Bring back...

Jovis
Posts: 1454
Joined: Fri 25 Aug, 2006 20.08

jonnyboy, you seem very ignorant of the health risks of tobbaco smoke. Just because you can't think/imagine what is happening to your body because of the chemicals in cigarettes, and the physical nature of smoking itself, doesn't mean nothing is happening. I undertsand you may enjoy your fag - doesn't mean it becomes risk free.

But of course, I 'don't understand' what it's like to smoke, so my points are not valid...
johnnyboy
Posts: 838
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 14.57
Location: The Home of the Stottie

Jovis wrote:jonnyboy, you seem very ignorant of the health risks of tobbaco smoke. Just because you can't think/imagine what is happening to your body because of the chemicals in cigarettes, and the physical nature of smoking itself, doesn't mean nothing is happening. I undertsand you may enjoy your fag - doesn't mean it becomes risk free.

But of course, I 'don't understand' what it's like to smoke, so my points are not valid...
Jovis - I do understand the dangers of tobacco smoke - to smokers.

There is ZERO evidence that passive smoking causes short- or long-term damage to people who do not smoke. For every study saying there is a weak connection, there are six other studies showing there is absolutely no connection.

Whether you smoke or not, there is no getting around that fact. If smoking is cause of all these dangers to everyone, why have "smoking-related" diseases shot up when the number of people smoking has halved? Can you please answer that question?

Since when did people lose their sense of perspective? Can you ever recall a pub you went into before July 1st where you had to crawl of the bodies of dead 'passive smokers' to get served?
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Sput
Posts: 7543
Joined: Wed 20 Aug, 2003 19.57

Goodo! We can spark up in hospitals and around babies in that case! Anyway, I'm doing a little trawl of google and while it's still in the very early stages it appears more like for every paper showing no link there's 100 that do. Yes. I pulled 100 out of my ass much as I suspect you pulled 6.

Your gay analogy is totally useless here too. Gayness is a consensual act between two adults that affects no-one else. Smoking in public is none of these.

Speaking of perspective: why's it so bad to have to stand outside again? Is it worth this diatribe? I suspect not. You've actually single-handedly made me a lot more happy about the ban with your "I'm the victim" warbling in this thread over and over, making statements that are clearly just wrong and, at times, irrational all because you feel hard done by. The truth is this: you're white, middle class and male. You have a sizable dispensable income, are married and the biggest hassle in your life is which country to move to because the government makes you feel uncomfortable. You're not a victim, you're a crybaby.

Your (wilful?) ignorance makes you look like a tit, sometimes. Sometimes your posts look like they've come straight out of the mouth of a rabid, sensationalist tabloid journo - I do believe you are better than that.
Knight knight
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Pete
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Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 13.36
Location: Dundee

OH MY GOD, MY BRAIN IS TURNING TO MUSH

Christ if I wanted to read page after page of tedious repetitive drivel with no basis in so called fact I'd read the rota thread. jb, you're talking shite, and repeating yourself, jovis, you're talking shite and making me want to start smoking purely to spite you. Sput, I metrolove you.

Please for the love of Nick come up with something NEW or this thread will be locked by the end of the night.
"He has to be larger than bacon"
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Sput
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Ah yes, sorry. Jovis is being a bit mental too.

This is interesting: a £10 license to buy tobacco! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7247470.stm
Knight knight
Jovis
Posts: 1454
Joined: Fri 25 Aug, 2006 20.08

jb wrote:Jovis - I do understand the dangers of tobacco smoke - to smokers.
Well, I must have completely misread your previous posts, I was getting the impression you were talking about no risks to smokers. Anyhoo.
Jamez
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Location: Bristol

Sput wrote:Ah yes, sorry. Jovis is being a bit mental too.

This is interesting: a £10 license to buy tobacco! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7247470.stm
Probably won't apply in Wales.

We also get free prescriptions here. A sign in the pharmacy: "Put your money away - prescriptions are free in Wales".

There's a load of other bonuses in Wales which are very kindly subsidised by English taxpayers. So thank you! :D
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Sput
Posts: 7543
Joined: Wed 20 Aug, 2003 19.57

Well there has to be some recompense for living in such lousy places! Incidentally, thanks for paying my wages and sending me to Borneo, taxpayers! Your money is only somewhat wasted!
Knight knight
all new Phil
Posts: 1965
Joined: Sun 13 Feb, 2005 00.04
Location: Next door to Hell

Jamez wrote:
Sput wrote:Ah yes, sorry. Jovis is being a bit mental too.

This is interesting: a £10 license to buy tobacco! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7247470.stm
Probably won't apply in Wales.

We also get free prescriptions here. A sign in the pharmacy: "Put your money away - prescriptions are free in Wales".

There's a load of other bonuses in Wales which are very kindly subsidised by English taxpayers. So thank you! :D
Don't get me started on that one ;)
Mich
Posts: 104
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 14.17
Location: Nr Nuneaton, Warwickshire

johnnyboy wrote: Whether you smoke or not, there is no getting around that fact. If smoking is cause of all these dangers to everyone, why have "smoking-related" diseases shot up when the number of people smoking has halved? Can you please answer that question?
There are a whole myriad of reasons why that could be the case (although i've got no figures to prove either hypothesis), and i'm surprised that you can't consider them (or maybe you can, have got retorts and i'm falling into a trap); here are a few possibilities...

