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Asked by Joe?? to Anne, Florence, Mark, Neil, Sinead on 15 Nov 2015.
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Florence McCarthy answered on 15 Nov 2015:
We live in a relatively free society where freedom of choice is very important. I agree that there is little benefit to be gained from smoking and there is a direct link to lung cancer so to me it is a pointless and expensive excercise. But ultimately people can choose to smoke or not and until legislation is brought forward education on the hazards involved is essential.
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Sinead Balgobin answered on 16 Nov 2015:
This is a very complicated question, Joe. The main reasons fall into 2 categories: financial and cultural.
Financially, it is a very big business- lots of major companies are tobacco companies, and have a lot of influence (and don’t want to lose their business). Lots of people are also employed by these businesses and would lose their jobs if it became illegal. If smoking were to become illegal this would lead to cigarettes becoming a hot product on the black market- and without regulation on what goes into them, they could become even more dangerous to your health. It would also boost criminal activity re. smoking. Taxation on tobacco also brings in a lot of money to the government.
Culturally, smoking has been something generally accepted in society (it was once considered healthy!) and so there isn’t so much of a stigma attached to it. Similar to drinking alcohol (which is also bad for your health, but we do it anyway). It’s also addictive, so people find it very difficult to stop.
When people discuss making smoking illegal, they have to think of the implications- keeping an addictive trade regulated is important for the safety of users.
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Neil Day answered on 17 Nov 2015:
Smoking has generally been accepted since tobacco was imported to Europe 100’s of years ago and it would be very hard to make it illegal at this stage.
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