Never put it beyond Lebanon to adopt a terrible idea just because it arrives from abroad. The country is now debating whether to impose a smoking ban in public places, and anti-smoking groups can smell blood.

The Middle East was always considered resistant to such an innovation. However, last year both Syria and Turkey, countries with high percentages of smokers in the population, banned smoking inside public facilities, and Lebanese parliamentarians have said they would discuss a smoking ban in the coming months. Oddly, one of those who announced this was Atef Majdalani, doctor, but also a committed cigar smoker.

I share Majdalani’s fervor... but only when it comes to Cohibas. The debate over second-hand smoke is often passionate, and in many respects it has already been won by the non-smokers. However, as Lebanon considers the possibility of a ban, the real question should be a different one. Should a smoking ban be universal, or should it permit choice?

In virtually all countries it is the absolutist argument that has won out. Smoking bans in public are universal, barring sidewalks and outdoor seating areas. This effectively creates a disparity between the rights of smokers and non-smokers. But a question that never seems to arise is why that’s the case. Why can’t there be facilities that are officially open to smokers and others to non-smokers, and then let the market decide?

How would this differ from what we already have? After all, nothing prevents a restaurant owner today from preventing smoking in his or her establishment. In fact there would be a subtle but significant difference after a government ban. The ban could be complete in private and government offices, let’s say, while restaurants, bars and cafés would be officially labeled as smoke-free or smoke-friendly, which would become a part of their brand identity. Over time this would determine the nature of their clientele and whether they could survive financially.

If, as non-smoking evangelists claim, everyone prefers to spend their evenings smoke-free, then gradually the restaurants, cafés and bars will switch over to banning smoking. On the other hand, if the argument is false, the Lebanese will still be able to choose between facilities allowing smoking and others that do not, with no one really suffering.

But the authorities in most countries never allow choice, and their favoring the rights of non-smokers over smokers is to a large extent the result of the smoking-ban activists’ ability to inject moralism into their arguments. “If you light up in my presence,” the non-smokers will intone, “you are killing me.” But if that is true, then surely there are many other similar examples of unintentional homicide. When I start my car, am I not also contributing to someone’s early demise? And surely we have all had a few days knocked off our lives by driving behind those private buses the government has licensed that operate on unfiltered fuel oil.
 
There is no doubt that Lebanon would feel the impact of a smoking ban less than other places. Even in the depths of winter, people can sit outside in relative comfort. Not for us those dispiriting European or American scenes of human beings huddling and shivering on sidewalks outside office buildings and eateries, sneaking a puff in sub-zero gales.

But let’s come back to the moral argument, and take it a bit further. If smoking kills – in other words if it kills other people, but also the smokers themselves – this raises a host of interesting questions. If I’m victimizing someone else by smoking, then presumably a smoking ban inside public facilities is not enough; the state should ban all smoking that in one way or another might harm others. Even at an outdoor table, my burning cigar might stain the lungs of some unsuspecting innocent nearby.

Anti-smoking evangelists, of course, would like nothing better than to ban smoking everywhere, even in the privacy of one’s own home, since ultimately they regard cigarette or cigar smoke as polluting the general atmosphere. In this they behave like any religious zealot would, attributing righteousness and universality to their actions, therefore identifying dissenting voices as immoral. The state is right not to condone such excess, and would anyway be unable to implement it.

But there is a more pernicious side to the non-smoking argument that very much leads to potential intrusion into people’s lives: that by lighting up, smokers increase health costs across society, therefore non-smokers have the right to protest the actions of smokers. If we follow this rationale, though, we might soon find that any activity deemed “unhealthy”, such as drinking one glass too many, overeating, or even cooking with butter rather than margarine, becomes fair game for health missionaries.

This is an exaggeration, you say; but the reality is that in recent decades individual health habits have come to be judged by others with insufferable intolerance. A person who fails to exercise or who delights in fatty foods is frequently the target of jokes, or just quiet contempt. In some places overweight passengers can now be banned from flights, because taking up too much room is deemed legitimately punishable. In many homes in the West people don’t serve spirits anymore, with dinner party guests being made to stand around daintily sipping wine.

Thank heavens that Lebanon is too undisciplined a place to ever plummet to such depths. Because of that, let’s do something different before imposing a smoking ban. Let’s give people a choice. The innate pluralism of the Lebanese makes that approach the most sensible.

Michael Young is opinion editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut.