Stoptober
Stoptober(2012) was a campaign fully funded by the NHS in an effort to get smokers to quit smoking for the whole of October. A hyperbolic version of No Smoking day if you will.
Octabber was set up as a result[1][2], by people sick of the government spending money on telling people how to live their lives.
Announcement
Stoptober was breathlessly announced by the BBC on 8 Sep 2012:
Smokers across England are being urged to quit for a month in a government campaign.
Research has shown that people who manage to stop smoking for that length of time are more likely not to start again.
Quite why someone thought that October has only 28 days is unclear.
England's Chief Medical Officer Professor Dame Sally Davies said it was the first time that the government had launched a "mass quit attempt".
The campaign will involve TV and radio advertising, a daily messaging service and roadshows around the country. There is also a Stoptober app and a Facebook page.
Health Minister Norman Lamb, who said he quit smoking last week, told BBC Breakfast the campaign was "a good investment in health promotion".[3]
Unfortunately there was insufficient space in the BBC's report to mention how much tax-payers money was actually, in Mr Lamb's words "a good investment."
Reaction
As with any government (funded) initiative that purports to tell people how they should live their lives, there was a backlash.
It started shortly after the BBC's item with a series of tweets by Chris Snowdon:
Should have known the anti-smoking lobby would rip off the Mo-vember idea. Stoptober?! Doesn't even rhyme[1]
Might launch an Oc-tabber campaign for people who like smoking tabs.[1]
This was picked up by Pat Nurse:
I first heard about the Govt's Stoptober scheme aimed at getting us all to do "the decent thing" and quit smoking from Chris Snowden's tweets
I liked his idea of launching a counterblast Oct-tabber campaign for people who don't want to quit and it appealed to many people I chatted to in the real and online world who also took that familiar sigh of despair on hearing of yet another "let's give those smokers a shove with tax payers' cash" initiatives - for our own good, of course, because we want it, allegedly.[1]
And picked up by numerous other blogs[4].
References
- ↑ a b c d #Octabber - Vive la Résistance! - Tea and Cigarettes blog
- ↑ Stoptober - Octabber - Orphans of Liberty
- ↑ a b 'Stoptober' stop-smoking campaign launched in England BBC News
- ↑ #Octabber update... - Tea and Cigarettes blog