Smoking, Liberty and Responsibility

Smokers are addicted to tobacco but don't want the side-effects near themIs it time to ban smoking in public completely? The evidence that passive smoking causes harm isoverwhelming. The UK's Government's Scientific Committee on Health's report found a definite linkbetween smoking and lung cancer. Those results are consistent with research funded by the EuropeanCommission that found that passive smoking kills up to 22,000 people a year in Europe. It is because ofsuch strong evidence that Singapore and New Zealand have introduced a total ban on smoking in allpublic places. Don't we in the UK have a duty to protect people suffering from respiratory diseases -particularly asthmatics, children and the elderly - at risk from the harmful effects of smoking in publicplaces?But what is a public place? In the UK we have a semi-ban on pubic smoking. While smoking in somepublic buildings, transport systems, restaurants and bars is banned, smokers are still allowed to smoke inthe street. This semi-ban has been a disaster. Travelling on public transport is a non-smoker's nightmare.Before rail and bus companies banned smoking, smokers were traveled in separate carriages or upstairs inbuses. But now they go berserk on rail platforms and bus-stops, smoking twice as many cigarettes to lastthem the journey. The worst offenders leave it till the last moment to board, taking one final drag to filltheir lungs with the last fix - then exhale smoke inside the carriage or bus.The real nightmare is arriving at one's destination queuing at crowded ticket barriers. Smokers, desperatefor another fix, light up in the middle of the crush, ensuring that everyone smokes, whether they want toor not. It is clear that the semi-ban on smoking merely creates pockets of misery where everyone is forcedto inhale the poisonous gasses and other areas where smokers are frustrated. Everyone looses.Many smokers have reacted to this semi-ban by becoming increasingly defensive and belligerent,reinventing themselves as victims. There are so many pollutants in the city, some smokers argue, whypick on smokers? What about traffic exhausts? But this is hardly an excuse to make pollution worse. It islike a mugger claiming that if he hadn't hit the old woman she would have fallen down the stairs or losther money at Bingo!Are smokers a persecuted minority like the disabled or gays as some smokers claim? Smokers are indeeda minority, but some minorities such as criminals and terrorists are harmful so we mustn't automaticallyassume all minorities are persecuted by virtue of being a minority. High Court judges, politicians,directors of multinational companies are all minorities yet they are not persecuted or victimised bysociety.Some smokers praise `moderate' non-smokers for saying `I don't smoke but I don't mind if others aroundme do' But such masochists have no right to speak for all non-smokers.Should the UK go the way of Singapore and New Zealand and ban public smoking completely? It wouldbe difficult. Unlike New Zealand, Britain has a huge urban population. Moreover, New Zealanders have atraditional love of nature and the outdoors making them more agreeable to blanket public healthmeasures. The Singapore Government has a tradition of being rather authoritarian and Singaporeans areused to towing the line. The British pride themselves on liberty of the individual, so banning publicsmoking entirely would be practically impossible. Moreover, a blanket ban on public smoking would be avictory for militant smokers who see themselves as rebels fighting a puritanical nanny state.There is a `Third Way' that would ensure complete liberty for the smoker and relief to the passive smoker.Give smokers complete freedom and liberty to smoke anywhere they want at any time. No restrictions.No bans. But with just one proviso; that the smoker keeps the lighted cigarette in their mouth at all times.At present, smokers are allowed not only the freedom to smoke in the street but also the added privilegeof protecting themselves from the harmful side-effects of their habit by holding the cigarette at arms