pelican - we are not about to go back to the days of 'Madmen'.

There was a report this week of a body corp banning smoking inside the individual flats in their building.

Having once experienced the powerlessness of bodycorps to deal with much more truly anti social behavior - I don't like their chances of enforcing this one ..... But in principle- how many vaguely annoying things do we want to police?
If the worse thing that can assail me walking down the street or in a park is a (increasingly rare) waft of cigarette smoke , I would count myself lucky.
Smokers , unlike drunks, do not punch complete strangers and/or spouses , they do not vomit on your door step and they do not cause a lot of accidents.

'how many vaguely annoying things do we want to police? '

Oh Lots and Lots and Lots!

I'm not adjudicator pelican, you just seem to assign my opinions such gravitas.

What is 'normal'?

'most normal people I would imagine can put up with a bit of inconvenience'

Should we also ban leaf blowers? They create noise pollution, and the wielders would be better off having some exercise via use of a rake or broom. I think it's as big an inconvenience as smoking, but nobody would attempt to ban people doing that.

It's the catch-cry of our pampered age; I DON'T LIKE IT! BAN IT!

Well, I don't like that passive aggressive cough of non-smokers. I want to ban it. The enjoyment of a peaceful meal in outdoor beer gardens have more often been interrupted by those lot than the smokers themselves.

I'll take a whiff of tobacco smoke over the stink of the average council diesel bus any day.

So how about a deal? I'll support a ban on smoking in public, just as soon as you get all those stinking buses off the road.

I do find it strange indeed that it is usually the same people who bitch about tobacco smoke, that want to inflict more stinking buses on everyone.

This proves that it has nothing to do with anything but control. Stop people smoking, but make them ride buses, the 2 go hand in hand.

I just wish they would ban the free-basing treatment that makes the drug so much more addictive and harmful. Natural nicotine is nowhere near as bad as the freebased "crackotine" that we are legally obliged to purchase.
Big Tobacco lobbied years ago to curtail any threat to their market so there is *no* alternative to the highly processed and unnaturally addictive products. All natural alternative smokes that can replace nicotine addiction are also banned.
The government is playing both sides: Great "idiots tax" for those locked in, and a great outlet for the "holier than thou" crowd who will always criticise *someone*.
Nice work Houellebecq...I find many behaviours in others annoying and could probably come up with a "public interest" argument against most of them.
The "War on drugs" is a perfect example of the idiocy of this way: Increases drug availability and use, corrupts police and customs, creates *huge* black economy, empowers scumbags, corrupts kids...
For what? Huge cost for the *opposite effect* of the stated intention. of course the real thing is that it gives the "holier than thou" control freaks the warm fuzzies. The fact that it costs $Billions while having a negative effect is irrelevant to the egos of these folks...we can't "send the wrong message!". Yeah, but we can make hundreds of criminals millionaires, and thats OK!
Laws should be minimised and optimised. Another way of putting it: Freedom should be maximised. This requires some restriction, but only where justifiable. Alas, the perfect world of the moalist does not recognise the need for this real-world dance.

Houellie,

Did you ever look up that book I once recommended to you titled "How To Be Free" by Tom Hodgkinson?
It has a chapter titled "Self-Important Puritans Must Die" : )

I think you'd like it - he sounds a lot like you.

Btw - I enjoy the odd contemplative puff myself (of ordinary tobacco) - good for meditation and cogitation,
- works for me : )

I would like to ban leaf blowers and whipper snippers.

And I think it's good that nobody can smoke on planes, though last time I was on one somebody got caught at it in the toilet and was publicly shamed.

I would also like to ban people who sound like Julia Gillard and her voice coach, Simon Crean from speaking in public.

Then the F word on buses except when appropriate, and using mobile phones for inane conversations at the top of your voice on all public transport.

Then fast food that makes people obese and a drain on the health system. Maybe they should smoke and get thin.

Then dogs that bark at night so you think you're living in a Balinese village and have to wear silicone earplugs in your own bed, for god's sake.

And I would really like not having my environment polluted by all those anti smoking billboards with imagery taken straight from Dante's Inferno. Just because all those smokers are gonna die with bits of themselves coughed up and spat about, doesn't mean I should have to look at their destiny every time I go out in the car.

There's not enough control in this society. Or they're controlling the wrong things.