I live in Mexico City, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, and I can tell you that I get one of those new "HIGH POWER" GREEN LASERS POINTED AT ME AT LEAST TWICE A WEEK WHILE FLYING! Those things have become very popular toys. I don't see them as a huge danger, distracting at most.
Call me dumb if you want but actually I think it looks pretty, and have never felt it hurt my eyes in anyway, the beams of those lasers I'm sure would be hurtful at close range concentrated where the dot is still small, and for a considerable period of time, but at whatever range the helicopter is flying, those lasers are cheap and the light disperses and what used to be a small dot at few yards is now a 1+ meter light spot, with the corresponding loss of concentration.
Have you ever pointed one of those lasers at a faraway building? I have one of those, I live on a 10th story apartment and I sometimes point it a building that is exactly 520 meters away, and the dot at that distance looks at least a meter wide, so if the the dot was about 1.5 mm at close range, at that distance calculate the corresponding dilution, it would be huge.
I'm not saying it shouldn't be forbideen, but I think it's extreme to have a teenager jailed for 4 years for doing that, if it were up to me, maybe 6 months max, the judge saying it could have been a tragedy is frankly ridiculous, I would have felt so guilty as a pilot to have a teenager jailed for something that I knew could have never caused a tragedy, if the pilot really thought he was going to be blinded, why did he keep circling around the boy switching back and forth the camera mode? if he really thought that thing was going to bring him down it would have been negligent for him to keep on circling woudn't it?