I am writing in response to Peter Griggs’s letter (April 23). He has totally failed to get the point of my letter regarding the infringement of a smoker’s democratic right to be able to view and choose which type of smoke they want to buy, either by brand or price.

Instead, Mr Griggs is typical of the moralistic dogooder, who has a naive approach to life made by statistics and a personal dislike of smoking.

All the figures quoted by him, no matter how well researched concerning the cost of smoking to the NHS, are irrelevant to the point I was making in my previous letter.

To offer up a fair comparison to his argument, then the same can be said for alcohol-related issues.

Instead of quoting statistics on passive smoking, he should see the proven real effects alcohol has on other people’s behaviour and visit any A&E department on a weekend night and see what the effects are on the NHS staff, who are abused physically and verbally, and the victims of violence due to alcohol.

We are all human beings, who by default will always abuse our bodies in one way or another, or drive a vehicle which can cause us to have an accident, thereby harming ourselves and/or others, and also causing many other issues to ourselves which land us with a hospital visit or stay.

All of these things will impact on other people, such as family etc, but no one is saying they shouldn’t be doing those things (yet).

In fact, if none of these occurred, then the NHS would probably be on the TV advertising for business.

The fact remains that as long as tobacco products are legal, a smoker has the right to choose his/her “poison”.

After all, there isn’t a smoker alive (or dead) who would say they started smoking solely because they saw them for sale on a shop shelf!

Paul Hayward
Orwell Close
Colchester