Smoking ban......(Hmmmm)

[Studio25]

Originally Posted by Gordon Booth

Cost of treating smoking related illnesses- £3 billion.

So you think that the only cost to the economy from smoking (or drinking, or drugs, or whatever) is the NHS treatment cost?

I know of at one person who loses one full working hour per day to smoke breaks. And her employer can't dock her pay because that would be "discrimination".

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

I don't get the electric cigarette ban...

I'm all for it. Assuming that the user is exhaling just water vapour with nicotine in it (and no other chemicals), surely that means that anyone in the same room is breathing air laced with nicotine - however minute...?

[Margaret Pilkington]

You are at more risk from the chemicals released into the air from Diesel engines.
My understanding is that nicotine is taken up by receptor cells in the brain rather than being exhaled in water vapour.....but if you know different then OK. I will bow to your greater knowledge.
I would rather stand next to someone using an e cig than a real cig.....and it is bad to have to walk through the smoke at the doorways of some buildings(I'm thinking hospitals here) because smokers are banned from being inside(rightly so).

And how can air be 'laced' with nicotine if the quantity is minute?
If smokers are trying to quit and use these devices to help them, then they should be 'cut some slack' in order to help them ditch the tobacco habit.
Society has made those who smoke into pariahs......they are addicts, just as much as those who use illegal substances. They need help to manage and control their habits and you(and companies, government too - because of the mixed messages) are denying them something which is proven to assist in quitting.
I know some ex smokers who are now completely weaned off tobacco, but still use the e cigs without the nicotine.

Most of the damaging agents in tobacco are the tar compounds.
Second hand smoke(especially in confined spaces) is damaging to those breathing it in.

As for your colleague who goes on smoke breaks........this is something that can be tackled at appraisal.
If someone is a smoker then the employer can either help them to quit, suggest Nicotine replacement therapy or insist that smoking is only done at recognised break times, and in the appropriate designated space.
If your employer does not do this then that is their problem....it is they who are losing productivity.

[DtheP47]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

I don't get the electric cigarette ban.
If it helps people give up on tobacco then surely that is no bad thing.
Again the powers that be think that it glorifies smoking and might....just might encourage people to smoke tobacco.
As there is no second hand smoke from these devices surely it is safer too for those in the vicinity.

We are treated like 12 year olds.
If we are old enough to pay tax, to go to war and fight, to get married, to vote.......then surely we are old enough to decide how we wish to conduct our lives.
We do not need the sanctimonious preaching of government ministers and departments to decide for us.

The Dog in Whalley allows ecigs...I always have a dry throat if I am sat at a table near them
And yes I move. There is nothing worse than slip streaming a smoker of any kind whilst walking when they exhale clouds of smoke oblivious to anybody else. And yes I can hold my breath and move.

[Margaret Pilkington]

I haven't noticed any symptoms like that......although many of the folk I know have actually given up tobacco altogether, just a couple use these devices with no nicotine, just the flavourings.....they both freely admit that the hand to mouth habit is what is difficult for them to break.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by DtheP47

The Dog in Whalley allows ecigs...I always have a dry throat if I am sat at a table near them
And yes I move. There is nothing worse than slip streaming a smoker of any kind whilst walking when they exhale clouds of smoke oblivious to anybody else. And yes I can hold my breath and move.

A dry throat in a pub?
That is easy to cure....get another pint......and while you are at the bar.....I'll have a......pint of builders tea! Cheers

[DtheP47]

On the train Margaret. Nice clean fresh atmosphere. No hacking and coughing. Not like the old days when serving my apprenticeship at English Electric catching the bus from Accy
Haven't seen any one hopping off the train for a couple of drags and then back on until the next station like you do on the Paris Metro.Yet.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Have a safe journey and if it is work......profitable.....if it isn't work...pleasurable!

[DtheP47]

Thanks Margaret..Try Hogs Back Tea.
Traditional English Ale. Trip is a business conference aka
A talking shop.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by DtheP47

A talking shop.

Been there, done that...gave it up

[Studio25]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

You are at more risk from the chemicals released into the air from Diesel engines.

And? It sounds like you're suggesting that because there are more unpleasant chemicals around, then I should be ignoring this one. That's like saying because people get murdered the police shouldn't respond to shoplifting, or because there are entire countries that don't bother with recycling, I shouldn't bother recycling this beer can.

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

My understanding is that nicotine is taken up by receptor cells in the brain rather than being exhaled in water vapour.....but if you know different then OK. I will bow to your greater knowledge.

It has to get to the brain via the lungs. Your lungs, if working properly, are 20% "efficient" - that is, the air you exhale contains 80% of the oxygen that was present when you breathed it in. That's because the bulk of the air just sits in the middle of tiny bubbles called alveoli. Only the air that's in contact with the alveolus surface actually gives up its oxygen.

