California has shown the way (Should smoking be banned in public places?)

Member Name: Pinotage

Product:	Should smoking be banned in public places?
Date:	20/01/01 (25 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clean air

Disadvantages: None

Have you watched smokers? Smokers carefully hold their cigarette so the smoke doesn't blow over them or their partner. But they don't mind it drifting over the person next to them.

If smoking is inoffensive why is it that smokers never let their cigarette smoke drift over themselves?

I have just returned from working in California where smoking is banned in the workplace and public areas indoors. California has perhaps the strongest anti-smoking laws anywhere. And it's wonderful. You can enjoy meals in restaurants, go out all day and come home without that smoky stench in your hair and clothes. The only reminder of the anti-social habit is seeing smokers on the street outside doors to office blocks (the law makes them stand at least 15 feet away).

The laws have been a great success. California is the only US state where cigarette related diseases such as lung cancer have shown a fall, and smoking itself is declining.

I do not care whether how many cigarettes people smoke. It's just that I don't want to share their smoke. Since smokers appear to be unable to act in a socially responsible way by voluntarily refraining from smoking in public, it seems there must be a law.

It cannot come soon enough.

Summary: