Smoking

Smoking

Smoking is bad? At least this is the impression we are now being sold by the government. After decades of the government making money from smoking through taxation they are now telling everyone that smoking is bad for the health and yet not banning smoking all together. Instead they have put particular emphasis on passive smoking and how it can harm people who inhale other peoples smoke.

More recently Doctors have been calling for smoking to be banned in cars to prevent children from inhaling the smoke when travelling with a smoker. The Royal College of Physicians have claimed that "passive smoking results in 300,000 extra child visits to GPs in the UK every year for problems such as asthma and bacterial meningitis," (Ban smoking in all vehicles, doctors demand: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8583551.stm). However, smoke lobby groups claim that a car is a "private place" and the smoking ban should not extend to the car.

My opinion on this matter is the logistics which would be involved in policing such activity. How would you monitor and prevent people from smoking in a car. It is impossible to do and will cost local authorities millions of pounds to prevent something which I believe is unpreventable like stopping people from using their mobile and driving, which still happens even though it is illegal.