Martin Cullip

Martin Cullip is a British pro-tobacco blogger who writes under the alias ‘Dick Puddlecote’. He is also an occasional columnist for online libertarian magazine Spiked,¹ and has written for Filter magazine.² The Influence Foundation, which operates Filter magazine, receives funding from tobacco companies and the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World.³ Since 2022, Cullip has also written articles for 1828,⁴⁵⁶ a media platform managed by the Institute of Economic Affairs Forum,⁷ and CAPX,⁸⁹ which is owned by the Centre for Policy Studies.¹⁰

He is also an international fellow of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (see below).

Background

Cullip frequently criticises tobacco control experts, public health science, and tobacco control policies.^{911121314151617}

He was given an award by pro-smoking group FOREST in 2017, with its Director Simon Clark saying “Today our award winner is an outspoken advocate of vaping but he still defends smokers’ rights and is a persistent thorn in the side of the enemy, otherwise known as Action on Smoking and Health.”¹⁸

Between November 1995 and October 2021, Cullip was a director at a transport company.¹⁹²⁰

He unsuccessfully stood as a Libertarian Party candidate for Sutton and Cheam (Greater London) in the 2010 British general election, standing for “individual liberty, personal responsibility, and freedom from government as long as one doesn’t initiate force or fraud against the life, liberty, or property, of others”.²¹

Relationship with the Tobacco Industry and Tobacco Funded Organisations

Featured in Video Indirectly Funded by Philip Morris

Cullip briefly featured in the 2018 ‘Global Confusion’ video, produced by the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, a tax-exempt corporation entirely funded by Philip Morris International (PMI).²²

Invited Speaker at Tobacco Industry Event

Cullip was listed as a speaker at the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum, an annual tobacco industry event, in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2021.^2324252627 He has been part of a panel discussions  that have covered topics including newer nicotine and tobacco products such as e-cigarettes.

These events were sponsored, amongst others, by British American Tobacco (BAT), Imperial Brands , Japan Tobacco International, PMI, Reynolds American, Altria, and Swedish Match.²⁸²⁷

Involved in Pro-Tobacco Campaign Funded by Tobacco

Cullip played an active role in the Hands Off Our Packs (HOOP) campaign, which was set up in 2012 by tobacco-industry funded Forest, to oppose proposed plain packaging laws in the UK.

Cullip and other HOOP campaigners (including Simon Clark and Angela Harbutt), were photographed in August 2014 in front of the Prime Minister’s Office delivering 2,500 letters opposing plain packaging.²⁹

The campaign’s website stated that “the tobacco companies are proud to support this campaign”.³⁰ BAT also confirmed that the tobacco company had financially supported the HOOP campaign.³¹

• See: BAT Funded Lobbying Against Plain Packaging.

Cullip had collaborated with Forest previously. He was a columnist for The Free Society, a Forest project launched in 2007 to give voice to the industry’s ‘slippery slope’ argument, i.e. that the “denormalisation of tobacco” and tobacco regulation is only the beginning of “excessive government regulation” that will spill into other industries.³²³³³⁴

Attempted to Discredit Tobacco Control Experts, Science, and Policy

In his blog, Cullip has frequently used abusive rhetoric to describe public health experts, science and policy. Following the 17th World Conference on Tobacco or Health held at Cape Town in March 2018, Cullip wrote on his blog: “Their cult – because that it exactly what it is – has become so pervasive in its brain-washing that the vacant, weasel-headed, blovating cocksplats in Cape Town last week can’t even see what is good for them”.³⁵

“Health Nazis” and “Junk Science”

Whilst saying that tobacco control academics and advocates “lie 24-7 and smear and bully anyone who doesn’t submit to their will”,³⁶ Cullip has called public health experts and advocates “vile, disgusting”, “cretins”, “irretrievable morons”, “cranks and charlatans”, and “parasitic junk scientists”, and “health nazis”, among others.³⁷

Cullip’s attacks have often focused on individuals that played a key role in exposing and resisting tobacco industry interference, including:

