This Partial Smoking Ban is a Real Choker

30 Nov 2005
Evening Standard

I am in favour of a total ban on smoking in public places. And, happily, I share that opinion with Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Nursing, the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK and a great many backbench Labour MPs.

Most of those who argue that people should have the right to smoke - any place, any time - would not dream of a "right" to take heroin. But, as the Royal College of Physicians points out, nicotine is just as addictive as heroin and cocaine. And, in terms of numbers affected, it causes much more damage to health. Cigarette smoking is the single largest preventable cause of premature death and illness in the United Kingdom. Smoking-related diseases cause 120,000 deaths a year around a fifth of the total annual deaths in the UK. At least half of smokers will die prematurely from diseases caused by their habit. At this point, dedicated smokers reading this article will stir, cough up some horrible yellow mucus, and mutter that if they want to kill themselves that is their business.True enough, but should the rest of us have to pay for their pleasure? The treatment of smoking-related disease costs the NHS Pounds 1.5 billion a year. That is a lot of money for the taxpayer to find so that a minority can enjoy waking up with a wheezing cough.

There is also the question of "passive" smoking. Smokers in clubs, bars and other public places put the rest of us at risk. In 2004, the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health revealed that second-hand smoke was responsible for an estimated 24 per cent increased risk of lung cancer in non-smokers and a 23 per cent excess risk of heart disease. Children and babies exposed to second-hand smoke at home had an increased risk of pneumonia, bronchitis, asthma attacks and ear infections. At this point, my smoker readers will stir themselves again and say that smoking is the only pleasure some poor working-class people have and that it is somehow elitist to ban it. It is true that disproportionate numbers of working-class people smoke. But you might as well say it was elitist to bring a proper sewage system to the slums of Victorian England. Smoking kills, just as raw sewage caused thousands of preventable deaths from cholera and typhoid in the 19th century, and politicians have a responsibility to do something about it.

The Republic of Ireland has successfully brought in a total ban. The Scottish Parliament is bringing in a ban. English MPs will even be asked to vote for a total ban in Northern Ireland. The Government's proposed partial ban is a silly halfmeasure, thought up with a view to the next day's headlines, rather than the long-term health of the nation.

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