There's no smoke without fire.

Jersey, The OC of England and my home town, will soon be celebrating the one year anniversary of its much overdue smoking ban.

For the past twelve months, I for one have been spared waking up the morning after the night before with a stonking headache and the added disgust of having to face stumbling into the shower smelling like the inside pocket of a 60-a-dayer. Trust me, trying to get the putrid smell of nicotine out of hair as long and as thick as mine is the last thing you want to do.

But aside from this slight, yet much appreciated alleviation from hellish hangovers, and the added incentive of “smirting,” (the practice of simultaneously smoking and flirting for those that way inclined) has the ban actually made one jot of difference to the wider world?

Local doctors tell us that the number of smokers on the island has dropped to twenty per cent. Ok, so that’s a start. Apparently the number of heart attacks is also on the decrease, especially amongst us passive smokers. Yippee. Meanwhile, more and more families are frequenting pubs and restaurants safe in the knowledge that they are not clogging up their youngsters airways.

Yet if we set aside these rather unsurprising facts and figures and the blatant message that screams “stop smoking and you may not kill yourself quite so quickly,” the ban has actually managed to make life a little more unbearable in some respects.

For one, the frequently inebriated tobacco-toker is now forced to step outside the sweaty, grotty pit of death that is a nightclub in order to have a poisonous puff. Result? The bouncer and his bulging biceps get a great deal more action as the sozzled smoker becomes a tangled mess of tongue-tied slurs and noxious fumes in a bid to prove his manhood or her sobriety and be allowed to stagger back in.

Add to that the inevitable noise that a cluster of cancer-cane addicts creates outside the back door of a watering hole and you have one mad neighbourhood.

But it’s not just a nocturnal nuisance. Need I point out the stagnant carpet of cigarette butts strewn across the pavements during the daylight hours? Or the wall of smoke you have to penetrate when entering any sort of establishment at any time of day? As you desperately try to hold your breath and make a run for it, only to cave in half way along the tunnel of toxic fumes, you probably end up inhaling even more tar than usual.

So, in order to combat this particularly horrendous ban-induced bother, it has just been announced that as from next year, States employees in Jersey will no longer be able to sneak outside every hour or two for a fatal drag on the old sin stick.

Well personally, so long as they are at the back door and not blocking the fire exit, I would much rather they carried on, and that the rest of us able-lunged individuals got awarded the equivalent time wasted as an extra ten day holiday a year.