Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary…said the Health Bill would ban smoking in ‘virtually every enclosed public place and workplace” in England and save thousands of lives a year. Smoke-free workplaces and public places “will become the norm”.
As the developed world gradually and inexorably turns it back on the public health menace that is tobacco, more and more countries are deciding that public health in public place trumps the rights of individuals to smoke in public places. Now before Adam and all the rest of you amateur legal scholars out there jump into my $#!&, let me just state for the record that it is my firm belief that my right to breathe clean air trumps your right to pollute that same air with cigarette smoke. Yes, I understand the holes inherent in my argument…and I don’t much care. This is an emotional issue for me, and I freely admit to that. Until you’ve been locked in a hot, airless room in a mosque with close to 100 chain-smoking Kosovar Albanians, you can’t possibly understand the depths of my contempt for cigarette smoking. It’s a filthy, vile habit…and the fact that I’m allergic to cigarette smoke doesn’t exactly help matters.
For this reason, then, I applaud the British government for taking action that trumps hundreds of years of history and tobacco addiction. I truly believe that the banning of smoking in public places is a positive step towards the Greater Good. No, I understand that this is not a perfect solution, and there are many who will see this as unwarranted government intervention in the private affairs of individuals. As I said, I am well aware of the holes in my argument, and I don’t pretend to be able to justify my position on anything but a largely emotional basis. Nonetheless, I firmly believe that this is the wave of the future, and I for one am glad for it. I grew up with a father who smoked, and I always resented being forced to breathe his second-hand smoke. If I want to live smoke-free (and I do), then that right should and does trump the right of a smoker to pollute the air I am breathing. Deal with it.
