TV Watching Injurious to Smoking

S.M.Singru

The habit of smoking is drawing all kinds of social controls. After banning smoking in public places, the search is now on for somehow invading and reducing the incidence of private smoking. Italy’s health minister, Girolamo Sirchia is one such crusader. He has come out with a novel and probably effective idea of delivering the statutory warning to smokers watching TV programmes. He wants that whenever a character on the TV screen in a programme lights a cigarette, the statutory health warning will be displayed in a box on the TV screen. One presumes that this box will be something like the box, which displays the words spoken by a character in cartoons & similar pictures, drawing out a trail from that character. Sirchia has enough sociological research behind this idea. He said, “There is no such thing as spontaneous social behaviour, every action is the result of influences.” Convincing, isn’t it? But people are worried what next step to expect from Sirchia, who is a qualified surgeon by profession.