PERHAPS as few as 10 years ago any call to ban smoking in public places in East Lancashire would have provoked shock.

But today, as director of public health Dr Jim Paris backs just such a demand, the reaction is much more likely to be one of support.

For ever since its link with lung cancer was established 40 years ago, smoking has been under attack not only from an increasing deluge of medical evidence on the illnesses it causes and the lives it costs, but also as an anti-social habit that is offensive and harmful to others.

And with this, a manifest transformation has occurred in society. Not only have smokers become a shrinking minority -- fewer than 27 per cent of adults smoke now compared with 40 per cent 20 years ago -- but also tolerance of the use of tobacco in public places has decreased. People no longer accept that it is normal for places like bars or restaurants to be filled with smoke and demand no-smoking areas. And many employers have either banned smoking or created separate facilities for it in their workplaces.

But would it be extreme for smoking to be banned completely in public places, as has happened already in some parts of America -- when, after all, it remains a legal habit that millions still indulge in? It may be an increasingly-likely eventuality, but it will not occur without controversy over its conflict with freedom of choice. In the meantime, as more seem to be doing, smokers have to think twice about the comfort of others when lighting up.