I seldom think about the smoking ban in pubs and restaurants across Europe. It’s mostly when I’ve spent some time in a smoky pub in Prague that I look back and feel pretty pleased that I usually can drink my beer without the nicotine.
Sure, I understand the arguments against, and libertarian reflexes tell me that this is just another attempt to limit personal freedom.
But it’s hard to argue with success. I enjoy going to a pub or club, either just for the beer or to enjoy a concert and not having to hand in my jacket to the cleaners the next morning. And, looking abroad, it seems to be the only law the Italians are obeying.
My main point is that I thought this discussion was dead now. That people enjoy cleaner pubs and restaurants even if braving winter storms underneath an umbrella might be a bit uncomfortable.
But no.
Tandleman opened the discussion on his blog a week ago. So far there are more than a hundred comments, with anonymous anti-ban commenters dominating with their not-too-subtle arguments.
I didn’t know, for example, that the British fought WWII for us to be allowed to keep smoking indoors. Or that the ban has cost 100 000 jobs in Britain, not to mention families starving in the streets.
Those were the days?
Government power the real health hazard
The bandwagon of local smoking bans now steamrolling across the nation has nothing to do with protecting people from the supposed threat of “second-hand” smoke.
Indeed, the bans are symptoms of a far more grievous threat, a cancer that has been spreading for decades and has now metastasized throughout the body politic, spreading even to the tiniest organs of local government. This cancer is the only real hazard involved – the cancer of unlimited government power.
The issue is not whether second-hand smoke is a real danger or is in fact just a phantom menace, as a study published recently in the British Medical Journal indicates. The issue is: If it were harmful, what would be the proper reaction? Should anti-tobacco activists satisfy themselves with educating people about the potential danger and allowing them to make their own decisions, or should they seize the power of government and force people to make the “right” decision?
Supporters of local tobacco bans have made their choice. Rather than trying to protect people from an unwanted intrusion on their health, the bans are the unwanted intrusion.
Loudly billed as measures that only affect “public places,” they have actually targeted private places: restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shops and offices – places whose owners are free to set anti-smoking rules or whose customers are free to go elsewhere if they don’t like the smoke. Some local bans even harass smokers in places where their effect on others is negligible, such as outdoor public parks.
The decision to smoke, or to avoid “second-hand” smoke, is a question to be answered by each individual based on his own values and his own assessment of the risks. This is the same kind of decision free people make regarding every aspect of their lives: how much to spend or invest, whom to befriend or sleep with, whether to go to college or get a job, whether to get married or divorced, and so on.
All of these decisions involve risks; some have demonstrably harmful consequences; most are controversial and invite disapproval from the neighbours. But the individual must be free to make these decisions. He must be free because his life belongs to him, not to his neighbours, and only his own judgment can guide him through it.
Yet when it comes to smoking, this freedom is under attack. Smokers are a numerical minority, practising a habit considered annoying and unpleasant to the majority. So the majority has simply commandeered the power of government and used it to dictate their behaviour.
That is why these bans are far more threatening than the prospect of inhaling a few stray whiffs of tobacco while waiting for a table at your favourite restaurant. The anti-tobacco crusaders point in exaggerated alarm at those wisps of smoke while they unleash the unlimited intrusion of government into our lives. We do not elect officials to control and manipulate our behaviour.
Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay, Ont.
Canada
http://thetruthisalie.com
http://citizensfreedomalliance.org
What if the governments mandated that all currently smoke-free hospitality venues MUST provide a smoking section to accommodate smokers, against the wishes of business owners who choose
to go smoke-free of their own free will?
That wouldn’t be fair, would it?
Neither are government mandated smoking bans.
Thomas Laprade
The problems is that I didn’t know this was an apocalyptic religion.
Yes, here in Italy there are few laws that people comply with pleasure. Fortunately, one of them is the smoking ban… this make me very happy because I’m not a smoker and now I can spend my time in cleaner pubs. Even if someone could say that a piece of the pub atmosphere is gone, it’s clear that lifestyle in pubs is better than in the past. Not smoking is a sacrifice that we can accept…
Bloody hell. They (snowbird in Canada with a copy-and-paste doom-saying) really crawl out when posts like this come up. And I’m a smoker! I thought the smoking restrictions were great when they came into Ireland, and Nordrhein-Westfalen! Quite happy to step outside and meet new people.
(although it means I’ve cut down on the cigars. Takes too long to smoke them in the cold)