by JC Campbell

Created on: February 15, 2010

The decision of the British government to ban smoking in public places was a good decision but one that should have been taken long before it was. For people who are habitual tobacco users, smoking in public places was a convenience for them and an absolute nuisance for non-smokers. Apart from the very real danger of suffering the effects of passive smoking, it was unbearable at times to be in a public place while uncaring smokers were blowing their second-hand smoke all over the place. To be sitting in a restaurant or on an airplane in the presence of cigarette smokers was intensely uncomfortable for people who saw smoking for what it was, as a filthy habit which destroys your health and makes the atmosphere uncomfortable for others.

It was not before time that the government in the United Kingdom took the decision to ban smoking, Scotland leading the way in this. The smokers themselves were never going to show regard for people who were non-smokers. No matter where you went in a day’s activity you were faced with people who believed it was their right to blow smoke in your face. Take a trip on a bus, go out to eat, go to work, visit the dentist or go shopping and you would invariably find someone who could not go without another cigarette. Try telling such a person that their smoking bothers you and you could expect to hear them whine about their personal rights to smoke when they wanted to.

The pitiful attempts made to compromise were absolutely useless before the smoking ban was introduced. You could sit in a restaurant in the “no smoking” section and find people were smoking cigarettes no more than ten feet away inside the smoking area. Airplane travel was even more ludicrous. You could be seated in the no smoking area and have a passenger smoking in the row in front who was in the smoking area. The only real answer was to ban the habit in public areas. It makes such a difference now to be able to visit a restaurant and enjoy a pleasant meal without having to wave away the drifting cigarette smoke from a nearby table.

Those who are addicted to tobacco will of course bleat about their personal freedom being taken away because of this ban. The irony is that the same people have no regard or concern for the rights of non-smokers who choose not to inhale tobacco smoke and damage their health. The only mystery surrounding the government decision to ban smoking in publiclv places is why it took them so long to do the right thing. For years the government insisted that cigarette packets carried health warnings due to the real dangers connected to smoking. Advertising campaigns on television, radio and in newspapers were not enough to protect innocent people from the effects of smoking. Responsible people who made the conscious decision not to smoke in view of the health risks were effectively being forced into passive smoking because the habit was permitted in public places. The government without doubt made the correct decision to ban smoking. They just took too long to make that decision.

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