Smoke in mirrors

Smoke in mirrors...
A saying that perplexes one to think is there any meat behind the efforts of the Northwestern Health Unit’s latest effort to combat smoking in public places.
A postcard campaign costing about $25,000 has raised the the issue to center stage. The campaign asks people to urge their town councils to pass by-laws banning all smoking from public places.
True anyone who has conducted a coupon or mail in survey will admit that the numbers the NWHU has received back from the card campaign have been good and some might even argue exceptional. But what do the other 25,000 recipients of the cards think?
There is also one fundamental problem with the entire push to make communities smoke free and even the Chief Medical Officer Pete Sarsfield has admitted it... there is no one to enforce the laws locally or across the region (should he decide to unilaterally ban smoking).
Most communities have a hard time enforcing simple bylaws that are easy to catch culprits breaking. Things like noise bylaws or in many communities dog bylaws. So who will travel around and be the cigarette police?
How much will it cost the taxpayers?
Sarsfield said NWHU can not enforce it and communities can not enforce it.
If the NWHU chooses to unilaterally declare a smoking ban from public places they will either have to hire cigarette police at a cost to all of us or quietly hope that an honour system works and that people will not smoke in public places.
Until there is serious commitment to put enforcement in place the whole idea of banning smoking from public places is nothing more than someone blowing smoke in mirrors.
–Until then,
Ken