Yes, My smoking is disgusting but does that justify turning my neighbours into informers?

IF I thought I was harming my children by smoking in their presence, then I wouldn't do it. But I don't believe that I am — and I will go on blowing smoke at them until I see a shred of convincing evidence that I am wrong.
I'm with that good and wise man Professor Sir Richard Doll, the meticulous scientist who first established the link between smoking and lung cancer. Asked about the dangers of passive smoking, he said: 'The effect is so small it doesn't worry me.'
The Government clearly doesn't believe what it preaches about the health risks of second-hand smoke either — or else it would surely have introduced an outright ban on the sale or possession of tobacco. As it is, next summer's ban on smoking in enclosed public places will encourage us sinners to hurry home from work and expose pur little darlings to even more of our noxious fumes.
What a peculiar message for the Depart­ment of Health to be sending out: 'Passive smoking endangers the health of those around you, unless they happen to be friends or family in your own home, in which case it's fine.'
Oh, I know that you can show me any number of studies purporting to show that passive smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, asthma, bronchitis and all manner of other afflictions. It wouldn't surprise me if someone claimed to have discovered it causes boils on the bum.

Wicked
But for every one of them, I can show you another, better researched and more honestly presented study which has failed to show any but the most statistically insignificant connection between inhaling other people's smoke and ill health.
The trouble is that anti-smoking campaigners seem to feel their cause is so manifestly noble that it gives them a licence to ignore all the rules of scientific methodology, and even to tell blatant lies.
If a smoker dies from heart disease or respiratory problems, his death is auto­matically recorded as having been caused by his habit. Meanwhile, the deaths of non-smokers from the same causes are increasingly being ascribed to passive smoking, and cited as further evidence that it kills.
'Stands to reason, dunnit?' say the anti-smokers. Well, no, it doesn't. People were dying of heart and lung problems long before Sir Walter Raleigh brought the wicked weed from the New World, and condemned the likes of me to live in slavery to our addiction.
But the figure-fiddling goes further than that. You can be absolutely certain that if I am run over by a bus tomorrow, at the age of 52, my death will be added to some bank of statistics kept by an anti-smoking fanatic and quoted as yet more 'proof that smokers die young.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm quite sure that smoking does hasten the Grim Reaper's arrival — and I am expecting an early and most unpleasant death myself (I'm still in the pink, touch wood, after chain-smoking for 30 years — and inhaling my late father's smoke for the previous 22).
I can't stress too strongly that I wouldn't wish my disgusting habit on anyone tempted to take it up. All I am saying is that if I do come to a violent end, that won't tell science anything about the dangers of smoking. But you can bet your bottom dollar that someone, somewhere, will pretend it does.
Politicians the world over seem to claim the same licence to make outrageously vague pronouncements when they turn their minds from fleecing us to preventing us from smoking.
Listen to that walking misprint, Micheal artin — then the Irish Health Secretary — advocating Europe's first ban on smoking in public, back in 2002: 'Passive smoking may contribute to as many as 870 deaths per year.'

Ludicrous
Now think about that for a moment. What did he mean by 'may' contribute? And what did he mean by 'up to'? Did he have the foggiest idea whether passive smoking killed hundreds of people a year or nobody at all? Did he pluck that ludicrously precise figure of 870 out of the air?
More to the point, why did he insist on pressing ahead with his wretched ban when he gave so little evidence to justify such a sweeping infringement of civil liberty?
For the answer to that, I'm afraid we ave to probe the murkier depths of the human psyche.
My suspicion is that politicians who support smoking bans are not really concerned about non-smokers' lungs at all. If they cared so much about health risks, after all, then why do they exempt private homes — and why encourage round-the clock drinking or big-time gambling, with its proven links to suicide?
No. They just derive a nasty, sadistic thrill from throwing their weight around and spoiling other people's pleasure. Britain's 15 million smokers make the perfect target, since ministers can pretend that they are persecuting them only in order to protect others. Not only do they get the pleasure of bossing people around, it comes free with a self-righteous glow.
My belief that the ban is pure malice was reinforced by last week's news that the Government is to provide a free hotline to encourage us to inform on smokers who break it. How deeply unpleasant to try to set neighbour against neighbour on so trivial a matter and turn us into a nation of informers.
And what a strange set of priorities this free hotline betrays, when anyone public spirited enough to inform on vandals or youths guilty of harassment or intimidation has to pay for the call.
I fully accept that many find the smell of tobacco smoke revolting — and of course they should be able to enjoy a drink or a meal out without having to endure it. The sensible and humane answer is to have a mix of smoking and non-smoking pubs and restaurants and let the customers decide where to go.

Hypocrite
As for those who work in bars, clubs and restaurants, for whom the anti-smokers shed so many crocodile tears, one of the paradoxical effects of the Irish ban was a sudden shortage of staff in Dublin's pubs. Some nine per cent gave up work because they were no longer allowed to smoke there.
For the authentic voice of the anti-smoking fanatic, let me quote an email from one of my less appreciative readers. It came in response to a piece I wrote a few weeks ago, in which I confessed I had been tempted to break the hosepipe ban by watering my garden (although I resisted the temptation).
My correspondent hoped, he said, that 'your smoking which you are proud of has its inevitable consequence in the form of lung cancer, which will condemn you to a slow, painful, lingering and undignified death (I've seen this happen to people and know what it's like which is why I hope it happens to you).
'This would rid society of the presence of a selfish, bigoted hypocrite who writes justifications for other selfish middle-aged upper-middle-class English scumbags and make the world a better place.'
Blimey! What would he have said if I had actually broken the hosepipe ban, instead of just being tempted?
At least my correspondent was honest about his hatred. What I can't stand about Patricia Hewitt and the rest is their pretence they are bullying me only for the good of others.
I have a terrible fear I will not be strong-willed enough to abide by the smoking ban when it comes into force next summer. So if my hate-filled correspondent would like to follow me around for a couple of days, I'm sure he'll get a chance to shop me to the police on that lovely free hotline.
That should cheer him up.