He is also the chairman of the British Lung Foundation of Scotland and co-chair of the Glasgow School of Respiratory Science.

Dr Anderson congratulates cities and countries which have already moved to ban smoking in public places.

He would like to see a similar ban brought in Scotland.

But it is like the exhaust from the imbibing human - it is available for the immediate surrounding environment as well as the lungs, other organs and coverings of other humans nearby.

Such is the consequence for others (perhaps until now considered as environmental soft furnishings in some way - the bystander, the servant, the uncomplaining numpty) that smoking in the UK and the western world is on the wane.

That is so much so that a large majority would prefer not to have the smoke close by.

Many people are restricted by this smoke and currently have a relative disability because of the actions of others, which is often the comment of people with lung diseases such as asthma.

Likewise, there is an increasing majority who find that exposure of children to the smoke of others is no longer acceptable - the analogy of hitting a child is a good one.

Would you force a child to a life of ill health by passive smoking? It's much the same as mental and physical pain I suppose.

Visit Oslo or New York and witness the change.

Why should these people have all of the advantages?

Would it mean that I had less bad news to give about lung cancer? Very probably, and it would make my day.