Virtually every public and private gathering place is ridden with smokers who show utter contempt for the law.
LAHORE: Your newspaper reports (January 24) what is hardly news about the widespread violation of the smoking ban in public places. Virtually every public and private gathering place is ridden with smokers who show utter contempt for the law, the health of others, and, of course, their own well-being. Most commercial establishments are too concerned about their monetary loss to worry about enforcing the law. Personal appeals to smokers to desist from this menace are likely to be ignored or cause violent verbal reactions; only rarely does a smoker have the courtesy to stop if asked.
The only way to bring violators within the ambit of the law may be for interested citizens to make visual records of such violations and offer them as evidence to the courts. Painfully heavy fines on the management of public places which fail to rein in their employees or customers may provide them some motivation to ensure compliance with a well-intentioned but typically impotently implemented law. For doubters, there are a few glimmers of hope such as the Forman Christian College in Lahore, which has banned smoking anywhere within the college, covered and uncovered spaces included, and where the rule is implemented with considerable success.
Perhaps other academic institutions can start to earnestly implement the law as well.
Wasif M Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, January 26th, 2011.
