Smoking ban in public places

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Sounds like e-cigarettes. I've heard of people using these - they're legal in British pubs (for the time being) but they're already banned in some countries. Often, landlords won't allow people to use them because idiots will start lighting up for real because "it looks like smoking" - yes, that's the only reason for saying no to them.

And they can't half be used to wind up gullible anti-smokers.

Big Pharma will see to it that they're given the same treatment that regular cigarettes are, and the 'loophole' will be closed.

So any tenuous link to passive smoking can be eliminated considering that they're not interested in health, they're openly doing their best to eliminate the competition.

A society with freedoms and rights must inevitably work out some adjustment in restrictions that tries to serve both goals as well as possible.

I've defined a test of reasonableness of a ban as: "...the nonsmokers can't avoid the smoke easily or without significantly restricting their movements or activities in the space in question."

According to the above test, a smoker who owns a home and only lives with other smokers should be allowed to smoke in the home. The smoker's home is easy for nonsmokers to avoid, and the other smokers' exposure to each others' smoke doesn't make their total smoke exposure significantly worse. Unlike a rental, the privately owned home, that a smoker devalues, comes out of his own pocket when he goes to sell it.

Smoking rooms are fine as long as all facilities of interest contained within the room are also readily available outside the room and as long as the ventilation works effectively to keep the smoke out of adjacent indoor areas.

But what about children in the home of parents who smoke? They're underage, so they're not legally permitted to smoke, therefore they are nonsmokers. Can they avoid the smoke? Children spend most of the day in school for most of the year, and could plausibly spend more time outside during the summer, but they have to go into the house to eat, sleep, and various other things and they can't just move away and get a house of their own. They count on their parents to provide for them and to protect them. Having a parent smoke in one end of the house while a child sleeps in the other end is not a working solution because the smoke will circulate throughout the house and into the child's sleeping area (I have firsthand experience with this). It appears that the child (a nonsmoker) cannot easily avoid the smoke. I hate to say it, but it appears that a ban on smoking in any home with children does fit the test of reasonableness, enforceability notwithstanding.

Outdoor spaces will vary by location and crowdedness. That the space is simply outdoors, does not alone determine whether or not a smoking ban fits the test of reasonableness. For the most part, I'd say it's unreasonable but there may be exceptions.

None of this says that smokers will be restricted in where they can go. They just can't smoke in some places, for the protection of others' rights. Likewise drinkers can't drink in some places, such as when they're driving, also for the protection of others' rights. Unfortunately, it's the nature of smoke to be difficult to contain and keep away from others who may not wish to breathe it, so restrictions, ensuring the protection of others' rights, give the appearance of unfairly targeting smokers specifically. I have no problem with eating in restaurants with smokers. I just don't want to breathe the smoke.

Last edited by sgrannel on 01 Jun 2011, 6:07 pm, edited 3 times in total.

But doesn't big pharma profit more if people are sick from smoking? And in making the drugs to stop smoking? They profit on both ends. Big Pharma isn't interested in keeping people healthy. Healthy people equal dwindling profts.

I'm not understanding how Big Pharma profits here. How are tobacco companies in direct competition with pharmaceuticals?

And doesn't the forced addiction bother or concern you at all? Tobacco companies intentionally altered cigarettes to make them more addictive. They had advertising strategies that intentionally targeted children because the longer they smoked the more profit the company could make. In their own studies they knew they were killing people and buried those tests to hide it from the government and the public. Does none of that bother you? I mean this is the basis for the anti-smoking movement...

This is true. Any more than two walls you cannot smoke in it - even if it is an open-fronted bus shelter with no one around for miles to even smell your smoke. Of course now they're trying to ban smokers being around doorways, which is fine in some areas where non-smokers may have to pass by and get attacked by smoke clouds, but it would also include unused doorways and if they do it as planned (no smoking within X distance of a door or building) that means smokers won't even be allowed to stand next to a building for minimal protection from elements. Smokers will have to stand in the middle of a road...so no shelter, and the humiliation of standing like a moron in the middle of the road by yourself.

I'll answer the other points later but in actual quite a number of the better pubs are secretly breaking the law by providing outside shelters with more protection than the law allows in order to make their customers more comfortable.

No doubt some corporations are evil, but don't forget about the importance of taking responsibility and being informed at the individual level. Even if test results were hidden, it can hardly be considered a well-kept secret that smoking is harmful.

We're back possibly to looking at issues such as nicotine replacement therapy and drugs like Zyban here - such methods don't work, you end-up with addicts bouncing between paying a fortune to the tobacco companies for tobacco and paying a fortune to pharmaceutical companies for nicotine replacement (patches) or other cessation methods (Zyban) or alternatives to smoking (e-cigarettes). The tobacco companies keep smokers addicted, but then the pharmaceutical companies in turn do exactly the same not by purposefully selling products that don't work per-say, but by using the same sort of propaganda as tobacco companies - pharmaceutical companies and tobacco companies are both reliant on each other to keep their customers.

I wouldn't entirely dismiss the notion that some people psychologically convince themselves that they're addicted when they're just not, they just like it/use it as a stress reliever. Some "alcoholics" aren't alcoholics totally dependent on alcohol, they're just heavy drinkers, which is hugely different although there is obviously a massive grey area in that respect in discerning harm. Someone can drink more than an alcoholic and not suffer the same dependency issues.