- We've got a little better at diagnosing things in the last few years - dying purely of old age is much less commonly recorded now.
- Other things that cause these diseases have increased.
- The number of cigarettes being smoked may not fall in line with the total of smokers (eg. heavier smokers remain - increasing the average cigarettes smoked per smoker).
- The strength of cigarettes may have changed...
- The time delay between the damage and development of disease...


I don't really understand your point with regard to passive smoking. You accept that smoking isn't good for your health (although to less of an extent than common scientific knowledge) but don't think passive smoking does any harm?

Passive smoking may involve far lower proportions of toxins, but the action of the smoke being drawn into your lungs and then expelled doesn't suddenly make it fresh air and remove all of the toxins.
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Mr Q
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I think there is some amount of exaggeration on both sides of the debate. I would generally tend to believe that passive smoking is likely to impose risks to health on non-smokers. Smokers don't absorb the entire contents of each cigarette every time they light up (some of it burns off on its own, and of course much of gets exhaled). In a confined space, that means much of the smoke is also going to be inhaled by non-smokers. Now if that smoke does harm to smokers - and I think we're all in agreement here that it does, even if there's debate about the degree of harm - on what possible basis could you conclude that it doesn't do any harm whatsoever to non-smokers? I would tend to conclude on that basis that the rights of non-smokers (primarily, in this case, to good health) are impacted by smokers.

And yet similarly, smoking bans result in the triumph of non-smokers' rights over smokers. I don't accept that as desirable either. Generally speaking, I'm loathed to impose additional regulations on businesses. Pubs and clubs, just like any business, are in a better place to determine what their customers want than some central politburo. If those establishments calculated they'd get more customers if they banned smoking, then they'd do it voluntarily. Some certainly did and it worked well for them. Others decided that their patrons would prefer the right to smoke inside - so they allowed it. It's important to recognise that while most public surveys tend to indicate a large majority favour banning smoking in pubs and clubs, a large portion of the people who support a ban probably aren't likely to frequent such venues particularly often anyway. If you were instead to survey regular pub-goers, I imagine the margin would narrow quite significantly, and in some areas, I'd absolutely expect smokers to win out. I remember prior to the ban coming into effect here, I'd often observe at various establishments I went to that a majority of the people there were smoking.

Without having done any extensive research on this, my suspicion would be that most smokers care more about being able to smoke in a pub or club than most non-smokers care about being able to avoid breathing in smoke. That's based on the theory that regular smokers are addicted to cigarettes - non-smokers aren't addicted to fresh air (although there's no denying that air, for obvious reasons, is important). A group of friends who all smoke will want to go to a place where smoking is allowed - that's a given. A group of friends who are all non-smokers (and especially where at least one of them might suffer from asthma and would be adversely affected by cigarette smoke) will probably have a strong preference for a non-smoking venue, all else being equal. So, among a group of friends where some smoke and some don't, who is likely to 'win' in terms of getting their first preference? Even in situations where just one or two people smoke, my experience has been that the group ends up in a venue that allows smoking.

In summary, it seems that people by and large were getting what they wanted prior to the ban. Sure, non-smokers (and indeed, probably many smokers too) don't necessarily like coming home from a night out smelling like they'd been bathed in an ash-tray. It's not going to stop most of them from enjoying a few drinks with their mates. Yet there is still a cost - an unseen one, perhaps, at the time. There is, I still contend, an inevitable impact on health. If just one non-smoker were to develop lung cancer from frequenting or working in smoke-filled bars (and I accept causality is nigh on impossible to prove - so this is a hypothetical scenario), that's still one too many. It is a cost that smokers have imposed on that person. That's a negative externality that by rights ought to be countered. The way you do that is through imposing regulations. On balance then, I support a ban on smoking in pubs and clubs - as I do all business environments.

I'm aware that others favour a half-way measure: having separate areas for smokers and non-smokers. In principle, it sounds fine. As a transitional measure before we implemented a full ban here in Melbourne, we tried having separate areas in pubs and clubs. What non-smokers mostly ended up with was a pokey room out the back (which you already had to walk through clouds of smoke to get to) - it was as if non-smokers had leprosy or something. Chances are it didn't have a bar in it either, so you still had to go out in to the main room to get a drink. But don't worry, many places banned smoking within a metre of the bar - which was fantastic, because, you know, smoke doesn't move around a room or anything like that. The problem with compromise measures, simply put, is that you often end up with the worst of both worlds.

By and large, we seem to have accepted the smoking ban here, and I haven't seen venues closing down at an alarming rate. Admittedly, here in Australia, the weather doesn't get as cold as it does in the UK - we're not sending smokers outside into the snow in winter. Even when it is cold, a lot of places still have outdoor areas, where there are usually gas-powered heaters outside and big awnings to ensure smokers don't get saturated by any rain. Is it more inconvenient for smokers? Sure. But on balance the cost of inconvenience to smokers is less than the cost of discomfort to non-smokers who often faced the choice of either breathing in smoke passively, or just not going out with their friends.
johnnyboy wrote:Can you ever recall a pub you went into before July 1st where you had to crawl of the bodies of dead 'passive smokers' to get served?
Well, surely that's taking the piss? I don't recall ever crawling over the dead bodies of smokers either. But generally people suffering from late-stage emphysema, lung cancer or other such glamourous afflictions aren't hanging around in pubs waiting to fall off their perch. More likely, they're stuck in a hospital bed, or they have to cart around an oxygen tank so they can breath - which generally isn't conducive to having a night out on the town.
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