Well, if you plan to light up a cigarette in your car while heading to drop your kids off at school, enjoy it while you can. That also goes for hockey practices, play dates, shopping excursions, and anywhere else you want to drive.
Once again, the list of places where consenting adults can choose to light up is going to shrink, as the province has announced a new round of legislation that will prohibit smoking in a new variety of places, as reported on Page 3 of this week’s Town & Country.
This, of course, isn’t a bad thing. Smoking in a vehicle with a minor who can’t offer consent to being exposed to toxic fumes, and who probably wasn’t asked their opinion anyway, isn’t exactly a responsible practice.
But the updated Tobacco Reduction Strategy doesn’t end there. It will also prohibit the sales of certain kinds of tobacco; many flavoured varieties will now be banned across the province.
Furthermore, the use of non-tobacco smoking products will also be prohibited in public places, which will certainly have a significant impact on the centuries-old social and cultural practice of smoking from a water pipe or hookah.
Limiting tobacco use is a good thing, especially considering how much it costs our publicly funded health care system. But to prohibit consenting adults from using a specific kind of tobacco, such as a cherry-flavoured cigar, seems a little heavy handed.
We all know smoking is bad for us. So is drinking, so is abuse of prescription medications, and so is eating greasy hamburgers. Yet we see no move from the province to restrict the sale of fruit-flavoured alcohol, sweet syrupy cough medications or a children’s meal (complete with toy!) at your local fast food outlet.
Unfortunately, it appears the provincial government is moving squarely into the realm of telling people how to live their lives. As Albertans, we know this isn’t the most popular approach for a government to take.
We tend to accept that despite the risks, an adult has the right to come home after a hard day of work to responsibly enjoy a drink, or a cheeseburger or even —gasp! — a cherry flavoured cigar.
To ban any or all of these products would be an overly broad and heavy-handed approach.
