I've had a lot to say about hospital smoking bans recently.

I think it's an area where we can get the anti-smoking industry on the back foot. It may seem logical to some to ban smoking in hospital grounds but it's fundamentally inhumane and demonstrates the ideological zealotry that drives many anti-tobacco campaigners.

In April smoking was banned in the grounds of all NHS properties in Scotland, including psychiatric hospitals, but according to reports the ban is widely ignored.

To combat this shocking insurrection the Scottish Government now wants to make smoking in hospital grounds a criminal offence.

In England there's no national ban (yet), although it's been recommended by those nice people at, er, NICE, but individual hospitals like Chesterfield Royal Hospital in Derbyshire are considering a ban and Nottingham City Hospital – which has introduced a ban – now wants a change in the law so smokers can be prosecuted.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. There are still some decent, even normal, people in public health and following yesterday's post about Addenbrooke's hospital in Cambridge (where 11,000 people have been challenged for smoking on site in a single year), I was pleased to received this email:

I was recently at an event for the staff of my local hospital. As the smokers gathered outside in the sun we were joined by non-smokers.

It was interesting to hear remarks like "I don't smoke but I always enjoy the smell."

Another shut her eyes and breathed in. "I used to smoke," she said smiling.

A mature well-dressed lady came out and took a cigarette from her bag. There seemed to be a gasp of disbelief from the group and they joked about the fact that they didn't know she smoked.

Earlier I was standing with the non-smoking group and they referred to the smokers as the "fun group", which says it all really.

There are some people who hate smokers but there are many quiet sympathisers. The anti-smoking groups aren't seen as nice people but as dull negative naggers.

That email got me thinking. Somehow we have to motivate those "quiet sympathisers" to speak out or engage in the ongoing battle against the killjoys and puritans.

How we do that I'm not quite sure. After all, it's hardly in their immediate interest, especially if they work in a hospital, to declare openly their laissez-faire attitude to smoking.

The real issue for them is long-term. If the "negative naggers" get their way how many more products will be severely restricted, how many more lifestyles will be severely curtailed? How long before the concept of freedom of choice is extinguished completely?