I am a reformed smoker, one of that band of vehement crusaders who can self-righteously scorn those who smoke.
I despise the smell of dirty ashtrays, the odour of that grey film that wafts around our clothes, our hair and into our lungs.
There is nothing good that can be said about smoking.
The cost to the nation through the illnesses smokers contract, is staggeringly high.
Anti-smoking organisation, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), has said that smoking causes 20 per cent of all cancers, 21 per cent of all heart disease and costs $12.7 billion a year in health care, lost productivity and other costs according to its figures for 1998.
Smoking is the single largest preventable cause of death and disease in Australia killing 50 Australians daily, 350 each week, and around 19,000 every year, the organisation has said.
Bega Valley Shire Council’s proposed outdoor smoking policy prohibits smoking within 10 metres of children’s playground equipment, within 10 metres of any entrance and all areas within council buildings including toilets, halls, depots and sports centres.
It can only be considered to be a good thing if we try to protect those unable to look after themselves from the effects of secondary smoke and adult endorsement that appears to make smoking acceptable.
It also bans smoking on all sporting fields, all beaches and at all outdoor events organised by council.
And why not?
After all if you are playing some form of sport, why would you want to breathe in someone else’s second hand smoke?
There is the cost to the environment too.
Butts cause major problems in our waterways, can be a fire hazard and are a litter problem on our beaches.
The health arguments on second hand smoke in crowded outdoor or partly-enclosed areas are strong, especially in alfresco dining or other staffed areas where workers are repeatedly or continuously exposed.
In December 2009, the ACT Assembly passed new laws making all public eating and drinking areas 100 per cent smoke-free, however enclosed or otherwise, by the end of 2010.
The arguments against smoking cannot be disputed but are we in danger of living in a nanny-state?
Smoking is still legal and so is eating a Big Mac but neither of them can be considered good for you and if you do enough of both, health problems will undoubtedly be the result.
The difference of course with smoking is that it can detrimentally affect someone else.
But then alcohol is legal too and police officers are quick to point out that the majority of crimes that they deal with on a day-to-day basis, are alcohol-related.
In concert with many western nations, we have abdicated personal responsibility, seeking out someone else to blame for our own failings.
But to be fair we have been lied and sold to by experts.
I remember my father protesting when his doctor told him to stop smoking. From a young age he had been told by the cigarette companies that smoking was a good thing to do.
Once hooked on the weed, he found it, after many years of regular smoking, impossible to give up.
We no longer have that excuse; there cannot be a single person in the western world, who doesn’t understand the dangers of smoking.
Unfortunately we still have to get to grips with alcohol.
In the same way that the big tobacco companies influenced nations throughout the middle of the 20th century, alcohol companies place influential advertising at major public and sporting events.
The question is where does public responsibility end and individual freedoms start.
We may not want to live in the world depicted by George Orwell’s 1984 but then equally, how many of us would wish to populate Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
Denise Dion, acting editor.
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