Don't do that in public . . . (Should smoking be banned in public places?)

Member Name: jaybee

Product:	Should smoking be banned in public places?
Date:	05/01/01 (105 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None at all

Disadvantages: damaging to your own health and everyone else you inflict it upon

I believe that before too long we will see smoking in public places being banned.
It will probably happen in the USA before it happens here, but I would bet that when (not if) it happens in the US, Britain would follow soon after.

In the USA when Clinton was in office they looked at the possibility of enforcing this ruling. It was originally discussed in.1995 I believe. In 1996 he gave his approval to the FDA (The Food and Drug Administration) to classify nicotine as an addictive drug. This has lead to some calls from The American Medical Association to treat cigarettes no differently from other drugs the FDA regulate, like morphine and heroin.
Polls taken (CBS news survey/New York Times) at around the same time as this indicated that as many as 42% of Americans would welcome a total ban on smoking, and around two thirds of the people polled favoured a ban on smoking in public places. I don’t have up to date figures, but I’m sure these numbers won’t have decreased.

I personally think that banning it totally might be going a bit too far, but there are good valid arguments for wanting it to be banned in public. I wont go into all the details about how it can damage your health, I think we all know enough about the dangers these days, and all agree that it doesn’t do you any good. The dangers of passive smoking are also well documented now and it is this area that I believe needs to be looked at. If someone wants to smoke and run the risk of damaging their health then let them, but let them do it in an environment where they don’t harm anyone other than themselves..

If the government sanctioned waste disposal to be burned in the middle of a housing estate, or factories were allowed to dispose of waste by-products by burning them off into the air there would be public outcry. People would say it was irresponsible letting toxic fumes like that into the atmosphere where they and their children could breathe
them, as it could do untold damage to their health.
They would be urging the government to apply some rules or regulations to control the output, if not ban it. A lot of people who would be rightly against such a thing would be smokers, who are basically doing the exact same thing, in a much smaller scale, but there isn’t a lot of difference in the principle.



As an ex-smoker who smoked between30-50 cigarettes a day, I have some sympathy for smokers. I know how hard it can be to give up even if you want to. I also realise that some people actually get pleasure from smoking – (I realise if you are a person who has never smoked this may seem impossible, stupid, or even irresponsible, but it is a fact) – and don’t want to give up.

This might seem like an odd thing to say, but I also believe there are responsible and irresponsible smokers. Both types of smoker may be called irresponsible regarding the damage they do to their own health, but the responsible type tries to ensure that they do not upset or inflict their habit on anyone else.
I smoked heavily for over 15 years but I tried to ensure I never smoked anywhere where there were children around. I would never have dreamt of smoking in someone else’s’ home if they were a non-smoker. I would never smoke in someone else’s’ car, as I rarely smoked in my own. I would smoke in the pub for instance because it was an all-adult environment and on reflection I probably wouldn’t do it now; but it’s easy for me to say that as I don’t smoke anymore.
I also know I was in a minority, but there are other like-minded smokers around today.

In their defence a lot of smokers say banning it would infringe their civil liberties.
To an extent I agree, if you ban smoking what’s going to be next?
Ban overweight people from eating?
There are people who know they are overweight and do not act responsibly,
they then become obese, they are endangering their health, just like smokers, (admittedly they aren’t endangering anyone other than themselves) will we call for a limit to the amount of calories they can intake in a day? I don’t think so!
So why should we call for a total ban on smoking. Let people do it in their own home if they want to, open up places where they can go to smoke.
Have smokers only pubs, it’s only fair, if non-smokers can have them by banning smoking in public places, then surely smokers must be given the same options.

Lets do away with no smoking zones, make non-smoking the norm.
Make smoking zones instead, preferably enclosed, away from everyone else.

Or maybe go further and regulate the sale of cigarettes, just like alcohol, which in most towns and cities cannot be consumed in public in public, and can only be sold by licensed vendors..

Summary: