EDWARD POWER,
Madam, - Philip Donnelly (November 13th) appears to think that smoking harms only the smoker. Unfortunately, like crime it always has a victim and usually many victims.
It is because the damning effects of indoor smoking on others have now been clearly documented that the Minister's decision to protect staff and customers in public houses is to be warmly welcomed.
Indeed, if the Minister was to fail to act he would be derelict in his duty to protect the health of the non-smoking community and, particularly those working in licensed premises.
Mr Donnelly's point about the freedom of the individual to act is well made, but like all freedoms it is limited if it causes damage to others. - Yours, etc.,
Dr BRIAN MAURER,
President,
Irish Heart Foundation,
Clyde Road,
Dublin 4.
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Madam, - Turning the question of whether or not smoking should be allowed where food is served into a kind of pseudo-intellectual soufflé, is all very well, as far as it goes.
But there's nothing particularly witty or humorous in forcing other people to breathe second-hand smoke from the human equivalant of gooey, sooty, unswept chimneys. In fact, it's a bit like arguing for the rights of people with halitosis.
A logical extension of the anti-anti-smoking legislation argument would be to ban all non-smokers from places where cigarettes are sold and smoked. Most smokers are selfish, anti-social types who haven't the courage or the willpower to quit their filthy habit.
Perhaps another modest proposal is called for: as well as having to carry medical warnings, all cigarette packs should be subject to a name legally imposed by a body appointed for that purpose. It would surely concentrate their minds if, every time smokers purchased a packet of cigarettes, they had to ask for them by name: Smoker's Cough, Rotten Lung, Coffin Nails, Cancerettes. - Yours, etc.,
EDWARD POWER,
Portlaw,
Waterford.
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Madam, - I have always been a non-smoker and I actively defend my rights as a non-smoker to clean, smoke-free air. However, the issue of whether smoking should be banned in pubs is not about the rights of non-smokers, it is about the rights of the pub owners.
Such a ban is based on the erroneous premise that individuals have a right to drink in pubs. The only right that individuals have with regard to pubs is the right to not enter them.
And therein lies the route to change. If people are worried about passive smoking in pubs, they should boycott smoking pubs and let market forces do the rest. The public will get its smoke-free pubs, and our individual rights will not have been undermined. - Yours, etc.,
JEREMY PAGDEN,
Knockncarra Park,
Galway.