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					Originally Posted by Gareth
					
				 <huge snip> 
By the way, there's a good article in Tuesday's Guardian  comparing the dangers of passive smoking to air pollution, and highlighting the fact that air pollution kills many, many times more people per year than passive smoking, yet is still being overlooked. | 
	
 Gareth, that was an interesting summary of what you believe (essentially, personal choice I think), but you really didn't address any of the issues that have been raised as objections to smoke in public.  If you think that personal choice is to be rated more highly than the health issue, could you explain why?  This is something I don't think anyone on the pro-smoking side has adequately answered in this thread.
As for the comparison between smoking and cars ... we have said over and over in this thread, just because something other than smoking can be shown to be a problem, it does not follow that nothing should be done about smoking.  The smokescreen (

)the pro-smoking lobby has tried to put up, about alcohol, cars, etc etc etc, is entertaining but conveniently fails to address the persuasive arguments in favour of a ban on smoking.
But if we are to compare them, are you suggesting that an outright ban on smoking would affect the economy in a similarly drastic way as a ban on driving?