Should smoking be allowed in public places?

I picked up smoking very early in life at the age of merely 10 years old while schooling far away from home. I was on a 3 packs chain smoking a day 23 years later at the age of 33. Then I quit completely the habit when Jesus confronted me.

Not long ago, smoking was still allowed in all public places. You can smoke any where on board an airplane, in a restaurant or theater. Thanks to a few multinational tobacco producing giants and the powerful advertising campaigns, smoking was associated with success, in trend, and admirable. Who did not want all these? Even Doctors and health care workers smoked too. Worldwide smoking statistics compiled by World Health Organization (WHO) in the year 2003 are quite alarming. Some of the sober facts are:

1. About a third of the male adult global population smokes.

2.Smoking related-diseases kill 1 in 10 adults globally, or cause four million deaths annually.

3. Every eight seconds, someone dies from tobacco use.

4. About 15 billion cigarettes are sold daily - or 10 million every minute.

5. Roughly - Between 80,000 and 100,000 children worldwide start smoking every day.

6. Peer-reviewed studies show teenagers are heavily influenced by tobacco advertising.

Recently, I started to hear some new outcry relating to smoking termed second hand smoking. Second-hand smoking, passive smoking, involuntary smoking or exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) all refer to the phenomena of breathing other people's smoke. The Scientific research and studies of harmful effects to second-hand smoke is still in an early stage. It needs time to validate and settle this heated issue.

Smokers and mainly few tobacco conglomerates are mainly on the defensive side. They come up with study like "Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98". This research was done by the American Heart Association that ended up with question to the validity of new second-hand smoke. The study contends that there is little or no correlation between environmental tobacco smoke and serious health problems.

Beside denial of health issue, they are crying foul plays of discrimination, harassment, and basic human right offense. They argue at economic, unemployment, and social issues. And how about their tax contribution to the public places. Perhaps, public smokers finances more than non smokers.

ETS is more on the offensive side. They accused the research was funded by tobacco industry and greatly bias. It amounts to a conspiracy. They claimed that scientific evidence is now indisputable: second-hand smoke is not a mere annoyance, it is a serious health hazard that can lead to disease and premature death in children and nonsmoking adults."

They attack not really the smokers but government and specially the cigarette manufacturers. They all contrive immorally for financial gain at the expenses of innocent citizen.

So, should smoking still be allowed in public places given all these facts? My answer is smoking should in fact be stopped totally regardless of places. I am very sure this will eventually occur in the near future. But at this transitional period, it is firmly appropriate to start with this ban. My conclusion then is "NO", - Smoking Should Not Be Allowed In Public Places.