You say that most Scots have accepted the law BUT --Isn't that what you'd expect if you don't want a fine and a police record?
If this law was wanted you wouldn't need a law or fines. South of the border had the same inflated statements from the NannyBrigade suggesting that Smokefree bars were favoured by most yet only a few days ago the Office of National Statistics told the TRUTH -- only 33% a massive shift in public opinion of 2%.
I bet the law is a winner with the (ex)Bingo customers? Are they enjoying sitting at home having had their pleasure removed?

Your grudging comments do not reflect the fact that this is almost certainly the single most popular piece of legislation the Scottish Parliament has passed in its short life.

Everywhere I go people say how much they prefer not having to have a meal or a drink in a smoke-filled atmosphere.

Peter, my experience is the exact opposite. this is the single most unpopular and obnoxious piece of legislation ever passed.
If you were offered a choice, which none of us have now, of either smoking or non smoking then everyone would be happy wouldn't they?

If the ban, in itself wasn't bad enough, we now have the loony councils and NHS getting in on the act and extending it so that employees can no longer smoke anywhere on the premises. Now they even have the audacity to try and pretend the law allows them to stop visitors from smoking in hospital car parks. Or the ludicrous suggestion that people expecting a visit from the council should refrain from smoking an hour before the council employee enters their home!

Utter insanity from power mad bullies. Shame on them.

The smoking ban has been one of the most popular pieces of legislation brought in by the executive. How dare those who don't live in scotland decide they are going to break the law in someone else's country.
Is Mel Smith's impersonation of Churchill so lame that only by lighting a cigar will the audiance know who it is?
I hope that Edinburgh council have the courage to fine any of arrogant luvvie who lights up.

If this is the most popular legislation I don't think that speaks well for the rest of the legislation. Just how much courage does it take to fine somebody, even a celebrity, for smoking in a theatre? Anybody who thinks this is a necessary measure to protect anybody's health knows nothing of the laws of particle physics. Smoke moves upwards, well out of the way of any theatre audience. The level of toxins in smoke is so low that it makes no difference anyway.

Anybody visiting here is welcome to show their disapproval of this law – it is quite disproportionate to the dangers it claims to deal with.

Are you really suggesting that people should respect an ineffective law just because it was well intended? On 26 March this year the papers were full of two stories: that Irish revenues from smoking had gone up, and that both councils and the Executive still have pension funds invested in tobacco. An own goal in both cases.

What evidence suggests that people have happily adapted? a quick tour round the city centre in the summer? Or did anybody take the trouble to interview people who don't want to take part in social life in pubs now, or whose cherished local bar has closed down. Losing your pub is no less serious a business than losing your bingo hall. These places are lifelines for people who lead isolated lives.

Legislation that excludes people and destroys livelihoods, especially when based on misinformation and exaggeration, is unjust. There are toxins in cigarette smoke but these are in far lower concentrations than those in many other substances that are routinely dealt with by ventilation and filtration.

Exactly right John,Belinda,Iain,Chris.
Lying to achieve a goal is disgusting and that is what is going on here.
Paul, breaking laws based on lies is no worse than the law itself.
I thought social engineering was a thing of the past.
I was wrong, anyone who makes a stand against this will be heros in my mind.
Mel Smith being one of them.

Personally I have never understood why people want to ban things that they dislike or disaprove of. I understood that this ban was being brought in to protect people from smoke, however what most people dont realise is they are in more danger from traffic fumes than cigarette smoke as these figures show.

Estimated number of cigarettes required to reach OSHA safe exposure limits from secondhand smoke emission of selected chemicals in a sealed and unventilated 20' x 20' x 9' enclosure (Gori & Mantel, 1991)
ETS Component ETS Output
(mg/cig) Safety Limit
(mg/m3) Cigarettes
Required
Methyl chloride 0.88 0.30 1,170
Acetaldehyde 1.26 180.00 1,430
Nitrogen oxides 2.80 50.00 1,780
Phenol 0.25 19.00 7,600
Benzene 0.24 32.00 13,300
Dimethylamine 0.036 18.00 50,000
Benzo[a]pyrene 0.00009 0.20 222,000
Polonium 210 0.4pCi 3pCi/l 750,000
Toluene 0.000035 375.00 1,000,000

If you shut the garage doors and keep the engine running you would be dead in double quick time.

In a free democracy Publicans should have the choice as to whether their premises are smoking or non smoking and no one else.

After Peter & Paul I'm waiting for Mary to join the chorus!
As reported in this paper on November 8 2004 all Scots should remember that the First Minister would act in "the nation’s interests" not "public opinion".
This certainly indicates that the public are not considered an integral part of his nation and democracy is consigned to history.
Enjoy it while you can.

I notice The Scotsman removed my post at 7. Plainly it only agrees with freedom of speech to a point!

It is refreshing to see the Sctosman opine: "However, Smith's threat is a reminder that the ban did go too far. Exemptions should have protected personal liberty.........."

In a democratic society, the press has a vital role to play in acting as watchdog for our personal liberties. So will you now release the bloodhounds to unearth WHY personal liberties have been suppressed?

An interesting place to start would be the fallacious claim, based on Junk Science, by the anti-smoking lobby that ETS is in any way harmful. While you're at it you could also look under that suspicious-looking rock to see if any Big Pharma Research Money darts away when you lift it.

But are you up to the task Scotsman? Or like your colleagues in Ireland, will you also play it deaf, blind and dumb, while your culture is destroyed, your people divided, your communities ruined and your tourism wrecked?

American Supreme Court Justice William Douglas said it best and it struck me so strongly that I saved it for the final quote in Antibrains:

"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances there is a twilight where everything remains seem-ingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of darkness. "

Look to America to see your future if you don't stop the crazies now before they get a real foothold: it'll move through the following stages indoors: theaters, offices, restaurants, bars, clubs, condominiums, apartments, and finally private homes where children under 21 might live or visit.

Outdoors they'll play the "Save The Children" propaganda trick to grab playgrounds with nonsense stories about poisoned toddlers eating butts, perimeters around playgrounds with tales of children imitating adults they see, beaches by using litter as an excuse, then parks, then 25 foot zones from businesses or from "normal human beings in public" and then finally streets altogether.

Of course if you can't smoke at work, in the park, at the bar, on the streets, or in your apartment you've then arrived at the Prohibition they keep saying is NOT their goal: they lie. Of course you will always have clandestine smoking and this will give the government that golden card governments always want: make sure a good bit of the population is always engaged in a criminal activity and you can always control their behavior with threats.

That's your future if you don't stop them.

Michael J. McFadden
Author of Dissecting Antismokers' Brains
http://www.Antibrains.com