Jump to full article: Natal Witness (za), 2009-10-31
Author: Antoinette Pienaar
Intro: "YOU don't need a four-pound hammer to kill a mouse."
This is how a legal expert expressed his displeasure at government's proposed tobacco legislation more than a decade ago.
In evidence given at the the time, interest groups questioned whether the Bill was constitutional. Individuals' "constitutional right" to smoke and tobacco companies' right to freedom of speech were cited, but the government remained adamant. . . .
Dr Yussuf Saloojee, the head of the NCAS, writes in Chronic Diseases of Lifestyle in South Africa since 1995-2005 that the ban on tobacco advertising since 2001 may have contributed to less smoking among children.
A spokesman for the Free Market Foundation said the legislation could be compared to the "extreme and obsessive laws enforced by the Nazis".
He said it wasn't the state's duty to prescribe how people should live. . . .
Today most work and public areas are smoke-free.
But is this really due to the government's policing of anti-smoking legislation?
Even Peter Ucko, veteran anti-smoking activist, believes it is due, rather, to self-policing.
Non-smokers -- the majority of people -- welcomed the legislation and do not hesitate to complain when they catch a whiff of tobacco where it isn't supposed to be.
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