Everyday we here, don't eat this, don't drink that, keep salt to a minium, and have 5 peices of fruit/veg per day, excersise, and keep healthy, which is good, however there are some interesting issues here, Smoking is the latest thing to hit the headlines, and understandably so, however it is a mystery to me to ban people from smoking everywhere but to want to open Pubs 24 hours a day, I understand the theory that if everyone gives up smoking the hospitals won't be full of people with smoking related diseases and non smokers will not suffer as a result of sitting in smoky bars and smell like they have just had 50 cigeretts and not one has passed their lips, however what is this issue about 24 hour bars being open?? How many hospitls will have drink related patients? How many people will be in court for Drink Drive offences,how many people will be killed by the drinker who stays in the pub till 2am and drives home, hoping the local bobby is doing his paperwork back at the station? How many women will have to suffer husbands too drunk to communicate and how many now are waiting for their man to return at 11pm, when it could turn into 3am?

Okay the majority of people won't be sitting in the pubs all night, and the majority of people won't just go to the pub because its open 24/7, but who's to say?

Smoking is not good, but is drinking? and if both are pushed out, will people end up in door ways & dirty hide-a-ways just to have a puff or a tipple?

Drinking does in many cases cause violence, it makes a mild mannered person sometimes into a unreconizable beast, I know as my Mother is an alcoholic, and my son is heading the same way, when I was going through my divorce I thought if I turn to the bottle I will not know what I'm feeling, I won't care, but I though about it, and thought what if I want to go out? What if someone wants me to collect them or pick them up? If I'm drunk or even had 1 who's to say if I'm over the limit, different glasses hold different measures, and sitting at home or in the pub its easy, just to think I'm not drunk, I'm not even merry, I'll have another, then wham, get into a car & not only kill myself but some poor sole who was just walking down the road, or driving home to their family.

So I'm not saying smoking is right, I'm not saying it shouldn't be banned in public places, people can stand in the cold, they can smell like ashtrays if they want, but how many people have sat and smoked 20 cigeretts got in their car and killed someone? How many people have thought at least if I have a cigerette I can do my job and I can function, but if I hit the bottle I'm out of it.

Smoking in public places may well stop all the hospitals having patients filling the wards with smoke related illness, but will the 24/7 drinking replace them with drink related illness, violence, abuse, and anti social behaviour? Will Dr's be treating livers instead of lungs? will people be staggering from work to the pub & back to work? How many Road traffic accidents will it take before the drinkers of this world are treated like the smokers??

Neither are nice, its unpleasant to see people making a fool of themselves, and it does cause problems, but are we just swopping one problem with another? Are we going to replace Smoking with Alcohol, because if we are, they had better stop motoring and marriage.

The best route is stick to the 5 fruit & veg, be very boring, no binge drinking, because that won't stop with 24 hour drinking, and all live in a smoke free zone, I wander what colour the sky is in the perfect world?