Time to think again

Now that we know the smoking ban has had no effect on smoking rates, what on earth is the point of it?

The admission came from Dr Tony Holohan, the chief medical officer, who said last month “we really haven’t shifted prevalence of smoking by any appreciable extent.”

Everyone knows that the real reason for the ban was to cut smoking rates, so now this has failed, attention must refocus on the excuse given for the ban in the first place.

The ostensible reason for the ban was to protect others from passive smoking. Since the ban more than a thousand pubs have shut with the loss of an equivalent number of jobs. Now, ask a non-smoking barman or punter if they like the smoking ban, and some will say ‘yes’, because it seems an easy way of making their trip to the pub a less pungent experience.

But this is one of those questions which is meaningless unless the consequences are known. A bit like saying ‘would you like cars banned from your local town?’ Fine, unless you know that all the high street shops will go bust.

So if we ask bar staff and customers – ‘do you support the smoking ban given the knowledge that you’re likely to lose your job or your pub, or would you prefer a rule that pubs and restaurants could well ventilated open smoking areas?’ and I would suspect you get a rather different answer.

Time for government to think again.