Banning smoking in public places

If someone sitting in an airport lounge keeps spitting all around him, will it be an acceptable or tolerable behavior? In a cinema hall, if someone, who does not want to miss any scenes on the screen feels an uncontrollable urge to empty his bladder; is it okay for him to urinate inside the hall? Think of a music buff who loves hearing Michael Johnson all through his waking hours and imagine he is allergic to wearing head phones. Is it acceptable if he enjoys his music in his speaker-cell phone, with full volume on, inside a church where the sermon is going on?

The answer will be a loud NO from anyone with common-sense.

But when someone asks "Should smoking be banned in public place?" most of the smokers will oppose such a proposition stating that it is an infringement on their fundamental rights!

Why?

The reason number one is that smoking has emerged as a “socially acceptable habit” (unlike spitting and urinating in public). People from all classes of society smoke; right from politicians, law enforcing personnel, doctors, the rich and powerful, the celebrities whom people adore and up to spiritual gurus – a very wide cross section of people in the society smoke. Smoking is never considered infra-dig. Smoking is considered a stylish habit.

When people in the upper strata of a society do it as a matter of fact, it is taken for granted that it is something respectable; it is something not meant to be frowned upon. When such a mindset is strong, naturally people object to banning smoking in public places.

The reason number two is that though smoking is a habit that has a potential to cause serious health hazards to the smoker, the effect of passive smoking of the exhaled smoke (as its gets quite diluted in the atmosphere) has not been proven black and white. Smokers would argue that the volume of harmful chemicals in the atmospheric air on account of automobile emission or from the chimneys of factories could be much more and much more serious than the cigarette smoke let out from their lungs.

But across the globe, the awareness about harmful automobile emissions is quite wide and emission norms imposed on automobile firms are becoming stricter by the day. Every country has pollution control authorities to monitor and control atmospheric pollution emanating from factory chimneys. There are strict laws to confront polluters who discharge harmful chemicals into the air.

When the same control mechanisms are introduced to smoking in public places, the smokers get offended.

Just because those who smoke include the educated, powerful, respectable and the adorable in the society, the evil effects of smoking in public places do not get diluted. The following are the reasons I would put forth to justify banning of smoking in public place:

1) Smoking is an indisputable health hazard. When a large cross section of people (including the rich, the powerful and the celebrities) are seen smoking in public places, people tend to think “After all smoking may not be as harmful as doctors warn; if so, how come so many of them are doing it carefree?” Such a thinking can easily set in children and teenagers at impressionable age.

2) The smell of burning tobacco may be too attractive for a smoker, but it need not be for those sitting around him/her. It is only common sense to grasp the fact that you have no right to irritate others around you with foul smelling emissions from your mouth and lungs. Just imagine: If you are a smoker and a person sitting beside you keeps farting at regular intervals, how would you feel?

3) In an Air-conditioned and closed hall, when several people smoke, the exhaled smoke keeps circulating into the lungs of one and all. It is foolhardy to imagine that the smoke is highly diluted and will not do much harm.

The reason why bringing in legislation towards banning smoking in public places and enforcing them strictly are tardy can only be traced to the fact that many who are at the helm of affairs in enacting the law and enforcing them are smokers. Who will easily co-operate in eliminating something harmful if he/she has a very soft corner towards the problem?

That’s why, bringing in such a strict discipline to the society across the board meets with resistance. Fortunately, the evil of smoking has been very well understood today than what was prevailing a few decades ago. Despite slackness and resistance, more and more countries are progressing well in bringing pressure on smokers by way of curbs to smoking in public places.