Unintended consequences of the smoking ban

So it turns out that banning smoking in pubs has not so much encouraged smokers to quit but instead provided them with a decisive competitive reproductive advantage if they keep puffing away. Drinking outside South London Pacific on Saturday night I came across this amusing demonstration of the law of unintended consequences: smirting, which is of course the practice of flirting while popping outside for a cigarette.

What amuses me most about the unintended consequences here is that policy makers assumed banning smoking in pubs would provide a clear incentive to give up the habit because it's cold and rainy outside; it's a hassle to schlep out there every twenty minutes; and most importantly you're braving a fairly unambiguous social sanction. Balanced against that, according to at least one source, smirting is even more effective in the rain (people huddle closer together under the already-ubiquitous canopies); you naturally get to meet a lot more people without it seeming forced; and in any case the ban has not only given strangers an obvious ice-breaker but conferred upon them a sense of struggling together against adversity. Thus what was a deadly, slightly unsavoury habit becomes a competitive reproductive advantage. People are not wired to abandon such advantages lightly. 

Comments

[PaulSweeney]

We've seen this in Ireland for quite a while. What we notice is that where there used to be fairly easy ways to move around and socialise in the bar, this has become less of a tendency over the years. Perhaps in the 80s everyone just felt oppressed. Now you can stand outside, in a small space, and it would seem rude not to at least say something to the person standing next to you.

[Adrian Monck]

Seems to be improving the lot of Caledonians prone to cardiac arrest tho - http://news.scotsman.com/health.cfm?id=1448352007