THE ban on smoking is, I'm afraid, beginning to worry me.

Not, I hasten to add, because of its effect on me personally; as a lifelong non-smoker whose eyes react unfavourably to cigarette smoke, it will be wonderful to return home after a night out without my eyes stinging, or indeed without my clothes reeking of smoke the day after.

No, what is worrying me is the trend both on television and in the press, including The Bolton News, to portray the ban not as a measure to protect the public from the harmful effects of inhaling other people's smoke, but as a means of preventing smokers from smoking for their own benefit.

What was essentially a health and safety issue has become a stick for the nanny state to beat us with, giant ashtrays in Victoria Square and all. There is a vast difference, in civil liberty terms, between preventing people from engaging in activities which may injure others, and preventing them from engaging in those which will only injure themselves.

Geoffrey Breakell, Whitsters Hollow, Bolton