Monday, March 27, 2006
Get over it
In today's Guardian, A.L. Kennedy puts the case for a smoking ban in very stark terms:
I've always had a great affection for smokers - they're so faithful. Tobacco companies have lied to them for decades, spiked products to make them more addictive, manipulated research, danced around compensation suits until plaintiffs have died of smoking-related illnesses, even insulted tobacco users in confidential mailings - and still they keep on buying. Smokers apparently don't care how environmentally damaging Big Tobacco's production methods are, or how many dodgy political connections they have - smokers are very loving and forgiving people. So I always try to be kind to smokers.
I've always had a great affection for smokers - they're so faithful. Tobacco companies have lied to them for decades, spiked products to make them more addictive, manipulated research, danced around compensation suits until plaintiffs have died of smoking-related illnesses, even insulted tobacco users in confidential mailings - and still they keep on buying. Smokers apparently don't care how environmentally damaging Big Tobacco's production methods are, or how many dodgy political connections they have - smokers are very loving and forgiving people. So I always try to be kind to smokers.
As she so astutely identifies, Scotland's ban is not about the smokers themselves but those workers who might suffer as a result of the death wish of others:
Sympathetic headlines bemoaned an erosion of civil liberties, and I can see their point. Perhaps people should have the right to poison bar staff and waiters: some of them are very annoying. I look forward to articles extolling my right to purchase shoes made by children: children can also be annoying.
But the worse part is seeing the damage that smoking does to those who are addicted to the weed:
I'm tired of going to smokers' funerals. Being dead adversely affects their civil rights.
How long do we have to wait now before Wales can follow Scotland and Ireland in banning smoking in the workplace?
Comments:
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This issue is not about my rights as a non-smoker it is about the health and safety of the staff. Regulations to protect staff are already in place, this is one more and that is why the trade unions fully support the ban. I have never advocated restricting the units of drink or the type of food people should eat as that is a matter of choice for them. Nor would I advocate such restrictions as there is no justification for them as with a ban on smoking in the workplace. As for the number of pubs closing in Ireland, that is an urban myth and is unsubstantiated by the evidence. As with any business, where pubs adapt they will flourish. That is why in California, where a ban has been in force for at least 10 years, the hospitality trade is booming.
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