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YOUNG: A smoking ban? Fine, but only with choice 

Never put it beyond Lebanon to adopt a terrible idea just because it arrives from abroad. The country is now debating whether to impose a smoking ban in public places, and anti-smoking groups can smell blood.

The Middle East was always considered resistant to such an innovation. However, last year both Syria and Turkey, countries with high percentages of smokers in the population, banned smoking inside public facilities, and Lebanese parliamentarians have said they would discuss a smoking ban in the coming months. Oddly, one of those who announced this was Atef Majdalani, doctor, but also a committed cigar smoker.

I share Majdalani’s fervor... but only when it comes to Cohibas. The debate over second-hand smoke is often passionate, and in many respects it has already been won by the non-smokers. However, as Lebanon considers the possibility of a ban, the real question should be a different one. Should a smoking ban be universal, or should it permit choice?

In virtually all countries it is the absolutist argument that has won out. . . .

But there is a more pernicious side to the non-smoking argument that very much leads to potential intrusion into people’s lives: that by lighting up, smokers increase health costs across society, therefore non-smokers have the right to protest the actions of smokers. If we follow this rationale, though, we might soon find that any activity deemed “unhealthy”, such as drinking one glass too many, overeating, or even cooking with butter rather than margarine, becomes fair game for health missionaries.

This is an exaggeration, you say; but the reality is that in recent decades individual health habits have come to be judged by others with insufferable intolerance. A person who fails to exercise or who delights in fatty foods is frequently the target of jokes, or just quiet contempt. In some places overweight passengers can now be banned from flights, because taking up too much room is deemed legitimately punishable. In many homes in the West people don’t serve spirits anymore, with dinner party guests being made to stand around daintily sipping wine.

Thank heavens that Lebanon is too undisciplined a place to ever plummet to such depths. Because of that, let’s do something different before imposing a smoking ban. Let’s give people a choice. The innate pluralism of the Lebanese makes that approach the most sensible.

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