Chris

The West of Scotland in particular is very bad. In fact, Glasgow is the heart disease capital of Europe. Did you come to our great city or were you over in poncey Edinburgh?

You should have dropped in for tea.

You can understand why things are so bad here when you see so many people queueing to buy fish and chips just to eat for their regular lunch during the week. I buy fish and chips once in a blue moon because I know what regular substance abuse (in this case cholesterol and saturated fat!) can do to my bod.

There is no doubt that this is a big factor in Glasgow's heart disease problem. There is, furthermore, no doubt that smoking is a big factor (a higher proportion of the population smokes in this part of the country than in the UK as a whole).

@Slackdad also ... you can see from the above, I'm not ignorant about the integrated nature of these problems. But I don't consider that to be a reason to do nothing about any one part of the problem. In fact, you see health awareness public information films on TV in Scotland far more than you do in England.

But as I've said before, it's a matter of degrees - the research and the statistics say that smoking is the major component of the problem, and it's therefore logical, given that it is such a big problem, that it is tackled with extreme measures. I for one am delighted that the Scottish Executive has decided not to tiptoe around this issue and will be introducing a complete blanket ban from next April. I am looking forward to being able to go to cafes (I don't get out to pubs much at the mo) with my young children and not to have to worry about which way the smoke is drifting. At last, the perverse concept of smoking and non-smoking sections will be banished forever.