Ban smoking or cars?

[Jemble Fred]

Edit: oh yeah, sorry, ban both. Ban sneezing. Ban everything.

It is done.

[morgs]

I would like to ban smoking in cars.  Just as dangerous as mobile phones, plus they can't see properly.

In fact, I never let smoking drivers out.  So there.

And I wish they wouldn't chuck there cigarette butts out of the window (and most do).   Grrrrrrrrr.  I am hot and agitated.

[weirdbeard]

IAnd I wish they wouldn't chuck there cigarette butts out of the window (and most do).   Grrrrrrrrr.  I am hot and agitated.

Is there a pavement in the country which hasn't got either a used cigarette but or used chewing gum on it.  If so, I haven't seen it.

[Peking O]

Is there a pavement in the country which hasn't got either a used cigarette but or used chewing gum on it.  If so, I haven't seen it.

It's not hard to see why the UK has got a reputation for being a country of moaners is it? I mean honestly, if you're scouring pavements for signs of gum and ciggies you need to get out of the house more oft....oh wait a minute, that doesn't work. Hmm.

[morgs]

I'm watching you Peking O....

[Rev]

Having a smoking area in a pub is like having a pissing area in a swimming pool.

Ok. Having a permitted pissing area in a pool would be silly right? Because even if people wanted to piss in the pool, and took part in the pissing in the specified pissing area, the piss would still drift into the non-pissing area and piss on the non-pissers. And the non-pissers didn't come to the pool to swim around in other peoples' piss, which is why they opted for the non-pissing area, but they still get pissed on. Y'see what I was meaning now?

Oh, I knew what you meant, but expressed myself poorly.  Here's the thing:  if you go into a pub, you know (or know within five minutes of walking through the door) the kind of environment you are entering.  If it not to your liking, then you are free to go somewhere else.  Pissing in pools bothers everyone in the pool, smoking in pubs just bothers a very vocal few.

Roy Castle was mentioned at some point in the thread, as if he was the patron saint of non-smokers.  Yes, his death was linked to passive smoking, but we're talking about several decades of nightly appearances in the kind of smoke-bubble working men's clubs that barely exist any more.  Anyone who thinks that sitting in an air-conditioned building where people are smoking a couple of nights a week is having an adverse effect on their health probably washes their hands with Dettol a strict fifteen times after using the toilet.

[Jaffa The Cake]

I don't really have a big problem with smoke or smokers. As I said, it just pisses me off that if I want to go out to a pub, I have to come home stinking because of someone's drug addiction.

As you said, I could just not go out. But I don't want to be a prisoner in my own home because of someone's drug addiction.

Lemmie think of something really obtuse...

Imagine your favourite pub. Now, a new group of people move into the area and make it their local, they like to have vomiting contests. They have their own special area in which they are allowed to do this, but their antics can be heard and smelled throughout the entire pub. Obviously, you are concerned not only about the unpleasant smell, but also the heath risks caused by having sick everywhere. Do you:

A. Think fair enough, I'll spend my time socialising in expensive restaurants where being sick is not permitted due to the food.

B. Think this is not fair, why should I suffer for someone else's bad habit?

[Rev]

Imagine your favourite pub. Now, a new group of people move into the area and make it their local, they like to have vomiting contests.

You fell at that fence.  You could have had a point with this one if smoking in pubs was a new thing, but it's something that was going on long before you or I were of drinking age.  Or crawling age.  Or existing age (yeah, I'm not happy with 'existing age' either, but I painted myself into a corner).

[Jaffa The Cake]

Yeah, but I'm willing to bet not smoking has been around longer than smoking. In fact, not smoking was around before humanity.

Why should the length of time people have been smoking in pubs make it any more right or change the point at hand? If things shouldn't change because they'd been the case for over x amount of time, nothing would ever change.

[MojoJojo]

Imagine your favourite pub. Now, a new group of people move into the area and make it their local, they like to have vomiting contests. They have their own special area in which they are allowed to do this, but their antics can be heard and smelled throughout the entire pub. Obviously, you are concerned not only about the unpleasant smell, but also the heath risks caused by having sick everywhere. Do you:

A. Think fair enough, I'll spend my time socialising in expensive restaurants where being sick is not permitted due to the food.

