Smoking ban in public places

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Smoking can also result in terrible life.




True, people have to eat, and children with parents who smoke don't have means to move away from it.




They do declare nonsmoking premises. It'll say that right in the lease agreement. Landlords have a right not to have their property devalued. Subsequent tenants have a right to a living space that doesn't smell of residual smoke from a previous tenant.

The next step is forcing non-smoking T&Cs upon people who can't fight back. They won't do this to people who have private property, but property owned by the state and landlords who already despise smokers will be encouraged to set overtly discriminatory terms. Accompanied by spot-checks of course.

And "if no children are present" - so even if the children are asleep and the parents are in another area of the house, they still can't smoke?

Jesus, it's a cigarette, not friggin' polonium-210!

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: encourage this sort of mindset against smokers and you're encouraging it in ways you'd never intended.

Alcohol and fat people are next.

Autistic people should be a little more compassionate given how bigoted people often are. It takes very little for them to turn this sort of treatment on others. Smokers are just the target of the moment, nothing more. In various times in history it has been drinkers, Catholics, Jews, Protestants, middle-aged women (witches), anti-Communists, the disabled...

And anyone who thinks prohibition works…

…look at the British "video nasty" moral panic in the early 1980s and the enactment of the Video Recordings Act of 1984. Another case where sensible voices were drowned out and pressure groups that were given far too much credence ran the day.

Banning these videos didn't stop them being seen; it only increased people's desire to see rubbish like SS Experiment Camp and California Axe Massacre, just because they were banned. Some of those people obtained a taste for these films that lasts to the present day. For years after the VRA was passed the BBFC were cutting all sorts of innocuous things out of films that were seen as "dangerous" - funnily enough when they were seen by the British public in later years they never caused an outbreak of people using nunchakus on anyone in sight, nor was the rape scene from Straw Dogs copied by boozed-up youth when the film was finally passed uncut on video/DVD nearly thirty-one years after its initial release.

I doubt people would be talking about films like I Spit on Your Grave if they weren't banned and censored as much as they were (and are).

We have that little 'freedom of speech' thing going for us. And I just don't corrolate smoking with banning films.

Smoking hasn't been made illegal - it isn't banned. It's restricted. It is removed largely from public areas so that people who choose not to smoke are not forced to via second hand smoke. It is a potent health hazard. I don't believe it is reasonable to force other people the take that risk.

Thanks to my parents early intervention, I have an allergy to cigarette smoke. Nicotine is a potent sedative for me. Stuck in a bar without ventilation and I'm nodding off within 45 minutes. That is, if I can still breathe. I never picked up the habit of going to bars with friends mainly because I can't deal with the smoke. I can smell it on peoples clothes. When you clean a smoker's room and wash down the walls a thick yellow residue sloughs off. I found out the hard way that that residue will eat through paint if you try and paint over it. And people choose to line their lungs with that sludge then wonder why they hack up a lung in the morning.

We understand the effects of prohibition in the states. Smoking isn't banned. There are still smoke shops and lots of selection including less toxic choices in raw tobacco and other smokable herbs. The option is still there for those who choose to do so. And that is the operable word - choice.

And I'm sorry but providing an area for people to smoke - in a hospital - is a bit at crossed purposes, don't you think? My father had several sugeries for his cancer, one of which removed 3/4 of his upper palate. He needed to hold his nose closed in order to get suction so he could continue to smoke... because the damage was already done, right? He'd get angry when the visiting nurse hollered at him for smoking near his oxygen tank. And he was a registered nurse. He KNEW better but the cigarette held more sway. Perhaps smoking is innocuous for you but it sure isn't that way for everyone who smokes.

Then there was the woman on the boardwalk at the shore. She was standing outside smoking. We were walking past. Se swung her arm wide in conversation and hit my daughter in the forehead and burned her. And got mad at us for not watching what SHE was doing. My 3 year old is screaming in pain and she blamed us.

Really, if you have a story of how smoking does anyone any good, I'm willing to entertain it. I've experienced nothing but a lifetime of negative things about it. Tell me the up side. Give me an example of smokers being responsible or considerate of others without the need for government intervention.

I used to be fully anti until I realised I had a fetish for it. I'm still for the indoor bans but that's it. I'm not at all in support of this next wave of bans which are outdoors. People have to be able to do it somewhere & I don't think they should be marginalised.

Problem is, it's not just the legal ban - it's the social climate too and the marginalisation that people have to endure. You can achieve an awful lot of change in public attitude towards something without necessarily banning something outright. Just by telling them day after day after day after day that something is harmful, and stifling opposition.

