Having your cigarette and smoking it too.

With effect from 2nd October 2008, smoking has been banned in all public places in India.
And if you are caught smoking, you are liable to pay a fine of Rs.200 per instance of violation.

Since the definition of "public place" can be hazy, I looked up Wikipedia as per which, "A public space refers to an area or place that is open and accessible to all citizens, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age or socio-economic level. Most streets, including the pavement are considered public space, as are town squares or parks. Government buildings, such as public libraries and many other similar buildings are also public space."

Given that India has such a huge population and an equally high population density in most places, this effectively means that all of the country is a public place. Which means, a smoker's options in case he/she wants to light up, are to take a flight to a neighbouring country like Sri Lanka, Pakistan or Bangladesh. Or maybe book a seat on the space flight planned by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. Not very practical options though.

I do understand the intention behind the new law. It is to minimise smoking among the public thereby reducing the casualities due to cancer caused by tobacco usage. But if the government
is so concerned about the health of its subjects, isn't it better to just ban the manufacture and sale of all tobacco products in the country ? You know that tobacco kills. Then why let it be
made and sold in the first place ? Just ban the damn thing.

But no, that means loss of millions of rupees in tax revenue for the government. Ofcourse they would not admit to this reason. Instead they would come up with the following reasons against banning sale of tobacco products :

1. Banning the sale would lead to grey market sale of the product. Maybe. But then if you can enforce a law against smoking in public places, you can surely also track down grey marketers. Also, grey market sale involves the risk of being caught by the authorities, which means the prices would be higher than what is charged currently - much higher actually. How many
would be able to afford their nicotine fix at such inflated prices ? So naturally the number of smokers would come down, which I would guess is what the government wants. Right ?

2. Another pathetic reasoning from the government against banning tobacco sale would be "What about the thousands of people making a living from the tobacco industry, who would
be out of jobs if we ban tobacco ?"

This line of reasoning is as absurd as the drunkard whose rationale to drink is, "If I drink,
only my liver gets damaged. If I don't drink, the thousands that work in the beer/liquor
industry would be out of jobs. Their families won't have food to eat and would die of starvation. Isn't it better that I drink and lose my liver than all those people dying" ?

The government's attitude seems to be something on the lines of "hunting with the hounds
and running with the hares". They don't want to let go of the huge amount of money they make in taxes from tobacco, but at the sametime they also want to be seen as socially responsible.