Smoking ban in public places

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Yeah, it sucks that they are losing their privileges to smoke in public places. It also sucks that my throat has to close up when people smoke near me in public places. Someone has to suffer...may as well make it the person less likely to die from an action. *shrugs* For the record, I am not saying that I agree with the ban. I'm "on the fence" so to speak. I am just saying that it seems like the lesser of two evils. It is fine with me if someone wants to slowly kill themselves smoking cigarettes, but it doesn't seem right to do it when non smokers are present because 1) you don't know who has allergies or asthma or whatever, and 2) some people are genuinely concerned about inhaling second hand. SOMEONE (smokers or non smokers) has to get the short end of the stick. Handing it to the smokers seems safer, in my opinion. I am thinking they should just make designated areas in public places, so that everyone that wants to avoid them can, and everyone who wants a smoke can have one. But that would be too easy, and even then there would be people b*tching about it.

The pharmaceutical companies are actively lobbying to have e-cigs banned. Patches have an extremely low success rate as well as being even more expensive than regular cigarettes. No mean feat.

So what's the alternative?

In Britain and Ireland, they've been kicked out of pubs. All pubs. No deviations. Even where 80% or even 90% of all the customers are smokers and it's a beer-only pub, they can't allow smoking. Or the landlord gets a heavy fine.

E-cigarettes are unknown and are generally not tolerated because people will think they're smoking. So even though it's legal, often the pub owners won't allow it. There's a massive fear of the council and licensing people. Often other European countries tacitly ignore the bans where they become inconvenient, but not the British or Irish.

This has fragmented communities, closed thousands upon thousands of pubs, turned people against each other and means that for a huge section of the population there is now no real incentive for going out to drink. Which has led to atomised, American-style bars, full of loud football, aggressive punters and no real ale. There used to be a very well-known massenpartei about every little pub, whether from village to town to even a city. That has been lost.

That's what they're trying to do here in the UK.
Consider this; nicotine replacement therapy is free on the NHS* - if it was just about nicotine addiction then the UK would be smoke-free, but nicotine replacement therapy is still just a willpower method for quitting, not a replacement for smoking, and thus why it does not work in most cases, even for those it does work for most will tell you that it was tough and they probably still get cravings for cigarettes.

* Even if this was not available on the NHS, an inhalator costs a maximum of £94 per month verses a minimum of £180 per month for cigarettes, so still a cheaper option as well as a less harmful option. Rolling your own cigarettes is also slightly cheaper as well as less harmful as they contain fewer poisons, carcinogens and heavy metals. But again, cigarettes remain to be preferred.

E-cigarettes are becoming popular here, again they're cheaper and they're not a method of quitting smoking as much as they are a safer alternative to smoking as there's less harmful toxins like formaldehyde or benzine, addiction is still addiction but they're at least not as harmful as normal cigarettes and they are closer to smoking a cigarette than using an inhalator - however these may be banned.

The Nicotine War is warming up! - http://allencarr.com/274/the-nicotine-war-is-warming-up

Smokers don't enjoy nicotine or smoking, lots of non-smokers seem to think this as it's hard to understand why smokers continue to smoke knowing the risks - why would they smoke if it wasn't enjoyable? No one says this about heroine addition.

So it's beginning to look like government policy is being shaped to suit pharmaceutical companies here. Keep proper smoking legal, but with enormous taxes (£6.50 for a pack of 20 v less than £4 in Europe) and make it so socially uncomfortable that smokers feel only slightly above paedophiles, and in some cases are treated disgracefully by the State (see the situation that elderly ill people are put in by the NHS if they want to smoke), whilst continuously badgering people to stop smoking using their taxes. Make nicotine patches that have a very high failure rate and that are also very expensive. Keep ratcheting up the taxes. Further denormalise smoking by getting rid of cigarette counters (which will probably kill off a lot of the smaller shops who can't pay for the refit).

If this scenario was in a different time it would be called bullying.

Oh, and 99% of all money that goes to ASH comes straight from government. Less than 1% comes from private donations.

Last edited by Tequila on 26 May 2011, 9:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Beginning? Granted we're not as bad as the US, but still here in the UK as with most countries it's a wonder whether the government has any power.

Sorry, what I meant to say is that it's getting more and more blatant, more and more intolerant, more and more illiberal.

It says a lot that tobacco companies, retailers and the general public are entirely shut out of the discussions while obsessive state-funded anti-smoking groups and the drug companies largely get free rein.

It would have been perfectly fine to compromise - allow publicans to choose what they'd like to do. They didn't want to do that because pubs that did that would very quickly lose business (as happened with JD Wetherspoons who had actually introduced a voluntary ban in its pubs before the ban became law - they quickly dropped it as they were losing business). But they weren't interested in compromise, they were interested in bigotry. So everyone got it in the neck - even private member's clubs.

Another point to consider: I was at Faro Airport the other day, in the smoking room adjacent to the bar. There must have been 15 people inside this little smoking-allowed enclave - I struggled to get a seat. The bar was a huge, open-plan thing and there were only about ten people in there.

In its extreme form, anti-smoker hysteria ends up like this (http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2010/08/cataloguing-psychosis.html).