B. Think this is not fair, why should I suffer for someone else's bad habit?

Imagine my local pub... I like to go there and have a few quiet drinks and play some pool. However, if I go there pretty much any night of the week, I can be almost certain that there will be a group of 6 or 7 blokes who have had 6 or more beers each. They will be loud and obnoixious, and generally make everyone else in the pub uncomfortable. They also present a considerable health risk, as they are likely to beat the crap out of anyone they decide they don't like the look of.

Maybe we should ban drinking in pubs too?

You know that drinking is something to expect in pubs, and the same applies to smoking.

I think the issue is that people go to pubs to relax, and act in a free manner.... a rule against smoking interfers with this.

[5 Knuckle Shuffle]

Imagine my local pub... I like to go there and have a few quiet drinks and play some pool. However, if I go there pretty much any night of the week, I can be almost certain that there will be a group of 6 or 7 blokes who have had 6 or more beers each. They will be loud and obnoixious, and generally make everyone else in the pub uncomfortable. They also present a considerable health risk, as they are likely to beat the crap out of anyone they decide they don't like the look of.

Maybe we should ban drinking in pubs too?

You know that drinking is something to expect in pubs, and the same applies to smoking.

I think the issue is that people go to pubs to relax, and act in a free manner.... a rule against smoking interfers with this.

Yes, and if those blokes/ women are noisy and obnoxious, they will generally be asked to leave. You say they pose a *possible* health risk to those they don't like the look of. Well smokers *are* a health risk to *everybody*. They don't discriminate just because they might not like the look of you.
You also say that drinking and smoking is to be expected in pubs. But so's fighting and obnoxious behaviour. Does that make it right? I like to go to a pub, relax,and act in a free manner, but smoking interfers with this.

[MojoJojo]

Yes, and if those blokes/ women are noisy and obnoxious, they will generally be asked to leave. You say they pose a *possible* health risk to those they don't like the look of. Well smokers *are* a health risk to *everybody*.

Sorry, saying "possible risk" is redundant, as risk means that there is some chance either way. I would say the health risks posed by a group of drunken yobs probably balance reasonaly well. I have no figures backing this up, but its a fairly redundant point.

They don't discriminate just because they might not like the look of you.
You also say that drinking and smoking is to be expected in pubs. But so's fighting and obnoxious behaviour. Does that make it right? I like to go to a pub, relax,and act in a free manner, but smoking interfers with this.

Well, if you keep on going back to pubs, then you obviosuly find it weorth the sacrifice. What the free market seems to tell us is that if smoking is banned, smokers don't don't find it worth the sacrifice. OK, not exactly a very good argument, or a very fair one. But if there really was such a high demand for non-smoking pubs by people who go to pubs, then there would be non-smoking pubs. Instead, we seem to have a vocal group who are trying to get the government to ban it even though the evidence suggests that the majority of people do not want it.

[butnut]

ha ha ha - here's an understanding minister:

Let poor smoke, says health secretary

Let poor smoke, says health secretary

Patrick Wintour and Colin Blackstock
Wednesday June 9, 2004
The Guardian

The health secretary, John Reid, angered health campaigners and anti-smoking groups when he said yesterday that smoking is one of the few pleasures left for the poor on sink estates and in working men's clubs.

Mr Reid said that the middle classes were obsessed with giving instruction to people from lower socio-economic backgrounds and that smoking was not one of the worst problems facing poorer people.

"I just do not think the worst problem on our sink estates by any means is smoking, but it is an obsession of the learned middle class," he said. "What enjoyment does a 21-year-old single mother of three living in a council sink estate get? The only enjoyment sometimes they have is to have a cigarette."

His statement provoked an angry reaction from anti-smoking campaigners. A spokesman for the anti-smoking group Ash said: "It's incredibly patronising to talk about smoking in this way. The argument is that we should have smoke-free work environments. John Reid has got this hang-up about the middle class imposing itself on the lower class, when it's the least empowered, people like bar workers, who are having smoking imposed on them."

According to Ash, men in socio-economic groups AB are twice as likely to reach the age of 70 as those in groups DE, with smoking being the biggest contributing factor. Women in social class 5 are almost twice as likely to die from lung cancer as women from social class 1.

Mr Reid's deliberately challenging remarks at a Labour Big Conversation event in south London suggests he will be cautioning against an outright ban on smoking in public places being included in the Labour manifesto.

