IT IS 50 years since smoking has been a bad thing. At least, it’s 50 years since the Royal College of Physicians first warned the public directly of the dangers of tobacco. Now the RCP is pressing for further price rises, bans and curbs — including, it hopes, a reduction in the amount of smoking seen in films and TV programmes.
Like many ex-smokers, I find my libertarian side in battle with my sensible side on the issue of “smokers’ rights”. Usually the sensible side wins out (paying for cancer is not very liberating) but where it comes to art I’m more conflicted. On the one hand, literally no one would smoke if Audrey Hepburn, Don Draper and Kate Moss did not provide such compelling examples. However, to curtail media images of smoking would make it an issue of censorship, not public health. Freedom of expression versus freedom from harm? That one usually ends nastily.
