Smoking or Non-Smoking...Should There Be A Choice? Imagine sitting in a restaurant unable to enjoy a meal due to the cloud of smoke coming from a neighbor's table.

Authors Avatar

Smoking or Non-Smoking...Should There Be A Choice? Imagine sitting in a restaurant unable to enjoy a meal due to the cloud of smoke coming from a neighbor's table. The fact that there was not a designated area for smokers has put the smoker and the non-smoker in an uncomfortable situation. Smoking should be banned in public places because non-smokers have a right to clean air, and because second hand smoke is more dangerous than actually smoking a cigarette. However, smoking should not be banned in public places because it is the smoker's choice to smoke just as it is the non-smokers choice not to smoke. President Clinton is quoted saying that "We've got to do more to protect people in public places and clean up the air that all of us share" (Rovner 571). For non-smokers, inhaling someone else's cigarette smoke can be very aggravating. It is bad enough that automobiles, processing plants, and other types of industries pollute our environment, but for a smoker to choose to smoke around a non-smoker is a violation of th

Arguably by allowing smoking in public places it is the freedom of non-smokers that is being restricted. We choose not to smoke but by going out into a public space this choice is effectively taken away. By smoking in public the smoker is forcing everyone in the vicinity to smoke too, perhaps there should be signs everywhere reading ‘public smoking area only’.

Maybe it is down to the renowned English sense of reserve but why is it always the non-smoker, the one who has committed no intrusion that has to quietly get up and move when someone next to them lights up? For years now non-smokers have had to endure the unpleasant inhaling of stale cigarette smoke or coming home smelling like the inside of a dirty ash tray and for those people that have to work under these conditions, in bars or restaurants, the situation is even more exacerbated, as they have no escape.

Perhaps most significantly is the detrimental affect that passive smoking can have on anyone’s health. Passive smoking has been linked to an endless list of serious health problems ranging from bronchitis and asthma to lung cancer and heart disease and even SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). According to Cancer Research figures several hundred people each year in the UK die from lung cancer caused by passive smoking.

Join now!

Quite apart from the enormous cost to the NHS, what is even more infuriating is that in the vast majority of cases, illnesses developed through passive smoking might have been avoided. International experience has shown that the best way to rapidly and successfully tackle health risks from second hand smoke is to take action on smoking in public places.

A ban would not only improve the lives of us non-smokers but would encourage those causing the problem to help themselves. Areas such as California where smoking in public places has been banned entirely suggest that smoke-free environments reduce both the ...

This is a preview of the whole essay