State officials are really starting to come down hard now on cigarette smokers. It was announced today that those smokers who are caught throwing out cigarette butts will be fined an immediate $400! When you consider cigarette butt throwing as a littering offense as any other, the fine should not be overreacted just because it's coming from a cigarette. Already last week a civilian in Henderson was given a written warning and notice of the new law that is now implemented in Auckland.
The $400 fine that is subjected to those who thro cigarette butts is deemed to be very over the top, whereas before the maximum fine for littering is $100 (Litter Act 1979). Smokers will feel very hard done by, as they are getting mainly punished for choosing to smoke, and not for the actual littering offense. Really it's another excuse to punish cigarette smokers in general.
Cigarette and cigarette smokers are in the limelight for criticism nowadays; it seems to be getting tougher as time goes on for smokers. With this new law, they will have to tread even more carefully than before. In a way you can't help but sympathize for the many cigarette smokers who are clawed into the grasp of the addiction that they are stuck with for probably the rest of their lives. For cigarette smokers many obstacles are being thrown in front of them in order to deter them even more from smoking, and to portrait a bad image for smoking to everybody else.
Eventually cigarette smokers will be pushed so far into one corner that the only place eligible to smoke will be in the confinement of their own homes. Everywhere else seems to be gradually becoming a no-smoking zone, the street, shops, bars; even smokers can't smoke at work! The Government and councils around the U.S. are pressured into enforcing these laws, but this latest law just seems a bit harsh.