And we don't have free speech in the UK - try having a debate - any debate - on immigration or the European Union for instance. These subjects have been put beyond all thought, and any dissenters are simply silenced with threats and accusations. It makes it dangerous to discuss in public, which only fuels further resentment.

But it isn't BANNED outright. You can still purchase cigarettes. They haven't been declared illegal or taken off the market. You won't be arrested for being in possession of them. They have imposed rules where there previous were none whatsoever. People's minds are changing about it.

I know change sucks but change is the only real constant in the universe we can count on. It's a change that will positively affect the health of the majority. Yes, they may cramp the style of the minority that chooses to smoke but that's the way the cookie crumbles for minorities. The 'greater good' usually wins out.

Umm she is actually really healthy, no health problems at all....other then not being as physically able as she was when she was younger. Not saying smoking is not a health risk, but not all smokers end up dying of cancer or other horrible health problems. Same with alcohol not all drinkers die of liver failure or other alcohol related health problems but a lot do.

Also when it comes to bars and such I think it should be up to them if they want to allow smoking or not....I mean if all the people who go to a certian bar smoke and prefer to smoke inside they should have that option. I am sure there would be non-smoking ones as well.

I know some smokers are so addicted or inconsiderate that they'll even break the law. For example I've seen signs up in multi-story car parks saying "it is again the law to smoke on these premises" yet some smokers ignore this. Also at hospitals, a place of health there are smokers outside the main entrances despite the no smoking signs. Some doctors have challenged smokers but all they get is a load of abuse. Smokers have got to obey the law and smoking bans are going to be extended such as on the beach. The law needs to be inforced with on the spot fined etc to stop inconsiderate smokers. The MAJORITY of the public don't like smoking.

I agree, smokers should follow the rules.....but the rules also need to be reasonable.

So what is 'unreasonable'?

I've already described my veiws on that....In earlier posts and do not really want to repeat it all.

Sometimes signs are put up outside claiming that it's against the law when it actually is perfectly legal to smoke there, they just don't understand the law, or are deliberately making it out to have powers that it doesn't have. Also, sometimes signs are put up on private property that goes far beyond what the law actually says. Think, for example, of a children's park without any smoking areas or shelters on the entire site which the law never intended.



A lot of anti-smokers want smoking banned entirely (as in Bhutan) but it simply isn't in the interests of the powers-that-be for that to happen. They want to bleed every last penny they can out of smokers first. Even the likes of ASH would not advocate a complete ban on smoking - which should tell you something. They pump out lies day after day, yet never come to an end-point where they think there are enough restrictions against smokers. They weren't happy with simple health advisory warnings, they weren't happy with restaurants voluntarily - in the true sense - deciding not to allow smoking in their eating areas, they weren't happy with voluntary warnings on packets, they weren't happy with compulsory warnings on packets, they weren't happy with ventilation, they weren't happy with smoking and non-smoking areas, they weren't happy with a total ban on smoking in pubs, they weren't happy with a ban on smoking in private member's clubs, they weren't happy with even further bans. They are a disgrace to the word 'charity' and should have their funding removed forthwith. If that were to happen you'd never hear from them again.

The leader of ASH, Deborah Arnott, said last week on CNN News: "What's wrong with denormalising smokers?" - which says it all for me.

If you want smoking and tobacco made illegal (as in Bhutan), just say so. It would make it a lot easier for those people who believe in personal freedom to understand where you're coming from.



See what I'm getting at?



Not particularly healthy to go forcing out elderly, frightened, ill people out not only outside but outside hospital grounds (as happens in the UK), which can be some walk away. Treating them with even the slightest dignity by providing well-ventilated smoking rooms is an anathema to an NHS so blinded by an ideological zeal to demonise smokers. There would be no risk in that situation to anyone - hell, a smoking member of staff could even be assigned to keep the rooms tidy if they're that paranoid about the effects of smoking. Bullying people who are already in the final years of their life doesn't really send any other message apart from callousness.

That is what I don't understand. You have basically agreed that indoor smoking bans are justifed. you seem to be incredibly considerate and thoughtful with your own habit. The only real restriction left is making them illegal.

If the owner of a property decides to restrict smoking on their property - inside or out - is that a problem? Is it only a problem when the government steps in and says where you can and cannot smoke? Say, the owner of an organic farm requires you to check your cigarettes before stepping on his land - is that okay? People can smoke in their own homes, in their own cars and outside in the general public. That's more freedom than drinkers have. I'm not sure I understand how those conditions are unreasonable.

If the owner of a pub decides to allow smoking inside his pub if the vast majority of his customers smoke, and sticks clearly visible smoking signs on the outside of his licensed premises - is that a problem?

this has nothing to do with smoke adn everything to do with control and perception.