I take it that this is based on health issues, particularly Passive Smoking, well the facts do not stand up as I am led to believe. The following extract was taken from a publication on <A HREF="http://www.forestonline.org">www.forestonline.org</A>

"Are non-smokers at risk from ETS?"

"This is what everyone wants to know. The truth is that the scientific establishment has found it impossible to reach agreement on the issue. Interviewed on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs (23 February 2001), Professor Sir Richard Doll, the first scientist to publish research that suggested a correlation between lung cancer and primary smoking, commented: 'The effects of other people smoking in my presence is so small it doesn't worry me.'

Professor Doll's comments may surprise some people but not those who have analysed the argument about passive smoking in detail. In 1992, for example, the American Environmental Protection Agency published a report that was said to demonstrate the link between passive smoking and ill health in non-smokers. In 1996 however a US federal court ruled that the EPA had completely failed to prove its case. It was found not only to have abandoned recognised statistical practice, but to have excluded studies which did not support its pre-determined conclusion, and to have been inconsistent in its classification of ETS compared with other substances.

Likewise, in 1997, the National Health & Medical Research Council in Australia was found guilty by a federal court judge of acting improperly in preparing its draft report on passive smoking because it didn't consider all the relevant scientific evidence and submissions.

If that wasn't damning enough, in March 1998 the World Health Organisation was forced to admit that the results of a seven-year study (the largest of its kind) into the link between passive smoking and lung cancer were not 'statistically significant'. This is because the risk of a non-smoker getting lung cancer has been estimated at 0.01%. According to WHO, non-smokers are subjecting themselves to an increased risk of 16-17% if they consistently breathe other people's tobacco smoke. This may sound alarming, but an increase of 16-17% on 0.01 is so small that, in most people's eyes, it is no risk at all".

"ETS is often confused with mainstream smoke and sidestream smoke. ETS is the final stage of tobacco smoke dispersion when it becomes highly diluted in the surrounding air. Although assumed to possess the same properties as mainstream and sidestream smoke, this remains unproven."