Smoking ban in public places

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Well I am aware of the danger......and I admit that is one reason why I have cut down, I might completely quit but for now I've cut down to no more then 5 a day. That probably still sounds terrible to a non-smoker but it beats smoking an entire pack within 1 to 2 days.

At least you are going in the right direction and I hope you are able to give it up.

This is a discussion. If you don't like it you don't have to take part in it. You have obviously got some personal issues.

I wanted to insert the following statement not necessary of a personal opinion but of a consideration I have thought about but have not grasped entirely.

When does social medicines prescription become socialism?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_medicine

It's not a discussion. You're not taking on point the substantive points raised - i.e. that smokers know the risks that they're taking (and are told every time they look at a cigarette packet, every time they go to the doctor's, every time someone harasses them in the street, every time someone "fake coughs", every time someone tells them to give up, every time they switch on the TV, every 15 minutes on radio - the UK Government is the biggest advertiser in the UK, or close to it). The deluge of exhortation and harrassment of smokers, which is part of a multi-billion dollar industry, is staggering.

It's getting to the stage that a lot of thinking smokers are turning away from the traditional media outlets because of the obsessive bigotry of one side and the prevention (by the Establishment) of allowing the other side to fairly and honestly state their case. It's not about health; there's far too much resting on this now.

In the face of all this, do you really think they don't know that what they are doing is bad for them?

Passive smoking isn't a big problem. Traffic fumes and environmental poisoning are much bigger threats and probably kill many more people than do people smoking.

They've been kicked out of places that have specifically catered to them for hundreds of years. Places that you would most likely never set foot in. Do you regularly visit working men's clubs, or private member's clubs and are you a regular drinker in pubs? These are the places that are suffering because of an ideological dogma.

The British public never got a real choice on the smoking ban - it was taken out of their hands altogether by MPs who listened to publicly-funded anti-tobacco groups rather than those they represent.

There is no end to bigotry like this; as I said, it's already encroaching into the private sphere.

robin45: do you believe people should be able to smoke in their own homes?

People can do what they like in there own home but as long as it does'nt upset anyone else. Smoking in public upsets alot of people. I remember an extreme case where a professional boxer who asked some people not to smoke near him got stabbed to death. What I am saying is smokers attitudes must change and they must respect non smokers. I don't see much evidence for this. The majority of the public don't like. I hope it is phased out permanently one day.

So a visitor has the right to dictate what I can and can't do in my own home now?! A visitor that told me I couldn't smoke in my own house would be thrown out immediately. At the end of the day, it's my house.



People can be offended by absolutely anything. In the vast majority of cases, these people are oversensitive or deliberately claiming offence maliciously.

It's reasonable not to want to have someone blow smoke in your face. It's not reasonable to ban smoking on private property.



This is exactly the sort of trash I'm talking about. Psychopathic scumbags who will pick on someone because they smoke. There are some very vicious anti-smokers out there. Like here (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBgQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffightantismokertyranny.blogspot.com%2F2009%2F07%2Fsmokers-health-anti-smoker-hate.html&ei=h1HlTYT6E5TF8QOysOH9Bg&usg=AFQjCNGhBDmEecJd1_FxkT9F3uoHlHt4Yg).


There is a much better case I believe for smokers feeling that they're being officially harassed.

Ever heard of the Ciggy Busters? (http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=%22attacks+on+smokers%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#sclient=psy&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&source=hp&q=Ciggy+Busters&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=1ed59b1bdec39fbe&biw=1918&bih=963)



Smokers are much more likely to respect individual choice. They don't respect people bullying them into changing their behaviour. A lot of people won't answer back in the face of bullying and harassment but some will and forcefully too.

My point is this: in the UK the electorate was never asked about the smoking ban! The political parties pledged in their manifesto to have a compromise, whereby there would be ventilated areas in pubs. Once the election was over, they simply reneged on it.

I think this all comes down to how far social rejection can go to effect individuated freedoms. In public areas where a smoker has made reasonable distance it's a matter of the right to govern air space when otherwise vehicles can make me personally feel sick with their black smoke. And collectively the manifestation of the common exhaust it is proven to effect individuals with at least some forms of asthma resulting in death whereas a smokers contribution is much the silly comparison. The real other end of it is a smoker is a tool of perceived marketing toward youth and otherwise like would be a Movie with a rating with permission. The example like a cowboy poster ad of a muscular presentation smoking or a in general appealing female model smoking is glamorization. Hence like these ads have been band smokers are being treated similarly as poor examples when both freedom of choice and expression regardless of actual intent is removed.

It is my personal decision that smoking in publicly funded outside areas with reasonable distance as compared to a vehicle with bad smog is constitutionally permissible and of human rights in general.

Asthma & Smog Links

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w ... ASzXee68AA

This is already past tense for many if not most of us in the states. Smoking is illegal in public buildings in many states.

If you smoke, in your own home, with infants or children in the house, I believe that is child abuse. The child cannot make the choice. The child does not know nor comprehend the life time risks. I never smoked yet as an infant, I developed 'asthma' from my parents smoking in the home. It magically went away when my mother quit and my father was sent to a 'smoking room'. My father was dead of smoking related cancer at 52. My mother dies of breast cancer at 48 - they could not pin her cancer on her smoking earlier in life but it was implicated as a possible factor.

Second hand smoke is also toxic. I don't want to take away anyones freedom of choice but I'll be damned if I let you take away mine in the process. Smoking is choice and I choose not to. Some ignorant git blowing smoke my way negates my choice.

