Phil Button

I started smoking when I was 39 years old and my dear cigarette has been a devoted friend and constant companion ever since. I am now 48 and our relationship has grown and is now the best of marriages. I am faithful and expect to be so until I die, not long to go from what I hear. So what am I doing to cause so much grief to the anti's? My main goal in life is to get on with other people and I model my life on the 10 commandments. This is my moral code although I stopped believing in God during Sunday school. “Do as you would be done by” sums up the way I prefer to interact. I now have to stand up for myself, don’t I?

I am, as already noted, 48 years old but also a considerate and compassionate person, scientifically educated and a doctor of medicine. My occupation as an anaesthetist requires special and extreme attention to detail as well as a vital ability to help the minds of people at a most vulnerable time in their lives. I pride myself in my qualities of humility and perception in everyday contact and at work. I am not a standard doctor as I perceive, and I am sure you will agree they exist, but a non-arrogant, open-minded one. This will always be my standard. I will never intentionally intimidate or scare a patient or nag a smoker who really should consider giving up. I don’t think anyone can decide when or whether to quit smoking but themselves and whilst they may be educated they can not be told. My additional qualification in this area is as a serial addict, presumably in possession of a gene that predicts this behaviour. I am a “recovering alcoholic” as the correct label goes but strongly believe this phase in my life to be well and truly over. I have been TT for 4 years and recommend it to all as alcohol is an evil drug that does no good at all. I am not preaching, merely expressing a very personal opinion.

A quotation from whom I do not know:
“Give up smoking but do give up your freedom to choose to smoke where you can.”

My main concern is that fervent and misguided individuals have had the power to manipulate the media and governments of the world into believing falsehoods by misrepresenting scientific study and statistics. No individual should have this amount of power and it parallels with historic records easily found giving accounts of dictatorships and propaganda, notably, The Nazi Movement. Novels have also given accounts of these activities, notably, George Orwell's 1984.

I do not believe public health to be a priority concern and I believe we live in a world far too dominated by health scares and health fanatics and health mongering. The discipline of public health might be a credible one if it payed the same attention to mental health as it does physical health. It might also gain more support if it did not distort science.

Unfortunately this cancerous growth has pervaded many previously respectable organisations including the BMA, The Medical Profession, The Public Health Profession, The Media, British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK. One of the primary tumours is the group ASH and I have no stronger desire than to see them destroyed.

Dr Phil Button
Associate Specialist in Anaesthesia & Pain Relief
Email: gasdoc@eastrop.wanadoo.co.uk
Blog: www.pro-choicesmokingdoctor.blogspot.com
Website: www.gasdoc.org.uk