With both types of cig, the nicotine has to get into your bloodstream the same way. In regular cigarettes, the carrier is the smoke particles. In ecigs, the carrier is water droplets (not vapour, even though that's what everyone calls it). The stuff you can see when they breathe out - smoke or water - still contains as much of the nicotine as when it went in (and tar, in the case of regular cigs). The particles that gave up their nicotine remain in your lungs until carried out by mucous (cigarettes) or exhaled as water vapour (true water vapour this time - the kind you can't see unless it condenses into water droplets on a cold day).

This is all knowledge deduced based on a A levels in biology and physics, i.e. common sense. I've done about as much research into it as the government has...

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

If smokers are trying to quit and use these devices to help them, then they should be 'cut some slack' in order to help them ditch the tobacco habit.

Agreed, but just to be devil's advocate here - do you think that giving everyone in a room a little bit of heroin would help the recovering drug addict? What you're suggesting is that in the doctor's waiting room (or wherever) the non-smokers present are obliged to breathe in the nicotine in the air just to make the smoker a little more comfortable about the habit they are trying to kick.

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

Most of the damaging agents in tobacco are the tar compounds.
Second hand smoke(especially in confined spaces) is damaging to those breathing it in.

Absolutelyright. It's just the addictive drug that's present in exhaled ecig smoke - not of those nasty carcinogens (or at least, none that we know about yet).

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

As for your colleague who goes on smoke breaks........this is something that can be tackled at appraisal.

Wait - weren't you just talking about social pariahs?

I have no problem with people who need a smoke break, I'm just saying it costs you money. Yes, you.
The organisation, whether it's the council or the widget factory needs to absorb the cost of the smoker, just like it absorbs the cost of the tea junkie (me ) or the horny workers who nip off to the stationery cupboard for a quickie (not me ). Ultimately all these costs are met by the consumer, whether it's in your council tax or the cost price of your brand new widget.

Even if you limit or don't allow smoke breaks, you're talking about an addictive substance. The reduced capacity from someone who's been disallowed a smoke break that they feel they need is probably just as damaging to their productivity as letting them take the break in the first place.

There's no solution for this, unless the company actively discriminates against smokers during its recruitment - and I'm not sure anyone other than Accyexplorer is teflon-coated enough to start that discussion...

[Gremlin]

Health never entered my head when I stopped smoking 50 Senior service a day in 1974.
I just realized what a plonker I was spending all that money.
I opened another savings account with the bank and put the money I saved into it each week by D/D (or whatever it was called then).
Within two years I had sold my Ford Capri and bought Jack Walkers two year old 525 BMW .
My wife continued to smoke 15 methanol cigarettes each day right up to her death when she was 65, smoking was a major factor in the cause of her death due to heart failure. She very rarely drunk alcohol.

That's my one and only post on smoking cigarettes.

[Accyexplorer]

Forgetting it'll be virtually unenforceable,I'm all for banning smoking in kiddies play area's just not entire parks (maybe when they ban vehicles from belching out noxious fumes, I'll do one of my famous Uturns and jump onboard).
Maybe just ban parents from smoking altogether as there's a good chance their going to be smoking around their kids?

I get that its a pretty disgusting habit to the non smokers. But banning folk smoking in an outdoor environment is being punitive for the sake of it. Either ban smoking altogether or leave smokers some place they can smoke and be social (shelter/smoking area).
Since we're banning things....can we also ban poverty too?
According to R. Wilkinson's epidemiological studies, the psycho-social effects of relative poverty cause more health problems than smoking.

The freedom to do things that don't harm others is a vital part of society. If folk smoke in smoking shelters/areas and they are harming no one but themselves,I believe that this is their right.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by Studio25

And? It sounds like you're suggesting that because there are more unpleasant chemicals around, then I should be ignoring this one. That's like saying because people get murdered the police shouldn't respond to shoplifting, or because there are entire countries that don't bother with recycling, I shouldn't bother recycling this beer can.



It has to get to the brain via the lungs. Your lungs, if working properly, are 20% "efficient" - that is, the air you exhale contains 80% of the oxygen that was present when you breathed it in. That's because the bulk of the air just sits in the middle of tiny bubbles called alveoli. Only the air that's in contact with the alveolus surface actually gives up its oxygen.

With both types of cig, the nicotine has to get into your bloodstream the same way. In regular cigarettes, the carrier is the smoke particles. In ecigs, the carrier is water droplets (not vapour, even though that's what everyone calls it). The stuff you can see when they breathe out - smoke or water - still contains as much of the nicotine as when it went in (and tar, in the case of regular cigs). The particles that gave up their nicotine remain in your lungs until carried out by mucous (cigarettes) or exhaled as water vapour (true water vapour this time - the kind you can't see unless it condenses into water droplets on a cold day).