• Stan Glantz, Professor of Medicine at University of California San Francisco. Cullip has referred to Glantz as a “senile fantasist” and “a horse’s arse”, and labelled his research as “laughable”, “hysterical”, and “junk science”.³⁸³⁹
• Simon Chapman, Emeritus Professor in the School Public Health at The University of Sydney, who was made an Officer in the Order of Australia for his career in public health in 2013. Considered by Cullip the “prime architect of plain packaging laws in Australia”, he has been labelled by Cullip as a “global joke”, “a crusty Aussie crackpot” and “a swivel-eyed loon” by Cullip, and his work as “majestic delusion”.⁴⁰⁴¹⁴²
• Anna Gilmore, Professor of Public Health at the University of Bath. Referred to by Cullip as “Anna ‘anything for a grant’ Gilmore”, Cullip has accused Gilmore of “making herself very rich on the back of producing anti-tobacco reports favourable to her funders” with her trademark ‘torturing of statistics for hire’.⁴³⁴⁴⁴⁵
• Gerard Hastings, Professor of Social Marketing at the University of Stirling and awarded the OBE in 2009 for his services to healthcare. Following Stirling University’s reluctance to release research data to PMI, Cullip described Hastings as “Stirling’s chief bansturbator” and an “utter clown”.⁴⁶ For more information about PMI’s data request go to FOI: Stirling University
• Linda Bauld, Professor of Socio-Management at the University of Stirling. Cullip, who refers to Bauld as “a career anti-smoking advocate”, has called Bauld’s research on the impact of smoke-free policies as “superlative bullshit”, “propaganda”, and a “systematic exercise in avoiding the truth at all costs.”⁴⁷ When Bauld received physical threats in 2011, Cullip commented that the threats were “unacceptable”,⁴⁸ but also wrote that “if you will insist on talking bollocks in pursuit of derogating the lives of others, what else did you expect? Cry your crocodile tears if you like, but console yourself by wiping your nose on the Department of Health cheques you are happy to cash. OK?”⁴⁹

Cullip has also labelled British health advocacy Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) as more “barmy” than “creationists” or “flat earthers” that produces “fantasy” material.⁵⁰ Cullip also quotes Tim Worstall who wrote on his own personal blog: “When Deborah Arnott’s Chief Executive screen and radio appearances, public utterances, are accompanied by a “this wanker is paid for out of your taxes” warning then I’ll make sure that my income, and thus my funding, is similarly disclosed. Until then you’re all cordially invited to fornicate and travel.”⁵¹⁵²

Affiliations

International Fellow at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance

Cullip is listed as an International Fellow of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) Consumer Center.²⁵³

The TPA is an American not-for-profit organisation which has lobbied for the deregulation of newer nicotine and tobacco products,⁵⁴ and against tobacco control measures, including a US ban on menthol cigarettes and flavoured cigars, which it said would delay “consumer access to tobacco harm reduction”. ⁵⁵⁵⁶ It does not disclose its funding.

Other speaking and membership roles

Cullip has spoken at the Global Forum on Nicotine (GFN),⁵⁷⁵⁸⁵⁹ an annual conference organised by Knowledge Action Change Limited, which is funded by the Foundation for a Smoke Free World.

He was also listed as a speaker at the 2023 ‘New Approaches’ conference, held at the Harvard Club of New York City, in the same week as the United Nations General Assembly.⁶⁰

Cullip was a spokesperson for, and advisor to, The Freedom Association’s Freedom to Vape campaign, which was set up in August 2016.⁶¹

He was a member of Freedom2Choose, a smokers’ rights campaign group set up in 2007.⁶² In an email to the University of Bath in August 2018, Cullip said he had not been a member of Freedom2Choose for about seven years, and was not sure the organisation still existed.⁶³

He was also an associate, then Chair, of the UK based New Nicotine Alliance (NNA).⁶⁴ The NNA promotes tobacco harm reduction, including the use of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products.⁶⁵⁶⁶⁶⁷ As of 2022, he was no longer listed on the NNA UK website.

TobaccoTactics Resources

• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World
• Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum
• Global Forum on Nicotine
• Forest
• Hands Off Our Packs
• The Freedom Association
• Freedom2Choose
• Spiked

Relevant Link

• Dick Puddlecote blog