Editorial: Smoking ban okay in theory

Many new areas in Rotorua are becoming smokefree.

It was once 'the' cool thing to do. Movies stars were seen on screen chuffing away while newspapers, magazines and television advertised tobacco and its supposed benefits.

Even major sports were sponsored by tobacco companies - remember the Winfield Cup?

Pipe smoking was even cooler. What better way to point something out to your mates than by waving the end of your pipe about in the general direction of the object being discussed?

We smokers are a dying breed and some say they feel like pariahs with their right to smoke where they would like, within reason, being continually eroded.

Our mayor, while a Labour Party MP, was also the driving force behind getting smoking banned from pubs, clubs and bars 10 years ago.

As a smoker, I have no problem with the indoor smoking ban and heading outside for a puff has never been an issue. It's fun to catch up with all the other smokers and there's safety in numbers.

Most smokers respect others' rights not to cop a lung-full of our evil fumes and will distance themselves from groups of non-smokers casting them disparaging looks.

Love it or hate it, smoking is a right.

It's our body we know we are damaging and it's our choice.

Another fact the anti-smoking brigade likes to gloss over is that we pay our taxes - in fact we smokers pay far more tax than is needed to treat smoking-related illnesses in our health system - and when that dries up, who will have to pick up the shortfall? I'm sure the Government will find a way.

When smoking is nothing but ancient history our descendants can look back and laugh at us willingly poisoning ourselves.

While I understand the council's push to try and make the city smokefree, as if we are living in some sort of authoritarian utopia, there has to be a limit.

I agree, we should not be smoking in front of impressionable children who are using parks and reserves.

But I'd like to see the council try and prosecute someone caught breaking a smoking ban while standing in the middle of a park hundreds of metres away from another human being. But, it's the thought that counts.