THE LAST GASP

Merton Council building, Morden, Surrey. Outside, the streets are soaking up the hammering rain with an insatiable thirst. Inside, it's dry, but equally depressing. In a small L-shaped room with no windows, a few plastic chairs and rows of bare coat-hangers overhead, council workers huddle in the corner indulging in idle chitchat, puffing away on Marlboro Lights.

The smoking room. In one's mind, a luxurious haven, home to squidgy leather armchairs, cocktails and fine art. In reality, four stark walls housing overflowing ashtrays, a stained, dirty carpet, discarded plastic cups and stale tobacco stench. Gone are the days when smoking was a socially acceptable addiction, when one was able to spark up on buses, aeroplanes, at the flicks and in the workplace. Now, smokers have been demoted to the rank of outcast - reduced to grabbing a quick toke on blustery street corners or within the grim confines of designated areas.

Soon, as political debate on the issue gathers momentum, Britain will follow trends set in the USA and Ireland, by banning smoking in the workplace and what's left of our tobacco-friendly institutions too. Bars, pubs, clubs and restaurants will no longer be the safe, social spots to unwind with a fag and a pint. Local councils in Liverpool, Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol and all 33 London boroughs are supporting a public ban. And Scotland is already pushing through restrictive legislation.

According to a London Health Commission survey, 78 per cent of Londoners would like "all enclosed public spaces in London to be smoke-free"; across Britain, the Office of National Statistics reports that 54 per cent of the public are in favour of banning smoking in pubs. Although the Government wants to bring in ` new curbs, Tony Blair has yet to decide whether to institute a blanket ban, or to let the decision-making be regional by flipping the nicotine-stained buck into the palms of local councils - who may be able to grant premises special "smoking licenses". Either way, it's not looking hopeful for the smokers among us.

This relentless shift towards ostracising smokers has resulted in the birth of a new subculture. You can see it in smoking rooms across the globe - spaces that now transcend issues of class, race and gender, and unite their occupants in a spirit of rebellion. If British smokers are kicked out of bars, restaurants and smoking rooms, and on to the street, such a subculture will only become more entrenched.

In New York, a new social space - outside - has already begun to blossom. During the late hours in Manhattan's East Village, a person nipping out for a smoke is far more likely to connect with a stranger than they would inside. On a recent visit to the Big Apple, Londoner Sophie Taylor, 28, recalls: "I spent most of the night outside this bar on East 14th Street chatting to a load of new people. At first the ban did my head in, but I quite enjoyed the new sense of unity I felt with my fellow smokers."

But some New Yorkers have greeted the ban with anarchic defiance. Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter's battle with Mayor Michael Bloomberg over the new smoking laws has kept the celebrity columns buzzing. Carter received several summonses for having been caught lighting up in the Conde Nast offices on Times Square, and has publicly aired his grievances in his magazine: "Under current New York City law, it is acceptable to have a loaded gun in your place of work," he fumed in Vanity Fair's February edition, "but not an empty ashtray."

Smoking's "cultural identity" has, over the years, undergone a dramatic transformation. Hollywood's silver screen once overflowed with sirens such as Rita Hayworth, glammed up to the eyeballs, with an eternally lit cigarette as ` an essential accessory - an assertion of power and sexuality. Half-a-century later, the sight of celebrities smoking on screen has become a rarity. But according to USA Today, recent stars spotted on the streets of New York include Shannen Doherty, John Malkovich and supermodel Gisele Bundchen, who was "joined frequently by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter".

There is, though, a fair and valid argument for a clampdown on smoking in public - it can kill you. Thirty-two thousand people in the UK die from the lung disease chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder every year, which costs the NHS pounds 2.5bn to treat. People with smoking-related diseases take up 1,100 of London's hospital beds every day, at a weekly cost of pounds 2m. One thousand people die from passive smoking every year, too. Yet, ironically, the recently built Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast spent some pounds 400,000 on smoking areas for its patients and their relatives. Despite the evidence that smoking kills, 12 million people in the UK continue to do so. It is a risky pursuit, a forbidden pleasure, a flirting-with- death experience that can make some people feel alive - akin to sky-diving or speeding down country roads at night. As the author Richard Klein explains in his book Cigarettes Are Sublime, "The smoker can be thrilled by the subtle grandeur of the perspectives on mortality that open up by the little terrors in every puff." To others, cigarettes can be an emotional crutch, a best friend - or simply an enjoyable pastime.

"Years ago no one cared, but now they do," says Irene Butcher, 82, a resident at Chalkney House nursing home in Colchester, Essex, who spends the entire day with a packet of Raffles in the "smokers only" summer house, out in the garden. "In the old, days all the boys who worked on the farms had to look forward to at the end of the day was some bread and cheese, a beer, and their clay pipe, and they worked hard all their lives. If people want to smoke, then let them. It is up to the individual." n

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