The Tasmanian zealots

The Herald reports:

Despite the island’s clean, green image, one person in four lights up each day, compared with a national average of 17 per cent.

Those smokers are becoming increasingly marginalised: the state capital, Hobart, banned cigarettes from the city centre four months ago, and the second-biggest city, Launceston, recently decided to do the same.

Other councils are considering following suit, and there are also calls for smoking to be prohibited on the island’s beaches. But if Burnie City Council gets its way, the sale, possession and consumption of tobacco would be outlawed state-wide. Even back gardens would be smoke-free.

Smokers would be forced to go cold turkey – or perhaps emigrate to the mainland.

Forced emigration is so 1930s. I am sure the Burnie City Council could be far more efficient and just proscribe anyone caught smoking – making it legal for them to be killed by vigilantes.

Or they could do the Iranian way. Chop their hands off. Damn hard to smoke without hands.