Sir, - Why doesn't Ireland outlaw tobacco? After all Minister Michael Martin and his predecessors are blue in the face from telling us how bad the weed is for us.
We have national no-smoking day, international no-smoking day, and now world no-tobacco day and all to what effect?
The Minister has hiked the price of fags, increased the age at which we can buy them, banned advertising and sponsorship by tobacco firms. But it's not working fast enough. By his own account, 7,000 people a year in Ireland are still dying from smoking-related illnesses. He was quick enough to ban St John's Wort when there was a risk of it being bad for our health, even though all most of us got from it was a bit of stress relief. Yet when he and his cronies in the Irish Medical Council slap warnings on the side of your pack of 20 because they don't know what exactly is in them, they still won't ban them.
Why? Because whatever it costs to treat the diseases and illnesses caused by cigarettes and tobacco, it is nothing near the revenue generated from their sale. And with the price of fags continuing to rocket, it'll be a cold day in hell before they take this poison out of the market. By the way, I'm off the fags two weeks and really don't want to go back on them. - Yours, etc.,
Ian Noctor, Temple Bar, Dublin 8.