smoking!!!!!

[HardScienceFan]

smoking in restaurants and pubs and hotels is forbidden now,in Holland.

I feel healthier already.

It's good to know the governemnt cares so much about our health.
I mean,with about a zillion emission transgressions per second.........

that's being studied,though.
By a Comittee,i guess.

And then the Comittee will publish a Report with Recommendations.
The recommendations will be studied by a Plenary Group,who will then issue a Whitebook.
A Parliamentary group will take all of this into consideration,and will study the legal angles

We're quick

[Ursa major]

You're not suggesting that the Committee is blowing smoke, are you?



(Or that it's even a case of smoke and mirrors?)

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by HardScienceFan

smoking in restaurants and pubs and hotels is forbidden now,in Holland.

That's been the law in California for a good many years now. Smokers have adapted and the rest of us have been allowed to breathe a lot easier.

[The Ace]

I can understand on buses,trains, workplaces etc.

But banning smoking in pubs is ridiculous. As a smoker, I don't smoke in other people's houses if they don't smoke, I don't smoke around kids and I never smoke when people are eating.

TBH, we can't gang up on blacks or jews, so we pick on smokers instead.


SMOKERS THE N*GG*RS FOR THE NEW MILLENIUM.

[the smiling weirwood]

I don't know if you can take it in that direction. Traditionally oppressed groups are ethnic or racial minorities, which are things about oneself that cannot be changed. Smoking is a habit, a deliberate action. You can choose not to smoke in a given situation, just like someone could choose not to tap dance down a hallway. The difference is that smoking, while a personal choice, affects the people around you in a non-personal choice kind of way. While a smoker can be enjoying themselves and their freedom of choice, they are depriving the people around them of *their* personal choice. The onlookers can't choose to not breath, or not smell the air being polluted with smoke. They can certainly walk away, but what right does one person have to force others to either leave or suffer things they rather wouldn't? I think that is the crux of the matter.

[Self]

Smoking is NOT a habit - it differs greatly from inane activities such as tap dancing quoted above. Smoking is DRUG ADDICTION - addiction to nicotine, every bit as awful as heroin addiction except it kills or destroys the lives of far more people than its illegal relative.

As for smoking in pubs, it has been banned in Australia for a while now, the sun still still rises each day, pubs have come up with outdoor beer gardens for the addicts to get their fix and those lucky enough not to be enslaved by the weed no longer suffer.

[Sephiroth]

I appreciate that non-smokers should have the right not to be forced to inhale second-hand smoke, but I feel that the blanket ban here (in Scotland) took things too far.

Tobacco is a legal substance, the sale of which generates a great deal of money for the treasury through heavy taxation. I am in favour of having the majority of public places smoke-free, but I feel that the politicians and media have moved to demonise the smoker in order to be seen to be politically correct.

Banning smoking in all pubs and clubs, including private members' clubs, was a gross overreaction, and has had a negative impact on many of these businesses. The private members' clubs, many with a century or more of tradition as the focus of working-class communities, have been particularly hard hit, and many are going out of business.

The phenomenon of 'gaggles' of smokers hanging about outside every workplace, bar and restaurant is another unintended (and IMO undesirable) consequence. Some of these groups, particularly the drunken ones outside of bars, bring their antisocial behaviour out into the street.


The snooker club I used to go to has closed down. There was hardly a member who didn't smoke. People went there to have a pint and a smoke with their pals, as much as to play snooker.

I can see no rational justification for the blunt implementation of a blanket ban on all smoking in every 'public place'. Just as people should be able to choose not to inhale second-hand smoke, they should also be able to choose to do so if they wish. No one can force a non-smoker to enter a smoking establishment if they don't want to...

Not that our authoritatian governments believe much in freedom of choice. The one at Westminster, which introduced the same ban in England and Wales after we did it in Scotland, is the same that is currently seeking the right to lock people up for six weeks without trial (or even any criminal charge being brought). The same one that wants us all to carry biometric ID cards with our entire lives printed on them...

[Quokka]

Are places really going out of business Seph? There's always been the doom and gloom when it comes to the smoking laws and as far as I've seen it's never happened. I didn't think it'd be that big of an issue when Australia brought it in partly because so many of our pubs have beer gardens or at least room to build an outdoor smoking area (and the weathers a lot more kind to it) in fact I don't think you can even smoke on Bondi beach now but I thought they're might actually be problems when Ireland did and people were screaming about how pubs would close, no one would go out etc.... never happened. For every place that said they'd lost business another place said theirs had actually gone up. Now it's just the way it is.

Same with when they brought no smoking onto public transport and airlines, that was meant to cause chaos, it never did and now even heavy smokers seem to get through a plane ride without too much trouble. We adjust to most things pretty quickly and I think that's the real advantage to these laws, by the time the next generation come through the idea of smoking in a resturant, pub, club will seem as strange as me sitting in a church or cinema and lighting up.

It's really the only way to move towards a smoke free society, there's too much money involved for the governments to just ban it and education alone is never going to work so they fall back on restricting access. The next place that is being talked about being banned in Australia is any car with a child in it, including your car and your child. Probably won't happen soon but it keeps getting brought up so maybe in a few years....