He said he was an advocate of informed choice for adults, rather than bans, describing himself as favouring empowerment, rather than instruction. Mr Reid fears advocates of a ban are behaving as if members of the public are incapable of coming to their own sensible decisions.

Mr Reid's views were welcomed by Simon Clark, director of the smokers' lobby group Forest (Freedom of the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco), who said: "We're not looking to encourage people to smoke. There's a lot of people out there for who smoking is a lot of pleasure and it's encouraging to see that John Reid recognises that."

Mr Reid's comments put him at some distance from Tony Blair, who said last week the government was considering measures to ban smoking in public places but hinted such measures could be left to local authorities. Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, has also made clear that legal bans would be a last resort.

Faced by calls for a ban at the meeting attended by health professionals and the local community, Mr Reid said: "Be very careful, that you do not patronise people because sometimes, as my mother used to say, people from those lower socio-economic backgrounds have very few pleasures and one of them is smoking. I worry slightly about the unanimity of the middle class professional activists on this."

Ministers are currently wrestling over whether to back a nationwide ban on smoking in public places, allowing councils to impose bans.

Mr Reid insisted the government had not come to any decision, but added that if the government imposed any smoking restrictions, it would be done "in the British way", and not ape the bans introduced in either New York or Ireland.

Dr Reid, who gave up a 60-a-day habit himself 18 months ago, is deeply suspicious of bans on choice for adults.

He argued these people really needed help by changing the fundamental social conditions which led them to smoke. "My argument is that empowerment is different from instruction. You have got to be very careful that you do not say to the 75-year-old that 'you are better off if you are not going to be able to go to a working men's club and smoke'."

The British Medical Association said that it was surprised by Mr Reid's remarks, but it would continue to lobby for a ban. "Quite apart from the individual damage to smokers, there's passive smoking to consider. It isn't just damage they do themselves, it's the damage they do to others."

The minister was more sympathetic to calls for compulsory simplified food labelling setting out the sugar, salt and fat content of products. He also recognised that children needed better advice on nutrition and better school diets.

Mr Reid also said he wanted to find a new way to involve the ethnic minorities and working class in their own health, including by opening health care centres in shopping centres, or by using health advice from football clubs. "We need to find places where people work, that are more accessible, more identifiable for them, less preachy, less hectoring, less dictatorial, then we may achieve success in the field of public health," he said.

Let's not try and educate the poor, or enrich their lives with art and cluture - let's make them smoke, as they can pay more money to the government. Hooray!

[Rootin' Tootin' Raspberry]

drivers, smokers, they all piss on us man

[butnut]

Faced by calls for a ban at the meeting attended by health professionals and the local community, Mr Reid said: "Be very careful, that you do not patronise people because sometimes, as my mother used to say, people from those lower socio-economic backgrounds have very few pleasures and one of them is smoking. I worry slightly about the unanimity of the middle class professional activists on this."

Sorry for quoting my own post, but what he says there is unbelievable. He warns the middle classes about being patronising, while saying that one of the few pleasures of the poor is smoking. Can't he hear his own patronising voice? And did his mother really say: "people from those lower socio-economic backgrounds have very few pleasures and one of them is smoking". What was his mum, a socio-economics teacher?

[hotvans]

[quote Isn't it fair that everyone should enjoy a pub rather than to exclusively omit one particular crowd? quote]

so banning smoking wouldnt omit any group then would it? um how bout smokers?

[hencole]

Faced by calls for a ban at the meeting attended by health professionals and the local community, Mr Reid said: "Be very careful, that you do not patronise people because sometimes, as my mother used to say, people from those lower socio-economic backgrounds have very few pleasures and one of them is smoking. I worry slightly about the unanimity of the middle class professional activists on this."

Sorry for quoting my own post, but what he says there is unbelievable. He warns the middle classes about being patronising, while saying that one of the few pleasures of the poor is smoking. Can't he hear his own patronising voice? And did his mother really say: "people from those lower socio-economic backgrounds have very few pleasures and one of them is smoking". What was his mum, a socio-economics teacher?

I see the point he has made and it is a valid one put bloody awfully. He doesn't then go onto say we need to tackle poverty and thus reduce smoking that way which would be a fair point.

