Should cigarette smoking be banned essay

Bans on Smoking as Intrusion in Privacy It does not belong to widely known information that the first ban on tobacco smoking was imposed in Nazi Germany by Adolf Hitler, which already gives some clues on to where put it. Since then, tobacco smoking has been becoming a growingly unpopular habit and a very popular target for many political activists, leftish mostly. It is being denounced for everything that one can imagine: most commonly lung cancer, yet it is commonly called to be the reason for virtually any disease. Another piece of not widely known information that even the most logical accusation (that of cancer) has never been scientifically proved. It is a very convenient explanation, though: if a person is ill and is smoking, he or she is ill because he or she is smoking – no further investigation is necessary. Nobody seems to be confused by the fact that, although many people suffering from lung diseases are smokers, there is a vast amount of people who have been smoking since childhood yet never show any signs of discomfort or poor health caused by it. In some countries this hysteria went to really ridiculous realizations. In Holland, for example, it is alright to smoke marijuana, even in the street, yet tobacco may only be smoked in specific places. And the most important thing: to smoke or not to smoke is solely and exclusively personal decision, and the state has no right to impose its will on this. Even if tobacco smoking is harmful for health (which is not proved and hardly can be proved), there is only one person who has the right to decide whether to be or not to be harmed in this way – the man itself, and any kind of governmental control is intrusion in privacy.