Mal Fletcher looks at the issue of smoking in public.

Mal Fletcher

In his TV series Edges, Christian communicator and broadcaster MAL FLETCHER examines some of the big issues of the day. Here, Mal peers through the haze to home in on smoking in public.

A few months ago, one of Europe's largest cigarette manufacturers admitted that its sales had fallen dramatically. It blamed the Irish government's recent ban on smoking in its pubs and restaurants. Smoking in confined public spaces is already outlawed in nations like Australia and other authorities are now looking at similar legislation. Sadly, most of Europe is lagging way behind. It seems that many people in this part of the world still think of smoking as an exercise of their right to practise autonomy.

We hear a lot about human rights these days and most of the discussion is very helpful in an often unjust world. Sometimes, though, the discussion teeters on the brink of the ridiculous. The claim that smoking in confined public places is a basic human right falls into the latter category. The right to smoke anywhere at any time should more correctly be called "the right to kill myself slowly and take as many other people as I can when I go." All individual rights are circumscribed by human responsibilities. Every individual right must be weighed up against the welfare of the majority of people and the environment we share.

The evidence is mounting: so-called "passive smoking" kills. With passive smoking, the non-smoker breathes "sidestream" smoke from the burning tip of the cigarette and "mainstream" smoke that's been inhaled and then exhaled by the smoker. The Action On Smoking And Health web newsletter (June 2004) notes that the immediate effects of passive smoking include "eye irritation, headache, cough, sore throat, dizziness and nausea." "Adults with asthma can experience a significant decline in lung function when exposed," it says, "while new cases of asthma may be induced in children whose parents smoke." Citing several studies, it goes on to say that non-smokers who are exposed to passive smoking in the home have a 25 per cent increased risk of heart disease and lung cancer.

The International Agency For Research On Cancer (IARC) has found that "smoking is a cause of lung cancer in never-smokers." The British Medical Association now says that at least 1000 people die each year from the effects of passive smoking, in the UK alone. This, they say, is a very conservative estimate. How many more people are affected in Europe as a whole?

The issue of non-smoking in confined spaces is not just about individual taste; it is about the public good. If the logic of the smoking-anywhere lobby was applied across the board, graffiti artists should be able to spray their messages wherever they please: on buses, trains, walls, anywhere. To prevent them from doing so would be to impinge on their right to self-expression. We don't allow people to vandalize public property, because there is a larger interest to consider. The public has a right to know that its property will not be abused or destroyed by others. So, we might ask the smoking-anywhere lobby, if it's wrong to vandalize public buses why is it acceptable to vandalize public health?

Also at issue here is the need to recognise the fundamental truths on which all human rights are based. Much of our thinking about human rights has been influenced over time by the teachings of Christianity. According to the Christian worldview, human rights are not arbitrary standards applied at the whim of governments or democratic polls. God gave our basic human rights to us at the time of our creation. A good deal of our basic law today is predicated on the Bible's Ten Commandments. These are actually descriptions and applications of human rights. God declares that human life is sacred - so murder is an offence. People have a right to justice - so bearing false witness against someone is an offence. And so on.

In the Christian worldview, life itself is a gift - the greatest of all. My life is entrusted to me: I don't "own" my life; I am the caretaker of its enormous potential. To destroy this precious gift is an offence against my life and against the One who entrusted it to me. To destroy the lives of others through my own selfish pursuits is also offensive. Despite protests from some smokers, the Irish experience shows that the only people who suffer when there are no-go laws for smoking are the cigarette manufacturers - and there aren't too many people who will lose sleep over that!

Hopefully, it won't be long in the UK and Europe as a whole before we can venture into public buildings to work, eat, talk and breathe in comfort, exercising our right to life itself.