by Gary Maclean

Created on: February 25, 2008   Last Updated: February 11, 2012

There is one very interesting complication to the question of whether smoking should be allowed in public places or not; what is a public place? When defining public place we must include those places where people congregate for whatever reason. Your home, of course, is not a public place, but the local supermarket is. Your car is not a public place, but the vehicles used by the local transit system are. Your friend's cabin up north is not a public place, but the little bar on the corner is. So public place is anywhere the general public may want to congregate for whatever reason.

The very interesting complication is that we include bar in that definition of public places. When we ask the question should smoking be allowed in public places we are asking, in part, should smoking be allowed in bars and taverns? What is so interesting about this is that we are trying to control one habit that is currently being judged as negative even when it is partaken of in a place where one of the most negative habits is regularly satisfied. In fact that other negative habit went through the same prejudice as smoking is right now. Back in the 30s there was a little something called prohibition. We saw where that public outcry got us; gangsters, illegal activity, bootlegging and on and on.

What we are saying is it is OK to drink and get drunk on your butt, but do not take a puff off a cigarette while you are doing it. The whole ituation seems very ironic to me so I first had to ask myself that question. Why are we using abstention to try to control a habit that is clearly dangerous to those who involve themselves, but then don't try to control the other habit that is historically damaging, dangerous, threatening and very abusive to ourselves and those around us? Why do we try to control smoking in a drinking establishment?

That one question which I personally have no answer for, is what convinces me there is a very simple answer to the entire controversy. Yes! That's it, no more and no less. Yes, smoking should be allowed in public places. A vice is a vice is a vice. How can we justify strict control of one of those vices yet allow so many others and simply create laws and rules to control them?

Even beyond the tavern vs smoking scenario we permit the making of cigarettes. We first allow farmers to grow tobacco, corporations to process tobacco, retail establishments to sell tobacco products, and adults to purchase those products. Do we really have any right to now

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