These days governments around the world are going to great lengths to make sure, we-little people don't do anything that they think is bad for us. The smoking ban was implemented to save "thousands of lives" by removing smokers from buildings. Did it save any lives? No, the cancer rates are climbing, and the steady drop in heart diseases we've seen over the years has in many cases turned into a rise; http://www.smokershistory.com/etsheart.html (If it doesn't work, just copy and paste the link). Most of all, the antis said that the ban would not affect the business of bar-owners. That was a lie and they don't seem to care to acknoledge it. I link to a list of SOME of the businesses in the United States and Canada that have suffered due to smoking bans. http://www.smokersclub.com/banloss3.htm. In the UK, there have been 300-year old pubs that closed as a direct result of the smoking ban. Some stories are quite devastating ;http://www.freedom2choose.info/news1.php?id=1076. Simply put, many smokers would rather sit at home, have a beer from a supermarket and a cigarette, rather than pay a higher price and be forced to go outside whenever they feel like a smoke.
This is a serious issue. Let's assume for the sake of argument that passive smoking is in fact dangerous (see the next post). Even then, in a free society the government should have no say regarding the way property owners run their business. I have no problem with a pub owner who decides to make his/her pub smoke free, because he considers it good for their business- that I can get behind. But the government telling people that they can't allow smoking in their own pub is downright criminal. Folks who decide to enjoy a cigarette in smoky environments should be allowed to do so. Non-smokers who don't like smoke can go somewhere else- smoke is not an issue unless you enter an establishment and make it one. That's how the free market works. If there was a demand for a "smoke-free Britain", pubs would go smoke-free on their own, without the government intervening. You might think, "why should I care. I don't smoke, so it doesn't affect me". Not today, not tomorrow, but after the government gets away with regulations that only alienate certain minorities, it will switch to other sorts of control. It's already started,
-http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5950442.ece- I don't know about you, but that's pretty scary to me. A result of yet another scientific hoax
-http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/4214024/Dont-throw-away-leftovers-warn-food-police.html- Sorry, I don't want anybody to tell me what to do with my food.
-http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-12-04-trans-fat-ban_x.htm- Nobody makes you eat that stuff.
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