NICK Parr's letter in last week's paper is quite astonishing.

How anyone can acknowledge that smoking is "bad for everyone's health", "unpleasant" and "all the bad things you say it is" and then say that smokers' only crime "is to enjoy a perfectly legal cigarette" and to blame others for their "bigotry and prejudice"?

I fully accept that smoking is a legal right and, indeed, smoked for a very short time myself in younger years, but I feel strongly that non-smokers should have the right to clean air free from the harmful affects of cigarette smoke.

If smokers, in the full knowledge of all the dangers of smoking, choose to take risks with their own health then so be it, but I hope that legislation will one day come into effect which will protect the rest of us and allow us to enjoy clean air when we go out for a meal or for a drink in a pub.

As a migraine sufferer I find that cigarette, pipe and cigar smoke can easily trigger a two-day migraine, and many of us find it nauseating to inhale smoke and to come home with our clothes reeking of stale cigarettes.

Mr Parr boasts of the amount contributed by smokers to the state, forgetting perhaps the enormous costs of treating smoking-related illnesses to the NHS and, ultimately, the taxpayer.

If claims against cigarette companies by sick smokers prove successful then presumably this will have a big effect on all our insurance premiums.

There are other consequences for society too how many smokers do we see throwing discarded butts out of car windows, emptying their car ashtrays in the gutter, and discarding cellophane and packets at will?

Drivers have been fined for mobile phone use and for eating chocolate bars whilst driving, but what of the many people who smoke whilst driving and then lean out of the window to drop ash and discard their cigarettes which are still lit?

In general terms most people would consider littering, bad breath, smelly clothes and endangering other people's health to be socially and morally unacceptable but, as is human nature, we somehow excuse the things we personally find pleasant.

I know that it can be very difficult to quit smoking and I feel as much help as possible should be offered to those wishing to stop, but please Mr Parr, don't accuse others of hypocrisy.

Let us hope that there will be a change in the law soon to protect the health of future generations.

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