Anyway heres a thought. I find  smokers generally more interesting sociable people who are more likely to think on my wave length. Do other smokers agree with me? I certainly find this true at work when going out for ciggies and the staff I meet smoking. They seem to be much more down to earth people.

[MojoJojo]

I find other smokers don't look at me as if I am scum, or insist on pointing miniature fans in my direction whenever I came within 10 feet.

So yes, I do find smokers more interesting socially. They also have bigger penises,  are better at needlework, and smell nicer*.


*unfortunately, you can't tell because they always reek of fags

[DistantAngel]

Ah, the great smoking / cars banning debate!  So that my point of view has some context:

i) I used to smoke 20 Marlboros a day, but now I only smoke weed (a couple of times a week) and the occasional cigar (once or twice a month).
ii) I seldom drink - it holds little appeal for me these days.
iii) I don't drive, but I enjoy the convenience of my girlfriend's car.

With that in mind ...

1. Smoking in pubs and restaurants should NOT be banned or otherwise legislated against.  It should be down to the landlord/owner of the pub/restaurant in question as to whether smoking is permitted in his/her establishment, and a sign on the door stating this position should be adequate.  Either, "This is non-smoking pub", or "This is a smoking pub - by entering this establishment you are assuming full responsibility for any ill effects you may ever suffer as a result".  That would present the fairest solution, and the most economically sound too - bars in the US are suffering so badly because of the smoking bans that many are closing.  In the case of restaurants, a smoking ROOM should be the order of the day - I wouldn't smoke while someone's eating, I would expect the same courtesy.

2. Smoking in PUBLIC buildings should be banned.  And by public buildings, I'm taking about government / council / state owned - libraries, pools, council buildings, courts, police stations, hospitals, etc.  These are places that serve all sections of the community, and are paid for by us - they cannot afford to put smoking sections in the local library, they can barely afford to open at all - so it's best to go the safe route, and ban it outright.

3. Smoking in public should NOT be banned.  If you can't have a fag in a pub, restaurant, or other public building, the only options left are outside and in your own home, and that's just fucking stupid.  The amount of damage done to the environment and the people in it by smokers is about as low on the list of polluters as its possible to get.

4. There has not, to my knowledge, AS YET, been a PROVEN link between passive smoking and lung cancer.  So far, it has all be conjecture and theories - no definite, provable link has been established.  Sure, it's common sense that one might be affected but, as has been said before, it would require decades of full-on exposure - if you don't like a smokey pub, don't go in one.  Just as you have the right to expect clean air in a pub, so to the landlord has the right to fill his pub with smoke.  It's his choice, just as its your choice not to go in.

Smoking is a personal choice, a personal freedom, just as drinking is, and drinking affects just as many people indirectly as smoking does.  While hanging around a smoker might pester your lungs, it'll take decades to kill you ... a drinker can do it in a microsecond in his car after a couple of pints.  And there are far more drinkers than there are smokers.  Drinking is just as dangerous as smoking, and what pisses me of is that the loudest voice in the anti-smoking debate often comes from drinkers.  If you want smoking banned, then you must expect us to call for a ban on drinking - its only fair.

As I said, it's a personal choice - when I smoked, my choice was not smoke in the house or vehicle of people who don't smoke, out of courtesy.  My choice was not to smoke around children, even if it was in my house or vehicle - out of courtesy.  No-one has the right to prevent me from making my personal choice - If I want to smoke (which I don't), I'm going to smoke, and no one is going to stop me.  I am a decent enough human being to respect the rights of people who don't want to inhale my smoke - but if that's still not enough for you, tough.  If I asked you not to drink around me, you'd tell me to fuck off.  So don't ask me not to smoke if it's my house, my car, in a building where the owner says I can, or in the street, where there's substantially more clean air for you breath than the stuff I'm chucking out.

As for cars, we can't ban them, we need them ... instead, let's just kill car owners who incessantly bitch about the cost of them ... you want a car, you have to pay for it.  You want fuel which fucks up the planet, you should bloody well pay for it.  Tax on fuel too high?  Bollocks, it's not nearly enough to cover the cost of the people who will die just to feed your vehicle.  Putting aside how many people will die from the fumes it pumps out, let's consider how many innocent people are killed in revolutions, invasions, and other violent attacks that secured that oil for you in the first place.  If you think the cost of your petrol is high, think of the poor fucker who got shot in the head because he didn't want some western nation invading his country and stealing its oil just to go in your planet-fucking SUV.  Besides, it wouldn't kill you to take a walk once in a while, you lazy bastards ...