This is all knowledge deduced based on a A levels in biology and physics, i.e. common sense. I've done about as much research into it as the government has...


Agreed, but just to be devil's advocate here - do you think that giving everyone in a room a little bit of heroin would help the recovering drug addict? What you're suggesting is that in the doctor's waiting room (or wherever) the non-smokers present are obliged to breathe in the nicotine in the air just to make the smoker a little more comfortable about the habit they are trying to kick.


Absolutelyright. It's just the addictive drug that's present in exhaled ecig smoke - not of those nasty carcinogens (or at least, none that we know about yet).


Wait - weren't you just talking about social pariahs?

I have no problem with people who need a smoke break, I'm just saying it costs you money. Yes, you.
The organisation, whether it's the council or the widget factory needs to absorb the cost of the smoker, just like it absorbs the cost of the tea junkie (me ) or the horny workers who nip off to the stationery cupboard for a quickie (not me ). Ultimately all these costs are met by the consumer, whether it's in your council tax or the cost price of your brand new widget.

Even if you limit or don't allow smoke breaks, you're talking about an addictive substance. The reduced capacity from someone who's been disallowed a smoke break that they feel they need is probably just as damaging to their productivity as letting them take the break in the first place.

There's no solution for this, unless the company actively discriminates against smokers during its recruitment - and I'm not sure anyone other than Accyexplorer is teflon-coated enough to start that discussion...

Let me take the point about work first......work is work......it is not a social occasion.you have a contract with your employer for x number of hours work.
In that time there will be legal breaks.
Why is asking a smoker to smoke on their time considered making them a pariah? It is just asking them to fulfil their contractual obligations......and for those who do want to kick the habit.....then NRT is something that some employers offer. They know that it works and leads to healthier employees.

As to your first point...nowhere did I say that......or if I did, I cannot find it in my post.
Your biology lesson was helpful......as a nurse for some 30 years I didn't know that.
I think if I had to choose between inhaling second hand smoke and the vapour exhaled by someone using one of these devices, I know which I would choose.

And again...I am not suggesting anything...it is you who is doing that.....and you have chosen a particularly dramatic analogy to illustrate your point.
If you have read anything I have posted on the issue of illegal drug use you will know that.....maybe that is why you used that analogy.

As for the other employment issues......I was involved with staff at a management level so I have some personal experience of the issues in question.

I did have a problem with people taking unauthorised breaks in order to smoke.(why should my staff be pulling their tripes out to cover people who should be looking after patients....while these staff were outside being paid to smoke?)
When I did my duty rotas it was with patient needs in mind.
Patients need looking after, that is what the nurses were paid to do.

My staff knew that they could smoke on their breaks but I would ask them if the thought it fair that they should take cigarette breaks leaving the non smoking nurses to take up the slack(there wasn't any slack then, there is even less now).
I objected to doing the work that someone else was being paid to do.
These issues were always brought up at yearly appraisal and support was offered to ensure staff could do the job they were being paid to do.

There is nothing unfair in this at all....as for the addictive angle....the nurses could get their nicotine fix from either a patch or gum(which is not chewed like chewing gum). The hospital provided help for all staff who wanted help with their smoking habit.
Yes,there are employment solutions......and they are workable....if you want them to work.

[DtheP47]

Originally Posted by Accyexplorer

Forgetting it'll be virtually unenforceable,I'm all for banning smoking in kiddies play area's just not entire parks (maybe when they ban vehicles from belching out noxious fumes, I'll do one of my famous Uturns and jump onboard)..

Enforceable by education and example AccyX.
I arrived into Leeds railway station this morning and joined the teeming mass of commuters all busying about their business without a cigarette or the stale smells associated with it. Don't know how long there's been a ban on Leeds station or the rail but people accept it...I know common sense in Yorkshire is a hard concept to embrace but there you are.
Lots and lots of places where smoking is prohibited and people have acquiesed not by draconian policing but by applying a bit of common.
Yes there will always be mavericks and people wanting to buck the trend but in this matter, a small voice linked to a small mind I reckon.

Vehicle emmissions...various schemes are in place both on the roads and at the auto manufacturers to reduce these.

[Margaret Pilkington]

I have always been against smoking.....I have never smoked myself.
My father died of Lung cancer related to smoking Capstan full strength for many years.
I worked in the NHS for 30 years and saw many ill people who would not have been so sick if it had not been for cigarettes.
I also accept that kicking the habit is something that is difficult for some...impossible even.
I am, therefore, in favour of anything which gives the smoker and even break.
With an e-cig there may be no nicotine in the solution.