My colleagues and I have put up posters at work to warn people and create awareness that smoking is banned in the building where our office is located. We took this step after receiving many complaints and seeing lots of fights and quarrels between employees. Some people still believe that smoking should be a practice or a habit free from any constraints or rules and that they should be able to smoke anywhere at anytime. These people consider what we did as a violation of their rights and freedom, and began a campaign to remove posters and do as they please.
People that were bothered and disturbed by the smoking and aware of the harm that smoking does expressed their frustration by giving advice. Things even turned sour with people becoming involved in fistfights. Elevators turned into a battlefield on several occasions with some people arrogantly and stupidly refusing to stop smoking and complying with company rules. That’s when the battle begins and the two adversaries end up fighting each other to the death.
Many countries nowadays have laws and regulations that forbid smoking in public places and at work. However, such laws cannot work feasibly unless there are deterrent punishments for violators. If there are no penalties then people will never take a law seriously and would follow rules depending on their whim.
Once I asked a very high-ranking official at one of our airports about the value of no-smoking signs in airports where everyone is always smoking. Amazingly, people smoke inside airport terminals without fear of any official action. I believe that sometimes airport employees too smoke inside the premises. I was totally disappointed when I was told that the decision to ban smoking inside airports did not stipulate penalties for violators and did not assign any specific sector to execute the decision. Authorities in the airports have been waiting for ten years now -- since the decree was first issued -- to finalize the decision. I wonder sometimes what the wisdom of making decisions is without any sort of implementation. This is totally puzzling and illogical.
