2011, posted by forest
Senior doctors have protested to the BBC about an article on its website entitled How to roll a perfect cigarette which they claim encourages smoking.
Dr Gabriel Scally, regional director of public health for south-west England, wrote to Mark Thompson, the BBC's director-general, saying: "By allowing this type of content to be carried under a BBC logo gives an implied level of legitimacy for what is effectively a 'How 2' guide to shortening your life and experiencing chronic, life-altering illness."
Professor John Britton, chair of a tobacco advisory group at the Royal College of Physicians, which represents hospital doctors, said: "The RCP believes it is breathtakingly irresponsible for the BBC to have information on their website on how to roll the perfect cigarette. This material is freely available to children and young people, who may be tempted to try smoking after reading this information.
"There would be widespread outrage if the BBC had information on their website that explained how to inject an intravenous drug. It is no less irresponsible or bizarre for the BBC to explain how to roll cigarettes in this way."
Nick Reynolds, a social media executive at BBC Online, said the article would not be taken down. It is located on a part of the BBC website called H2G2, which is intended "to encourage the community to write about all aspects of human existence for a collaborative guide to life, the universe and everything" and the piece had been written by a member of the public, not a BBC journalist."
Source: Guardian (6 May 2011)
Comments:
Posted on May 7th, 2011
Posted on May 7th, 2011
Posted on May 7th, 2011
Posted on May 8th, 2011
Posted on May 9th, 2011
Thank God the BBC would never be so irrresponsible as to display scenes of rape, murder, mass violence, treachery, terrorism, suicide, robbery, betrayal, torture (und so weiter) in its fictional output, or to spew out endless streams of increasinlgy ridiculous propaganda in its factual.
Now that WOULD be 'breathtaking' !
Posted on May 9th, 2011
Posted on May 10th, 2011
How on earth have these arrogant despots gained control of The Health Dept, Parliament and House of Lords, the EU and the United Nations?
Beats me!
Posted on May 12th, 2011
I have news for this so called 'Dr' Gabrial Scally - denying people the right to smoke has a far greater detremental affect on their health than smoking does!
I my opinion it is safer to smoke these days than it is to go into hospital for routine surgery or investigations which usually have nothing to do with smoking.
The NHS ban on smoking itself hinders recovery of smoking patients as the stress involved by being denied the right to smoke greatly increases the stress involved in undergoing surgery or other other treatments.
When will they take off their blinkers and look at the wider picture and accept that for some smoking is beneficial.
Well done, for once, to the BBC for continuing to support this article.
Posted on May 20th, 2011
At every turn in life nowadays we are taught NEVER ever to discriminate against minorities. Never ever make someone feel uncomfortable due to race, ethnicity, gender etc, and we bend over backwards to eradicate the world of predjudices and to be a smoker these days, one receives the WORST predjudice Ive ever experienced in my life. It feels like ANYBODY can be rude, patronising and discriminating to people who have chosen to smoke, and who are doing nothing illegal. You've thrown us out in the cold, we accept being out in the cold, now leave us alone rather than moaning about dimps on floors, and smokers huddled out in freezing weather. God forbid they come too close to buildings and inflict their dirty habit on anyone. The world's gone mad, bad and nasty.
Posted on May 27th, 2011
Hee hee hee.
