Letter: Tobacco bans

Sir: George Gomori (letter, 3 January) cites James I as an early example of a "thinking person" who was virulently anti-smoking. That monarch was also convinced that the country was in danger of being swept away on a tide of witchcraft, and was red-hot on discovering and burning alleged practitioners. It is this aspect of his thinking that lives on in the fulminations of those ever eager to seek out and destroy any social behaviour which they have deemed "foul"?

DON HOWE

Liverpool