Smoking

[cashman]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

I see from the Observer that PB is stopping smoking......personally, I wouldn't have bothered calling the fire brigade!

as a smoker who is very passionate about P.B. i just wish he'd carry on- nay increase his smoking and make me a very happy bunny,call me callous i can't help it.

[grego]

But that wouldn't get him in the paper Cashy.

[Acrylic-bob]

It would, eventually, but in the obituary column. Cashman and I think alike on this subject.

[accymel]

Originally Posted by grego

I think its going to be a hard law to police, I mean fines of £50 if you're caught lighting up, are there going to be patrols in all pubs, dont think so!

Specially if the cops smoke themselves

[SPUGGIE J]

Ciggie police what will we get next?

[grego]

Originally Posted by Acrylic-bob

It would, eventually, but in the obituary column. Cashman and I think alike on this subject.

I thought that too, but it could be years away!

[jambutty]

Let me state at the outset that I accept that smoking is bad for the smoker and obnoxious to the non-smoker in the vicinity but both groups have rights that clash.

A couple of years ago when I was forced to use public transport because my car was going through its annual service I was stood at the bus stop in a queue. A bus arrived but it was not the one that many of the others in the queue and me wanted. As passengers alighted and some of the queue boarded I found myself in line with the back of the bus whose engine was ticking over thrusting clouds of fumes into the atmosphere. I was smoking at the time and the woman behind me in the queue objected to me smoking because I was polluting the air she was breathing. She just wouldn’t accept that the bus’s exhaust fumes were causing her far more harm than my one cigarette. Much to her chagrin I continued to smoke the rest of my fag until the bus arrived during which time she tried to force me to stop. I didn’t! I was in that space first.

It is this hypocritical attitude of non-smokers that sticks in my craw. They crave for clean air to breathe but are quite happy to breath the atmosphere polluted by vehicle fumes and industry yet object to tobacco smoke.

I accept that public buildings should be non-smoking areas but only IF THE OWNER OF THE BUILDING DECLARES IT SO and not because of some government intervention. In the open air if a non-smoker invades my space then that is their problem if I happen to be smoking. They should keep clear of my space.

The work place should be a non-smoking work place unless 100% of the workforce and the management want it otherwise. Pubs and restaurants should declare themselves as either smoking or non-smoking and let market forces decide which was the right decision. Will any of the non-smoking campaign participants go to all the pubs and restaurants that they are trying to force becoming non-smoking? Not likely! These anti smoking brigadiers just want to impose their way of life on the rest of us. I don’t see non-alcohol drinkers doing the same to the boozers. Yet alcohol causes far more distress, harm, injury and instant death to innocent bystanders than tobacco ever did. Are the young yobos, yobos because they smoke or is it because of alcohol? Nurses and doctors get attacked in A & E by drunken louts not someone wanting to smoke a fag. Our town centres are full of rowdy, drunken people on a night out. Cars are vandalised by drunks, not smokers.

If a non-smoker visits a pub that allows smoking then they have no right to complain and definitely no right to try to force the pub to become non-smoking. If I walk into a building that does not allow smoking I wouldn’t dream of even asking if anyone minded if I smoked. I obey the rule for that building. I don’t try to force my view onto others, so why should they do that to me?

Finally, if smokers die younger than non-smokers then the government (in reality that is the tax payer) is saved the burden of paying their pensions.

[maccawozzagod]

The general consencus on here then is to smoke, is this a true percentage reflection of what the population think? do the majority of non-smokers give a hoot whether we smoke or not, passive or otherwise? The figure of what revenue tobacco raises against the NHS burden is an interesting one. I spend about £30 pound a week on fags and I estimate about 75% of this this to be tax related. That means I will pay around £62,400 over 40 years. I will only need treatment once if at all. Does this cost more or less than £62,400. If I dont die before pension age can I opt to have my non-existant-by-that-time state pension fund topped up please.
And what about petrol stations? their profits are based on the extra 30p a pack they charge for fags, so your fuel cost are going to rise. Haulage companies will go out of business thus putting more people on benefits
And where will all the Asian greengrocers (why GREEN grocers?) go when we stop popping in for smokes. More benefits thats what! No taxi's cos we won't be going to the now smoke free pubs. Unemployed taxi drivers means more benefits! And unemployed Asian doctors cos we are all going to be fit and healthy. More benefits!

