Article satirique - To Smoke or Not to smoke

Our Wor(L)d

Published February 10th 2008

To smoke or not to smoke?

First of all, people should have the freedom to meet their need whenever and wherever they want to. We know cigarette is an addiction and it often becomes a vital need to some smokers. In this field, prohibiting people to smoke in public places is simply prevent them to live their life freely and feel satisfied. Talking about Freedom, prohibiting smoking in closed place will prevent someone to go to his favourite place because he knows he will not be able to enjoy some cigarette with his friends without having to go outside, in the cold, all alone.

What about the economic consequences? Did the government thought about it for a second, because we, at Our Word, did. Prohibiting cigarette in public closed places has a direct impact on this places’ attendance, because people will rather not go out rather than going out with stress.

In this case, the decreasing general attendance of closed public places, such as restaurants or bars, would probably lower their turnover, and in consequences would have an impact on the economy of the country. Not to mention that building adapted rooms or areas for smokers to keep them as customers will be an unexcepted cost not really welcomed in these crisis times…

The main argument of the opponent to smoke in public space was the concern for health. But this raises questions, because the argument was based on a number of scientific studies, and upon closer inspection they are suspicious at best. To this day, the effects of second hand smoking were never proved, and yet all the studies – paid by the state – were coincidently, for sure, following the state agenda against smoking.

Smoking is millennia old, and suddenly we are told it’s the most cancerous thing in the world, a modern plague, but the reality is that this is just an excuse for the government to justify the healthcare deficit, which is due to their incompetence and poor administration.

For our opinion, the government is segregating people to put up with their failure and this is scary because, not only it has disastrous consequences on the economy and the social fabric, but it is downright obscurantism and it leads us to a final question, where will they stop?

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