Why No Smoking in Public is Good.

No-one should be allowed to smoke in public, anywhere in the world. Smoking should be a private pursuit only allowed in places where no-one else but the smoker - or other smokers - can be affected.

Now, these might seem harsh statements. They might even seem like an interference in the basic rights of people to pursue the lives they choose. Yet, they are not. You see by smoking in public, smokers are deletriously affecting the lives of others and that should not and cannot be allowed.

Associated Press has recently carried a story about a city in Colorado, called Pueblo, which instituted a workplace smoking ban. Two neighbouring towns did not institute such a ban. Three years later, Pueblo's hospitals have noted a whopping 41% drop in heart attacks. Neither of the two neighbouring towns (in which workplace smoking is still permitted), noted such a change. It seems, from this evidence, that smoking is far more dangerous to bystanders than had previously been supposed. That secondhand smoke that you find so irritating, could, in fact, be killing you.

Far from newly healthy Pueblo, lies Singapore. Here, a new kind of smoking restriction is being brought to pass. Smoking will no longer be allowed within five metres of public buildings. This, in my view, is a welcome change. Too often have I had to endure the wafted noxious fumes from smokers clustered outside buildings. Now, that we know of the Pueblo study, this issue is about far more than the unpleasant smell - it is about life itself. It is a good step forward to reduce the health risks to Singaporeans of secondhand smoke. It is probable that the national rate of heart attacks will fall, as a consequence, as it has in Pueblo - and that can only be a good thing.

I realize that smokers will grumble. Smokers will feel that their "rights" are being eroded. However, no-one has the right to harm others - and that is what smoking does. If a smoker chooses to smoke, knowing that they are foreshortening their own life, that is fine. That smoker, though, does not have the right to inflict a shortened life on others. Thus, it is most reasonable that smoking should, step by step, become something only possible where there are no innocent bystanders.

This is one piece of legislation with which I agree. It is actually legislation that will save lives. Well done.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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