Where there’s smoking, there’s heated debate | Letters

Dr James Scott says banning smoking in public places is a vital next step for public health. Plus other readers on the potential impact of a ban on pubs

I’m a consultant in stroke medicine and spend my life treating people with cardiovascular disease, much of which is directly caused by the tobacco industry. Curtailing the ability of people to smoke in outdoor public spaces represents a vital next step in the denormalisation of smoking (Outdoor smoking ban likely to encourage people to quit, says minister, 30 August). Framing this as an economic issue (for the hospitality industry) or as an issue of individual choice (for smokers) is to make at least two category errors. Both play into the hands of tobacco companies that, to quote a writer in the Lancet, “hold the value of human life in very different regard to most of the rest of humanity”.

Smoking is not an issue of personal choice because smokers are addicted to nicotine. Those who contemplate quitting have to battle the guns of big tobacco, which are ranged against them. Billions are spent in innovative and sinister ways to keep people smoking.

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