I would also mention the fact that the pharma industry puts drugs on the market that are widely believed to be dangerous yet sells them to the NHS anyway. Chantix has been officially blamed for hundreds of deaths, violent unprovoked attacks, mood swings and psychotic episodes, for instance.

As well as that, as Bloodheart says: the NHS endorses quitting mechanisms that are both extremely costly and have a very high failure rate (patches, gum). In fact, the cost of them is such that it makes more sense for a smoker just to carry on smoking rather than use these. Official treatment therapies that are proven to have a much higher success rate, like Carr's Easyway, is not promoted in any way by the NHS.

In all fairness I'd go so far as to say most smokers are psychologically convinced they're addicted - but then that is an addiction itself. Nicotine is highly addictive, but the chemical addiction is minor when compared to many other drugs, the physical effects are the stress relief and like described before; the withdrawal leads to stress, that stress is then relieved by smoking the next cigarette. It's the mental addiction that gets you, the idea that smoking helps with stress, that you need it in certain social situations, etc.

You should consider reading a copy of Easyway Tequila, see what you make of it, although you'd be more entertained by their clinics as they do a lovely presentation of old cigarette adverts and propaganda.

I remember before patches were available on the NHS (they control the dosage and there are various other rules to control how you quit - you don't meet their rules, you have to wait another six months to try again, not sure what happens if you keep failing at quitting) I actually used to sit thinking that because of the expense of smoking I couldn't afford to buy the patches to be able to quit.

I know a guy who's mother was a chain smoker, then following an accident was in a deep coma for about 6 months.

Six months is plenty long for any physiological addiction to wear off, but when she came out of it, the very first thing she did - in the hospital bed - was ask for a cigarette.

So i think there is certainly a psychological component.

All the same, i favor restricting legal smoking areas until smokers are required to carry around little mylar tents that they are required to do all of their smoking in when they are outside of their own home. And even then only within designated tent smoking areas.

It's the least we can do to help them realize that their addiction is annoying as all getout.

anything can be anoying to someone,
i am anoyed when people star blurting religion in public adresses,
i get annoyed when people let belief trump fact.
in general i get anoyed by many things, especially the smell of exhaust, i hate it.

people can make a choice as long as it affects no one but themselves in short terms, anything can carry pretty muh anywhere if you are willing to spend enough time doing it.

i think the notion that the outside atmosphere is "contaminated" by this in any way beyond a couple of meters to be ridicoulous.
i also find the basic idea of legislating about public spaces where it isnt needed ethically wrong, i can understand many of the smoking bans, some simply have no other basis than someone trying to elevate themselves above others.
in principle if i was walking in a park with open room all around you might as well move away from me as i from you, i dont like smoking next to anyone who isnt smoking themselves, but there are limits.

People just don't respect freedoms and yet if because of how they are they were not allowed to be as free as others holly hell they would rip some asses. It all needs balance and within reason. But the folks that would approve the removal of freedoms do not themselves deserve freedoms and yet the democratically ethical would still hold the eye for an eye removal of freedom unethical.

I like freedom, and I want others to have freedom, too. The problem is that, as is often the case, the freedom of one group is placed in inherent opposition to the freedom of another group. I want the freedom not to have to breathe smoke. Do you suppose it is unethical to remove that freedom from someone? Some of you want the freedom to smoke regular cigarettes wherever you want. I don't think even possible to preserve both freedoms perfectly. The real problem with smoke is that many people find it particularly obnoxious. That's an opinion, but it's an opinion held by many including me. Smoke, unlike liquid that stays in the bottle until you drink it, is very hard to keep away from other people who don't wish to breathe it, especially in close-quarter and indoor situations. I myself am surprised at how my logic and premises based on firsthand experiences as a former child have led to one of those "For The Children" arguments, and how I seem to find myself on the anti-freedom side from the point of view of smokers. But there you have it.

But for what it's worth, I'm opposed to any bans which are not enforceable. That means children will suffer if their parents don't protect them, but maybe there's nothing that can be done about that. Humans and other animals have evolved instincts to protect and care for their offspring, and individuals who fail to do this may be regarded as less fit, reproductively. Therefore, for those who breathe smoke onto their kids, if your kid gets sick or gets a later start on having kids of his own so he ends up having fewer of them because it took longer to get his life squared away, then I guess we call that "Darwin skips a generation.".

Last edited by sgrannel on 02 Jun 2011, 12:22 pm, edited 3 times in total.

As I have explained in detail in this post a set form of limitation to smokers freedoms but not the overreaching ones.

Have you tried the e-cigarette? What was the result? I've asked smokers I know about trying it, but until they can say "I've tried it and I didn't like it" or "I've tried it but I like regular cigarettes better", anything said about the reasons for not changing over, evil corporations, bans that haven't happened yet and may not ever happen, nazis, the supposed unfairness of seat belt laws, and so on, amounts to no more than drawing circles in the air.



Now this is something I don't understand. On the face of it, placing a legally enforced upper bound on the facilities provided to a group, sounds unreasonable. Could anyone with a legal background provide an explanation about this that makes sense?

Smokers can't have the freedom to smoke in public areas because theres no way non smokers can avoid it.Cigarette smoke is full of poisons and carcinogens so why should non smokers have to breath in this filth. There should be a few pubs or smoking rooms in towns, villages etc which have a special licence to allow smokers, which will get them off the street. Smoking should not be allowed outside buildings or outside seated areas of restaurants. Some smokers can get very rude and aggressive in defending their addition.