Tobacco Smoking...

[hanasian]

Reading Elentari's journal brought this to mind again. Its the whole mandated smoking ban in public places. I though tit was pretty much a local liberal nanny-state initiative that passed in Washington state. Yes, here in Washington State, the voters passed an initiative that banned cigarette, I mean tobacco smoking from public places, and within

Comments

[heliona]

In Scotland and Ireland, smoking was banned in public places that served food. In Ireland, there was this one pub where they had a double decker bus parked outside the pub which was the 'smoking bus.'

In Scotland, the scheme was initially voluntary - the government wanted to see how businesses and the public would react to it. A lot of businesses took up the initial ban and said that their business was completely unaffected. Not long ago, the ban came into effect in Scotland, and I think a similar thing is now happening in England (I'm not there, so I don't know for sure, I'm just going by the comments by people when I last visited).

Now, as far as I'm aware, the number of smokers (or rather, cigarettes being sold) hasn't decreased, but the pubs, bars, cafes, and restaurants are now a healthier place to be, and the smokers don't appear to be complaining - at least not that much. There certainly doesn't appear to be the same problem with rebelliousness that you're talking about.

I personally think it's a good idea, but I can't see anyone making tobacco illegal - after all, the tobacco companies earn too much money and therefore have too much power to get themselves made illegal!