Concerns about the health and environment dangers cigarette smoking causes, Ireland and Canada are tackling the tobacco trade by imposing heavy fines on its customers.

In Ireland heavy fines are imposed for littering sidewalks and streets with cigarette butts. A case which made headlines recently was that of 315 euros imposed on the driver of a car from which a passenger had flipped a cigarette butt. The driver, a woman, wasn't even a smoker, but under the Littering Act was held responsible. The case was heard at a court in Limerick.

In Ottawa, the capital of Canada, an attempt is being made to eliminate smoking by students attending school. If charged with smoking on school grounds they face a heavy fine, which they or their parents will have to pay. Repeated offences will draw repeated fines. One rough estimate is that the cost of smoking ten cigarettes where prohibited could mean a payment of $1,000.

If a law prohibiting littering of streets with discarded cigarette butts were also enforced, residential taxpayers would soon see the effect with a reduction in their taxes or improved Ottawa municipal services.