Having been to the Republic of Ireland in the past few months and witnessed first-hand the end results of a total ban on smoking in public places, I can only despair at the thought of such a ban here.

The people who support such a ban are forgetting or overlooking the ramifications of such a ban. For example, the gutters and pavements of Dublin are choc-a-block with cigarette ends and all the usual paraphernalia that smokers produce.

Not all pubs can afford or can be bothered to get outside dustbin-like ashtrays filled with sand for the vast majority of their clientele who smoke so, naturally, what was once put in an ashtray indoors is now thrown in the street.

Also, the setting up of "snitch lines" to encourage the public to report any sightings of people smoking in public houses is an absolute abomination and brings out the worst in people.

It is all very well for the BMA to write letters outlining experiences of the often tragic consequences of people suffering from passive smoking - and my heart goes out to anybody with such an illness - but surely if you do not like smoking then you do not go to public houses?

Beer and tobacco have gone hand in hand for many hundreds of years, so what's new?

If the BMA is so concerned about public health, why does it not tackle the more disastrous pollution in our streets from the millions of vehicles belching out filth? What illness and cancer does this produce?

The tiresome assault on the working people of this country who are trying to unwind in public houses with a cigarette and a glass of beer after a stressful week at work beggar's belief.

To think I cannot go to my local pub and have a cigarette after doing so for the past 25 years is in itself an assault upon my civil liberty.

I totally accept the ban in all other public places but not the pub.

So, if I can compromise, why can't they? They should stop trying to tell people what they can and cannot do with their own bodies.

-M. Hanson, Lewes