Andrew Donaldson on govt's efforts to prohibit smoking in "any public place" This may come as a shock but - brace yourselves - some of the regulars at the Mahogany Ridge smoke tobacco. Sometimes they do it outside, but normally they'll just light up right next to me here. I can't complain, of course. I enjoy it in the smoking section. It's ventilated, the fireplace works, the company is mostly pleasant, and there is a corner of the bar where the wood has been worn to a pleasing sheen by my elbows.
It's home from all the other homes and it's cosy and I try not to wonder why the ashtrays have teeth marks. I had my last cigarette six years ago. I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it sometimes, but I don't think I'm about to start again. Thirty years was long enough, thank you, but you go on ahead. Have two if you must. The thing is, it really doesn't bother me, and I don't believe that passive smoking is as harmful as matron says it is. Certainly, it's nowhere near as dangerous as the proposed Tobacco Products Control Act laws which seek to ban smoking in "any public place" and outdoor space, including sports facilities, playgrounds, zoos, schools and child care facilities, health facilities, outdoor venues where events are taking place, covered walkways and parking areas and beaches.
Smoking would also be banned within 10 metres of windows, doorways or entrances to any public space. Understandably, the Township Liquor Traders Association is threatening legal action. The association's secretary, Patric Poggenpoel, has said the rules would be impossible to implement. Speaking at a Free Market Foundation briefing in Johannesburg, he said that requiring smokers to go 10 metres from a shebeen doorway would put them on sidewalks where they would inconvenience pedestrians. He probably has a point. In places like Cape Town's Long Street, however, if you were to move 10 metres in any direction from one dive's doorway you'd wind up in the doorway of the next one.
But the real danger in the draft regulations is that they're unconstitutional. According to the Law Review Project, they were drawn up by executive decree rather than through parliamentary legislation with transparent oversight. This, the project's Tebogo Sewapa has said, was a violation of the constitutional requirement of the separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial authority. "Under sound basic principles of good law in a free society consenting adults should be allowed to determine their own conditions of interaction, and property owners have the right to determine conditions for entry, so long as no one violates the legitimate rights of others," Sewapa said. As things stood, he added, current anti-smoking laws already diminished the rights and freedoms of smokers and non-smokers, employers and employees, and property owners.
That is the nature of the beast for you. Governments are compulsive botherers and must interfere. The urge to nanny the citizenry, to inconvenience, harry and badger them with legislation that treats them as if they were children is deep-seated, a habit worse than heroin -- or cigarettes, even. Strangely enough, some people do want to live forever. Last year, Britain's Daily Mail reported that the first person who will live to celebrate their 150th birthday has already been born, such are the medical advances in the "battle" against ageing. Who on earth will look after these old duffers? Certainly not our youth. If that were the case, the sooner we die, the better.
But speaking of miracle medicine, can we all get some of that whizz that the sports minister, Fikile Mbalula, was on when he penned his open letter to our Olympic team? "It's a BOOM, BOOM BANG! situation. . . Something big is coming. Something huge is happening tomorrow. In a razzmatazz fashion, the swag of sport is hitting our shores ahead of the global spectacle in London . . . "Netball is furiously invading the space. This is a growing sport that deserves greater recognition and to be profiled in the global sporting arena. . .
"Tomorrow is huge. President Jacob Zuma will give the final word as he releases his troops to victory. We are confident that after the president has spoken to these national heroes and heroines, his words will inspire them to victory. . . "We are confident that Team SA will tear down walls and shake mountains. When we present the final send-off on July 19, the president's final words will have been ringing in the team's hearts and minds, as a sign of victory ahead."
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