Where There's Smoke...

How are we to recognize the presence of The Nanny State here in New Zealand? After all, no-one would dare be so bold as to blatantly swipe our civil liberties from us, like Old Miss Poppins tearing candy out from the hands of her young wards. No, Poppins would devote her time to quietly persuading her wards about the dangers of candy ("your teeth'll blacken! darker 'n liquorice!") until said candy was viewed as truly evil, and said liberty was more easily taken.

Perhaps then, a good reference point would be highlighting areas in which our society was being slowly persuaded there was "a great evil" that needed to be dealt with.

And ironically enough, you don't have to stray too far from candy to find one.

The government's involvement in our country's smoking habits has been a long and well publicized one: in 1990 our government introduced the Smoke-free Environments Act, which restricted the smoking of cigarettes in workplaces and schools, to combat the effects of passive smoking. A mild enough move; hell, parents were just glad to be rid of the stench of Mr. Smythee's Port Royals all over their beloved son's pantaloons (or whatever it is they wore in 1990.)

Then, in 2003, an amendment. (there's a red flag word) - the smoking ban was to be extended to all indoor workplaces and venues; pubs, bars, restaurants and casinos. Across the nation, publicans, casino wranglers and warehouse bosses were told that within a year, they would be forced to tell their puffing patrons to abandon their well-grooved barstools and "take it outside."

Anti-smoking advocates were in a fizzy kind of bliss. Many in the hospitality industry claimed it would be their very own death knell. A survey of NZ bars showed a 30% decrease in profit within the first year of the ban. the iconic Club Hotel in Carterton closed their doors soon after, reporting a 50% decrease in profits that they attributed directly to the ban's "inane legislation."

Other pubs went underground and became smoking speakeasies, discretely allowing smoking and becoming hotspots among smoking pub-goers.

You can easily begin to see how a country gets split over legislation like this.

The Nanny State will always have two faces; one is the face of a caring government, concerned for the health of our nation, and anxious to put strictures in place to enforce The Greater Good. The people who see this face will tell you smoking bans are necessary for the sake of our children, our air, our god-damned health. The people who see this face would like to see tobacco banned altogether by 2017; see the whole thing criminalized.

The other face is the creased brow of a meddling old aunt; eager to enforce her upper hand on a public who just want to be left alone to make their own choices.The people who see this face are being run out of business in an already harsh and rule-bound industry. The people who see this face think that if they want to put poison in their bodies, then that's their god-given right - perhaps it's the non-smokers who should be braving pneumonia in the cold Canterbury winds surrounding their 'designated outside areas.'