Tobaccogate

It may be that you have never heard of John Dalli. I hadn't. He was, until recently, a European Commissioner. Now you know why you've never heard of him. Despite the importance of these people who make the laws that affect the lives of half a billion people we tend not to hear much about them. Nor do we plebs have any influence over who they are or what they do. I don't mean to imply that what they do is necessarily bad. In the case of John Dalli I suspect that quite the opposite is the case.  Because John Dalli was European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy and was about to launch legislation related to tobacco control. Nothing too remarkable about that.

I used to go to school by bus. One day the bus conductor shouted,  "Two more for the cancer ward." It was 1962 and the Royal College of Physicians had just published its report highlighting the link between smoking and lung cancer. The bus conductor had clearly got the message and had cheerily adopted a topical way of pointing out that there were still two seats on top where, for those readers too young to remember, the smokers were confined. I well remember having to take a seat next to the smokers upstairs. Even as a child I noticed that in the winter months the passengers on the top deck were constantly coughing and the windows were stained brown from smoke deposits. Friends at school who smoked used to do a party trick. After a deep draw on a cigarette they would inhaled deeply and then breathe out through a clean white handkerchief leaving an unsightly dark brown stain. It was no surprise to me that smoking might not be good for you.

What might have surprised me was how long it took for smoking to be controlled. Reasonable measures to protect people from the consequences of smoking have been opposed at every step by those making money from tobacco who have used every trick in the book. Now I'm older and know more and more about how the world works I'm not, of course, surprised.

Fast forward to 2012 and these battles are still going on. There's been progress but it has been slow. Children are still dying from the consequences of secondhand cigarette smoke and lung cancer, COPD and circulatory diseases continue to take their toll of adults.

Given this background, when I heard that  John Dalli had resigned suddenly following an allegation from a tobacco manufacturer I couldn't help but smell a rat. So I did a bit of delving.

What are the facts? As is so often the case the facts are hard to come by. While it is said that John Dalli resigned suddenly it would seem that Dalli himself takes the view that he was ousted. Certainly he has lost his job. A second fact is that he was about to launch tough new tobacco legislation.

At this point I need to introduce you to snus. Snus is a form of tobacco which is placed between the gum and the lip. It comes in a variety of flavours: coffee, aniseed, elderflower, cranberry and mint. Nice to know if you fancy some but the important thing about snus is that it is banned in all European countries except Sweden. Which means, of course, that there is a company out there who is concerned about the future of snus and that company is Swedish Match.

It turns out that Swedish Match complained that a Maltese entrepreneur had asked for money in return for using his contacts with John Dalli - presumably with a view to ending the ban on snus sales in countries other than Sweden. Enter now Olaf. Olaf might sound like a Norseman but is actually the name of the European Commissions anti-fraud office. Olaf investigated and following the investigation John Dalli resigned or was made to resign with the consequence that progress of the long-awaited tobacco directive was frozen.

This did not escape the notice of my friend Sir Richard Thompson and my virtual friend Dr Clare Gerada who, along with Professor Lindsey Davies, wrote to the Guardian pointing out that delaying the directive would be a victory for the tobacco industry. Which does rather make me wonder if perhaps that was the point of the original complaint to the commission.

And then, to make matters even more mysterious and sinister, we learn that not two full days after the resignation of John Dalli the  premises of three anti-smoking groups were burgled: the European Respiratory Society, the European Public Health Alliance and the Smoke Free Partnership.

It's a good story isn't it? Some would say it has all the makings of a Hollywood film. Why has it has so little publicity?  Could it be that the lobbyists are now busy putting  journalists off the scent? Or is that too fanciful? Who do you think produced this blog post cataloguing past allegations relating to John Dalli within hours of his resignation?

Are those of us who see conspiracies in these things bonkers? Draw your own conclusions.