Nicotine is as addictive as heroin. Yet heroin is illegal and smoking persists as a 'choice'. I have nothing against choice but I do have a problem with inconsistency. If addicts are legally allowed to feed their potentially deadly smoking habit then let's also legalize other 'controlled' substances after all, it's their choice.

Yet outside differs from inside just like vehicles running inside a closed garage kills people. Also smoking around a baby or youth in the same shared living space is abuse. However with regards to public space there comes a point where your specific usage of a vehicle infringes also on the health of the public even more even if more popular and just because that is more socially popular then smoking because people idolize the looks of cars and enjoy time saving convenance does not make that ok. Additionally a distance from another individual there comes a point where popularity comparatively is the persuading factor. Whereas just because more people enjoy driving compared to smoking which is disliked does not make it unfairly ethical to smoke with reasonable distance although still in view.

How many people have been known to have died solely from SHS? i.e. Not where it has been exacerbated by something else? (like asthma)

Plus, smoking bans and higher prices don't work. They've never worked in history. So what's to start them working now?

Excessive taxes promote counterfeiting, smuggling, crime and people deciding to buy their wares in lower-tax jurisdiction.
Prohibition encourages… well, just look at the US Prohibition movement.

By banning, restricting and castigating smoking you're making it so much more attractive to the younger generation.

In my case: when I was growing up there were so many films here that were cut and banned by our film censorship board. I saw it as my duty to see as many of them as possible, to defy the censorship and to defy being told what to do. Most of the films were amateurish, tiresome crap but there were some gems in there too. Most of these films are legally available here now, mostly uncut. They were just bad horror films. These horror films were kindergarten material compared to the real-life footage of people being murdered on the Internet, footage of terrorist attacks, and other nasty stuff.

Prohibition only makes the prohibited thing seem even more desirable. Repress something and it comes back, many times as strong as the original intent.

All these bans end up doing is criminalising normal behaviour. The - mostly compliant - populace will follow these rules but a lot won't. People get resentful and will covertly flout the law if it is perceived as unreasonable.

And calling smoking in a child's presence "child abuse" is disgracefully trivialising the subject of real child abuse. You should be ashamed.

Due to how society has become dependent (addicted) to convenance and modeled in it's essential frameworks the withdrawal symptoms of fossil fuel and their toxic destruction will likely be death due to starvation, disease and shock from the inability to go window shopping or have delivery from internet. (humor alert).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWeSiBE7kg4[/youtube]

The carcinogenic propeties of second hand smoke are well documented...

American Cancer Society
National Institutes of Health
CDC

A good deal of heart disease can be attributed to smoking AND second hand smoke. Heart disease is the #1 killer in the US. I'd say that's reason enough to consider smoking, in general, as a public health crisis.

Smoking isn't a normal behavior. It is forced addiction to a product through intentional tampering to keep you purchasing the product. Anti-smoking programs are a part of every American childs public school education beginning in kindergarten. Rates of smoking are continually in decline because of aggressive public awareness campaigns. The opinion of smoking is changing drastically here. And with good reason. People were PISSED when they found out they were intentionally addicted to keep the money rolling in. and the government was forced to react to rising cost of health care for those who made that 'personal choice'. That 'personal choice' costs taxpayers billions annually to care for those who choose to poison themselves. Have you ever seen the ratres for health or life insurance if you tell them you smoke? They think you're a bad risk too.

If you know the facts and accept that kind of risk for yourself - more power to you. Just don't impose your choice on other people.

Yeah they should have organic smoking options. Everyone makes choices about what they eat, where they live (nonsmoking or smoking attached living apartment complexes), the kinds of cars they drive if they drive at all and ultimately how society formulates it's own dependencies upon one another and not. It still comes down to choice and if you choose to walk in the path of a smoker when you have other options to stray to the side then you make fundamental choices just as people choose to go shopping in a personal vehicle, on a bus or went there on an electric scooter which plugs into the wall and receives it's energy from let's say a coal plant or even in part which then contributes to young children dieing or suffer from Asthma.

Life has risks and choices. The two must coexist as equally as possible. Otherwise society does not function based on garanteed individual liberties but by popularists dictatorships. Individual liberties held intact seem to protect individuals from mass psychosis based upon fear effecting natural human fundamental liberties.

My suggestion is to out right ban tobacco and replace it with pot heads.

I am happy for the smoking bans in public places. I got tired of smelling the smoke in restaurants, etc. What was irritating was finding a seat in a restaurant away from smokers, and then a smoker would sit in the booth beside you. Most restaurants had non-smoking areas, but many where I live did not. The way I looked at it was this---I didn't do anything to irritate the smokers, but when a smoker fired up...well...I breathed what I found to be irritating---the smoke. I have a right not to breathe harmful smoke. If I were to avoid it back then, then I would have been picking up my dinner plate, drink, etc. and moving...moving....and moving to different tables in the restaurants where I live.

I think it's well established the science of indoor smoking. However I'd argue that environments that cater to individuals solely of a certain age group have a right to post up the dangers of entering about second hand smoking. They also have a right to install advanced air filtration systems to serve their clients best interest respecting their free rights to liberty of choice. The argument about health care costs are an external factor irrelevant to personal choice as a system that deems to cover personal choices covers them or not and should not evade fundamental human liberties of choice because that is part of natural consequences, the human condition and freedom of thought and not of a moral dictatorships ability to choose for them within reason.

While I am thinking of the losses of smoking especially to family members of smokers who loose a loved one due to years of smoking there simply is a limitation to limiting freedoms. It is my prediction that gradually indoor bans to smoking in more mature settings will be overturn in time. Also I do not perceive a likelihood of outdoor smoking being much more further limited then now.