Meanwhile, the Director of Health Initiatives for the New Brunswick Lung Association says they are very pleased with these proposed changes to the Smoking Act.
Barbara Walls adds these changes are a natural progression, and banning public smoking will help avoid normalizing it.
“The playgrounds and the parks, for example, families who are not smokers, they don’t want their children seeing this,” says Walls. “I mean, I come from the generation where it was everywhere and I tell Grade 5 [students] this and they can’t even imagine it.”
We asked Barbara Walls to respond to claims from smokers that their rights are being infringed upon.
She adds this shouldn’t be seen as a battle between smokers and non smokers.
“What we’re asking is for people who do smoke, to also respect the air space of the people who don’t,” says Walls. “It’s asking for mutual respect.”
Walls says “if you do go to a public park, common sense tells you most people are there because it’s fresh air, they don’t want to smoke, or inhale second hand smoke, nor do they want their children to, or even to see it.”
Walls says enforcement is only half the battle, and she wants to see more efforts toward helping people quit this addiction.
She reiterated that last point, saying smoking should really be seen as an addiction like any other, and not a deliberate lifestyle choice.