So in general, stop smoking means Less tax revenue from fags, Less tax revenue from alcohol, Increase in the welfare state deficit and Increase race riots because the unemployed shoppies,drivers and doctors will have the time for Holy Jihad

Have a word with yourself Tony Blair, I think you need to have a lie down

[maccawozzagod]

Originally Posted by Acrylic-bob

It would, eventually, but in the obituary column. Cashman and I think alike on this subject.

AND MACCAWOZZAGOD

[accymel]

At last nice to see a balanced arguement that isnt one sided!!

[Less]

Originally Posted by shillelagh

I went to dublin where the no smoking ban is in place and i liked it. If i wanted a ciggie i had to go outside either the front door or some of the pubs had designated areas outside with patio heaters and chairs and umbrellas. I found that i didnt smoke as much because i had to go outside.

Recently my daughter went to Ennis in southern Ireland, she was out with four of her cousins, she is a non-smoker and she told me yes it was very pleasant going into the pubs there all nice and clean and no smell of smoke.
However after they had been in the pub for quarter of an hour two of the group (smokers) said they were going out for a cig, the three non-smokers went out with them after they had all gone out together for the evening. Outside the pub was a bus shelter type building and they squeezed in there with the 50 other customers from the pub (smokers and non smokers), my daughter reckons this was far more horrendous for a non smoker than smoking pubs over here because all those people crammed into such a small space the atmosphere was thicker than the jelly on a pork pie!

So all this ban will do is force lots of people into smaller less comfortable spaces were they can share the concentrated secondary smoke.

I think its going to be a hard law to police, I mean fines of £50 if you're caught lighting up, are there going to be patrols in all pubs, dont think so!

They won't need to have patrols all they will do is throw the responsibility onto the landlord, if someone complains that he/she allows smokers into their pub, fines and no doubt bad marks against getting their licence renewed!

[Acrylic-bob]

Originally Posted by Less

However after they had been in the pub for quarter of an hour two of the group (smokers) said they were going out for a cig, the three non-smokers went out with them after they had all gone out together for the evening. Outside the pub was a bus shelter type building and they squeezed in there with the 50 other customers from the pub (smokers and non smokers), my daughter reckons this was far more horrendous for a non smoker than smoking pubs over here because all those people crammed into such a small space the atmosphere was thicker than the jelly on a pork pie!

How Bl**dy ridiculous! How much more of this sort of crap are we going to swallow before we have the guts to turn round to this government and tell it to keep it's nose and it's PC opinions to itself?

[katex]

Must admit do get weary of all my friends, etc., having a go at me for my excessive smoking and enjoyed some of the comments above. I am a lost case and can only agree that better not too than to. When I started work, the M.D. had a beautiful veneer cigarette box with posh cigarettes,silver lines down the paper. Stuyversant (can't spell it) I think. He offered them to visitors along with lemon tea. Now, wherever I go on busines, always offered a coffee ... mmmm caffeine and all that .. not long before this will be ban perhaps.
Where I presently work, there is a ban .. not arguing ... thought of fag ash all over my keyboard aint pleasant, however, there is a little room where employees who have been there since 1990 can go and have a fag !! As I have only been back with them for 5 years not allowed, so have to sniff up the air as I pass. How quirky is that ?? Think may have been something to do with the Unions.
Also, know of a couple of people now who have been fined £50 for dropping their stubs in the street. Was in Manchester Saturday and noticed that all the litter bins do not have the ash tray on top anymore .. another ploy to extract money from us smokers,eh.

[cashman]

just read the lastest entries think jambutty put it rather well,also it appears that me @ a-b are not alone! pmsl, going off now for a fag.

[SPUGGIE J]

If there is any more of president blairs smart ideas we might as well emigrate to China it would be less hassle. Besides at least in China you can have a ciggie in piece (alledgedly).