Smokers are being pushed slowly but surely to the fag-end of society

The car is going to be the next battleground, and with good reason. The car is an enclosed space, even with the windows open, and the dangers (as well as unpleasantness) posed by second-hand smoke are obvious to most... it is still not uncommon to see adults smoking while children (or others) are in their company

I HATE smoking – the smoke, the smell, the taste, the damage that it causes to health – and have never smoked apart from a very brief fleeting period over 25 years ago, but I’m starting to get a little bit sorry for smokers.

Not much, but I have some sympathy all the same for some addicts, especially for older folk who can’t kick the habit but who are finding it increasingly expensive to continue or who are restricted in where they can indulge.

Having been driven out of the pubs and restaurants, they may now have reason to fear a campaign of stealth to stop them smoking in their cars or in open spaces and, eventually, in their own homes. There will be nowhere left to go, other than secret locations (something that will be very appealing to some people). This is not necessarily too much of an exaggeration.

In New York this week Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans to ban smoking in public parks. Car hire companies Hertz and Avis in the US are considering ideas to load prohibitive extra charges onto those who smoke while in their vehicles.

Meanwhile, back home, the Irish Heart Foundation and other health charities that lobby against smoking are demanding that excise duties on a packet of 20 cigarettes be increased by at least €1 in the next budget and given the Government’s financial dilemma, they may be in luck.

It adds to a long list of actions that have been taken or that are being suggested. The most obvious was the smoking ban in the workplace, an initiative for which Minister Micheál Martin will always be remembered and which the anti-smoking brigade rightly regards as a major breakthrough. It has resulted in a drop in the volume of reported cigarette sales and the numbers who admit, in surveys, to being smokers.

It is something that has resulted in clusters of workers standing outside office or factory doorways, no matter what the weather, but which may have persuaded many that workplace smoking is no longer worth the bother.

Martin and other anti-smoking advocates always remind people that it was a workplace ban and not one designed to stop smoking in pubs and restaurants, but it is in the latter places that the clampdown is felt most keenly. It has made these places far more pleasant to visit, for non-smokers, and yet the numbers in both are down sharply.

The greater good may be served by the smoking ban in these places but there are downsides. The damage to trade for the pubs and restaurants is large but it is by no means certain that those affected are no longer smoking: they may be doing so at home instead. Indeed, they may even be drinking more at home, as the anecdotes that publicans push about people giving themselves more generous measures – and taking advantage of the cheaper drink – have some merit to them if off-licence sales are anything to go by. In others words, the health benefits of reduced smoking-related illness may be mitigated by increased alcohol-related ones.

Some of those who still go to the pub are now decamping to open air areas outside the premises, which is all very well during good, warm weather, of which we get very little. But it isn’t very healthy during wet and/or cold days for people to be huddling out of doors. It may be by their choice, but addictions can be hard to break. It is especially hard for older people, especially pensioners, who liked their pint and a few fags in the corner of the pub, along with the company or watching a bit of television, but no allowances are made by the regime that now applies.

Nor does the sight of lots of people standing outside pubs or restaurants (or indeed workplaces) necessarily act as a deterrent to young people who, we are told, are susceptible to image. To those ill-disposed towards smoking the sight looks sad but to those who are easily impressed, particularly the young, this can look like the cool place to hang out.

Indeed, there are non-smokers who admit that the fun is often to be had among the smokers outside of the pub, that the grim circumstances of a cold Irish winter’s night can provoke camaraderie not always found inside. It may sound ridiculous, but try it sometime.

Not that the workplace smoking provision will ever be rowed back: it has been accepted by a remarkably large number and is deemed to be working. But it has given the anti-smoking lobby the will to intensify its campaign and the only thing holding it back is the ability of the State to police whatever measures could be introduced.

The car is going to be the next battleground, and with good reason. The car is an enclosed space, even with the windows open, and the dangers (as well as unpleasantness) posed by second-hand smoke are obvious to most.

While many smokers have developed the good manners not to smoke while in the presence of others in their car it is still not uncommon to see adults smoking while children (or others) are in their company. Many advocates believe that smoking in cars while others, most especially children, are present should be barred (and from there it would be an easy step to ban it altogether). Just how this would be policed is another issue. Would it become a penalty point offence to be added to the list that gardaí monitor – on the basis that lighting, holding and smoking a cigarette is as almost distracting as use of a mobile phone – or would some other inspectors be appointed who would patrol the roads? I suspect it is the absence of a practical regime of enforcement that has deterred activists from pushing this idea any harder.

The next step after that would be the home. This is not necessarily as fanciful as you might think, especially in apartment blocks where it could be a term of tenancy, or a condition for owners under management contracts, that smoking is not allowed. Smoke detectors could be used as in hotels.

ADULTS who complain that they should be allowed to do what they want in their homes could be told that right exists only where their actions are considered legal. Wait until smoking in the home is declared to be child endangerment.

The most immediate assault though is likely to be on price. However, there is an interesting economic phenomenon at play here. Putting up the taxes on fags should theoretically either increase the revenues for the State or make the price so prohibitive as to reduce consumption. The revenue to the State – upon which it has become addicted itself – should be protected in the overall balance if the reduced sales at the higher prices are taxed at higher rates.

However, it seems that something of a tipping point has been reached. Cigarettes have become so expensive already – even before further price rises – that many people have taken to getting their supplies on the black market where they can buy in volume and at substantial discounts. They are able to do so because of the large amounts of tobacco that can be imported illegally and then sold illegally because of the failure of the authorities adequately to monitor smuggling into the country.

The failure to prevent this has many implications: it deprives the State of useful tax revenue and it also punishes with higher prices those who are willing to purchase their tobacco legally.

The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday, 4.30pm to 7pm.