I WOULD WELCOME A SMOKING BAN

Dear Sir, Re Jason Moore's article on banning smoking.
I for one would welcome such a ban, but can imagine all smokers in the country wingeing on about their human rights being breached, without taking cognizance of the rights of non smokers who have to suffer the effects of the filthy habit against our will. A ban in public places would certainly be a start. In the U.K. many public buildings, offices, hospitals, health centres etc are now non smoking, the downside for the non smoker to this is having to run the gauntlet of smokers standing at the entrance getting their fix, yes even at hospital entrances, where ironically some of these people will be visiting family members being treated for the effects of smoking. I believe that education at an early stage is beneficial and a recent television advert targetted at young people showed a girl band bemoaning the fact that boys weren't attracted to their “smelly hair and bad breath” and seemed to get the message across. We have just returned from a great week in Majorca and as usual suffered people smoking in restaurants. The introduction of a public ban would not be popular, but would not I believe deter smokers from frequenting restaurants and bars which would be the fear of the owners. At Palma airport, we also noticed the abundance of bulky packages of “duty free” cigarettes being brought home. I understand that the allowance “for personal use” is 3000 per person, at probably less than half the cost to buy in the U.K, too good a bargain to resist, but surely cutting this allowance substantially would be a good start.