And the possibilities of a home smoking ban? See here: http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-home-smoking-ban-possibilities.html

Last edited by Tequila on 26 May 2011, 9:22 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Well I go to downtown denver....in Colorado just about every day for college, and no one cares that people smoke ciggerettes. They certainly are not going to totally ban smoking there anytime soon. I can't speak for everywhere.....but yeah I don't think its likely around this area. And I know smoking is terribly unhealthy but it is my choice.....just like it is my choice if I want to have a beer.

You're a dirty, disgusting, selfish, addicted, ugly smoker. Burn in Hell.















(tongue in cheek / sorry if you didn't get it)

I know it is absolutely horrid....but hey if its the dirty, disgusting, selfish, addicted ugly smokers who go to hell I dont mind, they are probably better company then the people who go to heaven. lol

I strongly believe that smoking is not a right when for example walking down the street having to breath in other peoples second hand smoke. Alot of smokers are ignorant. I can't fathom out why people should sympathize with them. Roy Castle was a passive smoker who died from a smoking related disease. It is my right as a none smoker to breath fresh air and not have to breath in other peoples filthy smoke. I don't care if people want to smoke as long as I have the freedom to go anywhere I like and don't have to breath it in. Besides do you realize the damage smoking does. My grandad died of lung cancer in the early 70s and my cousin recently nearly died from pnemonia because his immune system had been weakened through smoking and he was unable to fight of an infection. It also causes yellow teeth, ageing, hearth attacks, strokes etc to name just a few. Nicotine is one of the most deadly poisons known to man and that is just one of the carcinogens in tobacco.

I realise non-smokers do not like to breath second hand smoke which is why I do not smoke near non-smokers. And I really have no issue with outlawing smoking inside of 'public' buildings I do not think they should force it on private buildings for instance if a lot of people who smoke go to a certain bar the owner of the bar should be able to make that decision. If they want to run a no smoking establishment they certainly should but if not they should not be forced to. I think the government needs to mostly stay out of personal choice in that instance.

As for the health risks, I am aware of them.........I am even cutting down, ok well I'm only cutting down because they are expensive and there are other things I like more. But yes I know the risks, it is however still my choice.

Do you breathe in the fumes of cars? How much good do you think that's really doing you? A cigarette holds a tiny flame. Cars, lorries, vans have big old exhausts. We all need to use cars, don't we? Are we banning cars now?



Of what? Care to back up that assumption?



Ah, I knew we'd get to that canard again. You do know that Castle liked a drink or two, and was an entertainer? He smoked cigars too.



Would you like lots of lovely car fumes with that little walk you're planning on?



That means nowhere then, doesn't it.

What about pubs were the vast majority of the customers are smokers? Not just people who enjoy socialising in smoking pubs with smoking people, who they see as their friends, lovers, acquaintances and confidants but actual smokers? The sort of place you'd never visit in a million years? Should they be forced to conform to the diktats of the likes of you because you don't like their personal preferences?

Actually, the smokers vs. car exhaust argument has been effectively decoupled these days. Of course, there are exceptions in older cars, but modern gasoline fueled autos have exhaust catalysts and controls that do an excellent job of cleaning up the smell and pollution. When I'm out running, if I smell a passing car, generally it's the cigarette smoke from the driver that I smell and not the engine exhaust. It's not my business to tell people they shouldn't drive or to question their reasons for thinking they need to. Maybe they enjoy driving. Some smart people decided that fixing the exhaust pollution problem was a better idea than trying to control other people's behavior, so now we have better cars, to the benefit of all, including the drivers themselves. Something analogous might be said about e-cigs vs. tobacco combustion.

Last edited by sgrannel on 27 May 2011, 6:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It is a smokers right as a human being to breath fresh air and not have to breathe in harmful smoke - addiction denies them that right.

Smokers are ignorant because they're addicts - people cannot sympathise fully unless they've been in the same situation where their freedoms have been taken from them by something so evil. They're victims, no one would want you to sympathise with that.

Allen Carr died from lung cancer as a result of second-hand smoke - he chose this death, he quit smoking and could have lead a long life, instead he chose to help others quit smoking too, it was helping smokers in his clinics that killed him - he had sympathy, that sympathy saw him helping more smokers quit and so in turn also helping more non-smokers breathe fresh air.

You have a choice to not inhale second-hand smoke - don't go into a building where people are smoking and don't hang round smokers, if someone in front of you walking down the street is smoking hold back, walk ahead or cross the road. The amount you inhale from walking behind a smoker down the street is minimal, not enough to kill you - in fact, I'd argue the shower gel or shampoo you wash with in the morning, the chemicals in your sofa or carpet, dioxin in your toilet paper, various nasties in the air or your food, all pose more of a risk to your health than a sniff of second-hand cigarette smoke.

WOW! Smoking is harmful?
Maybe we should let smokers know this...obviously, if they knew this it'd change everything.
Everyone knows what harm smoking can do, if we're going with personal experience, trust me my experience trumps yours.

All smokers should have the freedom to quit if they wish, but it should be their choice and governments should support them rather than encourage them to keep smoking and fuel hatred from the public towards them if they do.

But e-cigarettes are either already banned or pharma companies are lobbying governments for a ban. So, while e-cigs are an option now they won't be an option for a great deal longer if vested interests get their way.

Last edited by Tequila on 27 May 2011, 7:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.