I went to see my doctor today about a very severe chest infection, which has not responded to two courses of anti-biotics and has seen me spend most of the last fortnight in bed. I staggered out of the doctor's surgery with Joan, into Queen Street - Campbelltown's main street and CBD - fighting for breath and clutching my new prescriptions. I walked straight into several disgusting palls of tobacco smoke. Smokers walked past me, leaving trails of smoke and I shuffled past other smokers lurking outside doorways, blowing smoke across the footpath, as they do. I immediately realised I would not make it to the pharmacy without choking, so Joan sent me to find a seat indoors while she did the business. To get there I had to brave it through the pavement coffee tables, packed with smokers, as always.
My lungs were too weak to hold my breath, which is what Joan and I normally have to do when walking along Queen Street. So I copped all the smoke and was forced to breath it in. Any potential benefit from the new prescriptions will be somewhat offset by the negative effects of inhaling the toxic fumes emitted by so many smokers. Queen street is home to many doctors and other health care professionals but our councillors do not have the courage to ban smoking in public places, as many other councils have done.
About twenty years ago, smoking was banned inside all buildings, private or public. I was in favour of that legislation but it has had the unfortunate side effect of more than doubling the amount of smoke in the street that non-smokers have to put up with. It is strange that smokers know it is not alright to blow their smoke on others inside a building but think it is quite ok to do so as soon as they walk outside the door.
This blog is strictly a non-smoking zone
It's rightly illegal to smoke indoors. It should also be illegal to smoke in public places like shopping precincts and it should be illegal to smoke near children; but anyone caught smoking within a hundred metres of any doctor's surgery should be charged with attempted manslaughter.