Smoking ban in cars - barmy!

Despite being a lifelong non-smoker, I am totally against the latest proposals to criminalise smokers that is due to be voted on this coming week.

Have suffered long term respiratory problems since childhood, as a result of growing up in a household of heavy smokers, I know first hand the consequences of exposure to passive smoking. It is of course important to protect children from harm. However, whilst smoking remains a legal substance I believe it is wrong to continue to penalise those that choose to do so.

It seems ironic that a blind eye is turned towards those that indulge in illegal substances, whilst the government seeks continually to find ways in which to target smokers. I fully appreciate the need to ensure that we all remain as healthy as possible for as long as possible; this is hardly surprising given the funding crisis within the NHS, along with the fact that we are all living longer.

What does not seem to generate significant consideration is the fact that smokers, through the heavy tax levy they pay, make an enormous contribution to the government’s coffers.

Certainly smoking is a major cause of a wide variety of life threatening illnesses, but then so is alcohol, overeating, in-discriminate sex activity, and a host of other activities that many of us indulge in.

It seems to me that smokers have become easy targets for quick fix attempts at garnering public approval. What those in a position to do so fail miserably at, is looking at the underlying causes for the reasons we choose, of our own free will, to engage in behaviours that are harmful to our health; work related stress, money problems, relationships problems and ill health all come readily to mind. 

I can see no sensible way in which the current intention to ban smoking in cars, whilst children are present, will ever be effectively policed. Many adults smoke to relieve stress and I can only begin to imagine a long car journey with the offspring in tow, if parents are forbidden from smoking…. they may well take it out on the children, or each other.

This nanny state approach is becoming increasingly tiresome, and I don’t see any great concerned over the amount of litter smokers generate on our streets as a result of being forced outside to puff, gasping literally for that fix. To my mind smoking is a vile, disgusting habit, and totally incomprehensible to me, but as long as tobacco is legal I will defend the right of smokers to do so.

If we were serious about protecting people’s health then tobacco would be banned, but that is never likely to happen, at least not in my lifetime.