A lot of huff and puff about smoking ban

Your comparison of smokers to overweight people and alcoholics is absurd, at least in part. The government's public ban on smoking is not about punishing or denying any right to the smoker. It is about protecting the health of non-smokers (who are the vast majority), cleaning up the environment and, as a bonus, encouraging smokers more than ever to kick the habit.

Suggesting that an overweight person should not be allowed to eat in restaurants for the same reason that a smoker cannot light up in a pub amounts to a massive misunderstanding of the issue.

You also propose that workers who have a problem with smoking environments should leave their jobs to find a suitably healthy replacement. I can only assume that your overuse of exclamation and question marks here is an attempt at humour.

Although his/her comparison was somewhat excessive, I think his/her point was that alcholics and overweight people are damaging their bodies with their choice of lifestyle as much as smokers are, as an addiction to food/alcohol can be just as detrimental to health. So I think he/she was suggesting that as a smoking ban is seen as encouragement to stop, wouldn't a ban on obese people eating in restaurants and alcoholics in pubs encourage them to stop also?

Now I'm not saying I agree with him/her, merely that I can see their point. However, the difference is that an alcholic/overweight person's addiction doesn't harm other people around them - health wise anyway - and the ban doesn't seek to subjugate the smoking population and their human right to willingly and, quite legally, slowly kill themselves, but rather to ensure that their right to smoke doesn't infringe on other people's human right to not die prematurely through second hand smoke!

Gary and Pauls comments are typical of the anti smoking mafia who the government have been keen to appease recently. Why on earth don't these people reserve their venom for the tobacco companies and 11 Downing Street who make a handsome profit from cigarette sales and leave us smokers alone?!   

Instead of addressing our objections to your original points, you've served up an odd metaphor that saves you the bother. My earlier contribution was less venomous, much more about pointing out the areas you haven't thought through properly. A smoking ban was not something I ever wanted and isn't something I totally agree with. But it's well worth highlighting the benefits of such a ban and reminding ourselves of the good reasons for it taking place.

Just yesterday I saw no fewer than four workers standing outside their office during a smoking break in the freezing cold. What at first raised a smile soon became puzzling when it occured to me that they'd endure such conditions to get their fix. I then imagined what sort of world this would be if further along the road I saw overweight people forced to eat at a restaurant entrance. I don't know what's funnier - the bizarre comparison you made between the two or the thought of it happening tomorrow.