Party time? How the smoking law is keeping people at home
One of my biggest gripes about government intervention, particularly when it comes to our health, is that what can seem like a great idea in one respect can have consequences elsewhere that are both damaging to the economy and also affect people's lives.
The law that really gets me is the "no smoking anywhere" thing that has ruined pubs up and down the country.
Now don't get me wrong, smoking is bad for you - I'm not going to be beating the conspiracy drum on that one, but surely the choice of whether I smoke or not is down to me? And if consumers don't want to be around smoke, surely they can just go places where people don't do it?
The anti-smoking laws are crazy because in the UK at least, they seem to be centred around the idea that we're stopping one group of people from getting to their favourite drug (alcohol) by stopping another group of people's preferred drug (smoking).
The upshot of this is that pubs start looking run-down as people stand outside the front door having a fag or they just don't go there at all. In the summer I reckon more people will stay away from pubs as it's much easier and cheaper to grab a few cans from your local off license and have a smoke at home.
The boom time for hookah?
Now, I don't smoke cigarettes, but I do like a hookah pipe every now and then and one benefit of the ban is that you can now find more Shisha Lounges opening up in the UK. You can see a whole list of them here:Â http://bit.ly/1wZ3uTM
As an aside, you can also get yourself a hookah pipe from here : http://bit.ly/1tDEz3L
As I walk through London I very often see people sitting outsidde smoking a hookah, it's made the whole thing a far more sociable exercise and there's no doubt that the smoking ban has had an effect here, but it's also created a market in e-cigarettes (and eshisha for that matter).
Was this desired? I don't think so. Stopping people from doing one thing invariably means they'll do something else to get their fix. Smoking isn't going to go away any time soon and no amount of legislation will stop it, but letting people choose is surely a better way to run a country anyway?