[Jemble Fred]

Thank you, I've just agreed with pretty much everything you've said.

Who was that Distant Angel? ...

[hotvans]

yup - beautifully summed up for me - totally gonna write to my Mp, local council, the Mayor - whoever that might turn out to be - etc because if we just stay silent except on these boards then its gonna happen and yet another act of freedom will be stamped all over

[MojoJojo]

It is a good argument against the people on here saying they don't like smokey pubs.

Unfortunately, it is less good against the workers right argument, which is the justification in Ireland and other places (I believe). Basically, the people working in the pub have a right to work in a smoke free environment. That is how the law is posed.

It is a fair point... people have a choice not to go in a smokey pub, but may not have a choice as to whether they work there.

Pretty much all chain pubs have a no smoking at the bar rule (and often have big ventilation systems too). I  guess this is too cover themselves against any big class action suits in the future (or maybe they actually care about the health of their employees? I don't know).

[Purple Tentacle]

It is a fair point... people have a choice not to go in a smokey pub, but may not have a choice as to whether they work there.

What, people are FORCING people to work in pubs?

Silly analogy really, but would you choose to work in a nuclear power station if you didn't want to be exposed to radiation?

I don't smoke by the way.

[hotvans]

precisely - you do choose where you work - if pub work is all you've ever done you'd still be qualified to work in a non smoking restaurant/fast food joint and the pay is the same if not better at mackyDs
reminder - i smoke and have worked in pubs

[hencole]

I find other smokers don't look at me as if I am scum, or insist on pointing miniature fans in my direction whenever I came within 10 feet.

I work in a cnacer hospital and Iam forever having consultants and docotrs walk past telling me 'You know thats bad for you don't you' without a hint of irony!
However one of the research scientist went past the other day and send 'Did you know new research reveals smoking increase your life span by up to 50% and gives you enormous erections' to which I checkeld heartliy.

[Purple Tentacle]

I work in a cnacer hospital and Iam forever having consultants and docotrs walk past telling me 'You know thats bad for you don't you' without a hint of irony!
However one of the research scientist went past the other day and send 'Did you know new research reveals smoking increase your life span by up to 50% and gives you enormous erections' to which I checkeld heartliy.

Have you been smoking and drinking again?

It's like a smoking breeeeaaaaak at a cancer hospitaaaaaaaal

Isn't that ironic.....don't you think.........

[hencole]

No I been LOL NO heiroin agin

[MojoJojo]

By the same reasoning, there shouldn't be any legislation protecting employees. If you don't like it, work somewhere else.

Of course, when you have no employable skills, employers have no real reason to try and keep you, so you end up being exploited anywhere you can get a job.

Think of cotton mills and matchstick factories in the Victorian era... that is why we have laws protecting people.

See, everyone is a Tory, they just don't realise it. Not a personnal dig; more just a comment on how people don't even know what the left's side of an argument is anymore.

The Conservative "freedom of choice" argument always forgets to mention what they really mean: "freedom of choice, if you have the money"

sorry, I am trying to avoid doing any work, so I am wasting as much time on my posts as possible

[Purple Tentacle]

See, everyone is a Tory, they just don't realise it. Not a personnal dig; more just a comment on how people don't even know what the left's side of an argument is anymore.

Cuh, get with tha times!

We all agreed that left and right were inprecise nonsense concepts last week, we're all talking about Achmed throwing a wobbler this week and motorbikes.

[MojoJojo]

See, everyone is a Tory, they just don't realise it. Not a personnal dig; more just a comment on how people don't even know what the left's side of an argument is anymore.

Cuh, get with tha times!

We all agreed that left and right were inprecise nonsense concepts last week, we're all talking about Achmed throwing a wobbler this week and motorbikes.

Yeah, I know, but everyone disagreed that this was a right wing board, but I still stand by the statement that lots of people on here are right wing, and don't realise it.

So now I am trying to point out all right wing points of view.

I am reading a paper called "No Free Lunch Theorems for Optimization". I am hungry.