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The debate over banning smoking in public places is not a question of smoker's rights. I don't care how many indignant cigarette wielders get onboard the smoker's rights' train. They can ride that train, moaning and warning the world until they're wrinkly in the face. They can ring the alarm and let us know that big brother is killing their freedom buzz and will be coming for the overweight, hamburger chains, and you for using energy inefficient light bulbs... It won't make any difference because they are missing the point.

Maybe the government allows us to buy liver-killing, family-wrecking alcohol. Maybe the obese continue over-eating because the government allows advertisers to make sure they never stop. Maybe. But these government perpetrated and endorsed hypocrisies along with a million others do not, and will never, mean smoking is safe for public consumption.

Some people really seem to believe that the anti-smoking campaign is a government conspiracy built on smokers' tax money with the one and only goal of violating smokers. This makes me sad. Wastes of time and energy that divert worthwhile efforts and get in the way of positive change always tend to make me feel a little blue.

Smokers who get caught up in the frenzy of smokers' rights rhetoric are wasting their already scarce breath. The decision of whether or not to allow slow death by inhalation of unnecessary poisons rests on consideration of the rights of everyone who may come into contact with that poison. When deciding on laws that affect the public we have to consider all parties and try to balance what is upheld with what is being taken away.

Smokers can smoke anywhere its legal. They just don't want the inconvenience of not having enough time for a butt on a five minute break, or being told they can't eat out and smoke at the same time. Allowing smokers a public arena for lighting up is only a matter of smoker convenience. Stripped of rhetoric and appeal to emotion, the debate boils down to; does smoker convenience outweigh the inconvenience of non-smokers being forced to smell, smell like, and potentially die from smoke inhalation? The answer seems obvious to me, but just in case...no, smoker convenience is not more important than our health.

I can almost hear the indignant gasps, the crinkle of cellophane and the click of lighters."Give me my public space to hack back my cancer stick or I'll, I'll"What? What can smokers possibly threaten, or offer, in order to convince the non chemical huffing side of the population to agree to inhale flaming cyanide and formaldehyde?

You can say the words - they're grammatical and each has meaning - but when placed side by side ''smokers'' and ''rights'' just doesn't look and feel like a combination worth paying attention to.

Learn more about this author, Sally Miles.
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