I READ Andrew Hitchon’s column (The Press, May 31) relating to smoking.

While one must agree that smoking is bad for your health, so is worrying about it.

However, banning smoking in the open air, as proposed by New York civic leaders, would seem to be beyond the realms of common sense and bordering on dictatorship.

With due respect to the anti-smoking lobbyists who may be owners of a gas-guzzling car, polluting the atmosphere with carbon monoxide fumes, spraying weed killer on their lawns and driveways, using deodorants, hair sprays, etc, within the confines of one’s domain can also contribute to pollution, not to mention hard alcohol.

Uncontrolled drug intake, fast foods, couch potatoes, alongside no exercise, the list is endless.

As for stress in this day and age, the use of mobile phones during meetings and social gatherings can contribute, along with shift work and occupations that place one in the front line of dealing with unsavoury illness or shortfalls of society.

The blame must rest with Sir Walter Raleigh introducing the word tobacco into the English language, although pollution then for most part was unheard of.

Kenneth Bowker, Vesper Walk, Huntington, York.