February 13, 2001 9:35: A QUICK fag on the street, a smoke and a pint in the pub. It seems that even though they are more expensive than ever, cigarettes are still a very important part of our culture. After all a third of adults still choose to light up.

But some smokers feel they are slowly being forced out of view. Many workplaces have a no smoking policy and more pubs have no smoking areas.

Campaign groups such as Breathe Easy Buckinghamshire (BEB) see smoking as a real threat to the health of their members.

BEB is a self help group for those with breathing problems. Most of its members suffer from emphysema, a severe condition in which the lungs get eaten away. It is most commonly caused by smoking.

The group's treasurer, Janet Fanko, suffers from a condition called Bronchiectasis which she was born with, which means that her lungs are permanently damaged and are extremely sensitive to everyday pollutants such as smoke from burning tobacco. Normally the condition would be caused by a pollutant. It is caused by a defect of the lung's membrane which means the lungs produce too much mucus.

Janet, who is from Holmer Green, says that she is in a smoky environment she feels very uncomfortable and coughs and splutters.

The 54-year-old, who smoked for six years between the ages of 15 and 21, explained: "I certainly don't think people should be allowed to smoke in public places. In America, although it isn't illegal for people to smoke in public places, people just don't do it.

"People in the States have a totally different attitude. But smokers in this country just don't seem to care about whether or not they're blowing smoke in somebody else's face and what harm they are doing to them."

National No Smoking Day on March 14 gives smokers the chance to reach out and join other would-be quitters to kick their habit. And the campaign groups which back such events and offer advise to those who want to stub out their cigs for good are convinced their message is getting across.

Research by national charity QUIT claims that more than two million smokers will try to kick the habit this New Year. But the sad fact is that 39 per cent of all smokers have tried to give up at New Year in the past.

So what is the answer - an all out ban?

Mrs Fanko thinks not.

She explained: "You can't force people not to smoke, I don't believe in legislating to that extent. But I do think the important thing is to stop people from smoking in public places.

"It's bad enough when you are walking along the street but there's no way you can get something to eat or drink without smoke in the air.

"I would like to see, for example, more non-smoking pubs. Smoking sections are useless because smoke drifts - they really don't work.

"Half the time you end up right next to a table of smokers in the other section of the pub and there's no difference."

David Fagan, 44, smokes between 15 and 20 cigarettes a day.

The building services engineer wrote a letter in defence of smoking to the Midweek's sister paper The Star after a flurry of anti-smoking letters were printed.

He explained: "I'm quite happy for there to be non-smoking sections in public places, but it is when people start presenting smoking as the greatest evil in the world that really gets my back up. It's just patently nonsense."

Mr Fagan believes anti-smoking lobbyists rely too much on what he describes as "paranoid science".

He points out that the Japanese consume the highest quantity of cigarettes per head of population in the world but the country also has the highest global life expectancy.

He also claims that research carried out by the World Health Organisation found that children whose parents smoke are less likely to develop lung cancer in later life.

"There's a total ban on smoking on the street in France but everyone ignores it. This is dangerous because once people start to ignore the law, however insignificantly, they will start to ignore other laws.

"Do we really want to go down this route?"

Mr Fagan added that there are much more dangerous things to worry about rather than smoking like hard drugs such as heroin.

"At the end of the day what would we rather have our kids doing?

"And who enacted the strictest anti-smoking laws? Answer - Adolf Hitler. So I think I side with Winston Churchill, who said 'It's every Englishman's God-given right to enjoy smoking".

The smoking debate seems more alive today then it ever has been - and while cigarettes remain a matter of individual choice it is unlikely smokers will take their last drag for some time to come.

James Cox