The scourge of the foul Indian weed

My first history teacher at Ballymena Academy, the late Mr. George Taylor, (rather unfairly nick-named Hitler...he was a gentleman when I knew him) taught us a rhyme.

"Tobacco is an Indian weed/Which from the devil did proceed/It stains your hands and stains your clothes/And makes a chimney out of your nose."

This rhyme may be somewhat antiquated in the way it expresses the evils of smoking but I think it makes the point well.

Why am I on a rant about smoking? Because the landlady of The Cutting Edge pub in Barnsley, a certain Kerry Fenton, has decided to exploit a loophole in the smoking ban law to enable her clients to "light up".

(See http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20090513/tuk-pub-finds-smoking-ban-loophole-repor-a7ad41d.html for full article.)

Her customers take a survey on their smoking habits and then puff away in a separate room until their hearts are content.

Why does this bother me? Because I believe the smoking lobby will not be content until they get the ban revoked.

I believe that everything must be done to make smokers feel guilty about their habit. They should be driven to doing it in the privacy of their own homes or street corners? Sound harsh? Yes! I agree! But smoking is a vice that has direct and immediate consequences for those around them. It stinks your clothes, it makes your eyes water, it makes you cough and continued exposure to smoke can give those exposed to second-hand smoke lung cancer. I can stand next to someone enjoying a pint of beer and not get cirhosis of the liver but this is not the case with smoking.

I urge the government's legal eagle's to get on the case and close this loophole quickly. Enough good people have caught lung cancer through passive smoking, most notably the very lovable Roy Castle, and the sooner more and more smokers are forced to quit because of a sense of guilt about passive smoking the better.

Andy.