[Sephiroth]

Hmm. The flashy city centre bars, the franchises, the places where the bourgeoisie spend their money...it's been much like you say for them, Quok. Some have lost out, some have picked up, and most of them will survive just fine.

What bothers me is that this measure has hit the poorest and most disadvantaged in society the hardest. For the working men's clubs, etc, it may well prove the final nail in the coffin. And the traditional 'local', the pub that isn't in the city centre and doesn't attract a vibrant, multicultural clientele, but which has served the working folk of that community for generations.....it is suffering, too.

That's part of our culture we're killing, and I cannot see that no provision could have been made to safeguard it. In a lot of places, those pubs and clubs are just about all that remains of a sense of community, so it's not exaggerating to say that they're really ripping the heart out of some places...

And remember, it isn't quite as nice to sit in a beer garden here in the depths of winter.



Like I said above, I'm in favour of a mostly smoke-free public environment, but I am most definitely not in favour of any attempt to socially engineer a smoke free society. And I find it particularly hard to stomach when they're happy to keep raking in the tax dollars, while treating smokers like -- and making them out to be -- the scum of the earth.

And in more general terms, I detest the authoritarian, 'nanny state' approach that seems to be so popular with our government these days. I don't believe that legislation is the best way, or even an effective way to change society for the better. But of course, it's far easier than trying actually to tackle some of the root causes of social problems that we have.

[the smiling weirwood]

Like I said, I'm in support of personal choice. A blanket ban, as mentioned above, smacks of fascism. But that's just me.

On another note, and one likely to not be received particularly well, there is always the power to resist the strains of the flesh. Nicotine is powerful, yes, but the mind is stronger still. I myself have overcome the siren call of certain substances, so I feel as if I can say this without being a hypocrite. I have sympathy for addicts, but addiction is not an excuse.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

I am in favour of having the majority of public places smoke-free, but I feel that the politicians and media have moved to demonise the smoker in order to be seen to be politically correct.

Oh yes, we heard that argument here too -- demonizing the smokers. Obviously, I can't speak to what is being said or done elsewhere, but when smokers were crying out against being demonized here it was just a load of nonsense. It was the habit and its effect on bystanders that people were speaking against, but I swear that some of the smokers I knew acted like they were on the verge of being dragged to the gallows or the stake with their talk of persecution and witch-hunts. I thought it interesting that so many of the people who were complaining about anti-smoking hysteria were given to such over-heated rhetoric themselves.

[Quokka]

I'm not sure what you mean by working men's clubs Seph but it was definitely the small locals that I felt for when the legislation came in and specifically the old guy that had been going in for a quiet pint and a chat for pretty much his whole life. But it suprised me how creative some of those little pubs got with very little space or money, I remember standing in a tiny concrete space surrounded by empty kegs at one place and another place you couldn't rest your pint on the table because the whole area had a fairly distinct lean .

I went back last year and both places had converted their spots into cosy little areas and these are tiny pubs in a town of only a couple of thousand. Of course some also just ignore it for as long as they can.

'Socially engineering a smoke free society' may not be the best way to go but it is the way its going. There's just too much money involved for them not to tax it and yet there's also so much money involved in treatment that we have to move away from smoking and to be honest imo we're too dumb as a group to do it ourselves without being pushed. Again it's no so much the people affected today that's the focus but what people expect in 20 years where there will hopefully be some real benifits.

[Hilarious Joke]

I agree with what TSW said.

And also, I think legislation is the ideal way to change society for the better. That's how democracy works, we vote in a government that makes laws for the benefit of society. There are circumstances where we need the government in order to enforce some things for public safety. Seatbelts, speeding, banning of drugs, trade practice regulations, etc. I would argue that legislation is the most practical way to change society.

As for smoking, as TSW said, the problem arises when it affects other people. Then it goes beyond a personal choice, sort of like how drinking goes beyond a personal choice when the drinker starts driving (obviously, not to the same extent). The government should have the power to deal with personal choices only as far as they impact on the public sphere, and so when you say Seph that it should be trying to 'tackle some of the root causes of social problems', I can only imagine you mean to making efforts to change people smoking in the first place, which is outside (or should be outside) the realm of public regulation.

Everyone today knows the risks of smoking. If they do it, it's their own personal choice, but others shouldn't have to pay for that.

[Drachir]

I haven't seen this point of view of this topic posted although I may have missed it, but in many parts of Canada smoking in pubs has been banned as a part of workers' rights. It is considered unfair to subject workers to large amounts of second hand smoke and as a result in most parts of Canada there is pretty much a total ban on smoking in any place where non-smokers congregate. BTW there has been almost no impact on the number of people visiting pubs, after all most people don't go to pubs to smoke, they go for the social interaction. In some pubs attendance actually increased as non-smokers who would have normally stayed away started going to pubs.

I have also noted that some have defended smoking in certain areas as a part of culture. That might be so, but it is certainly not the part of our coulture that it once was. In Canada during the 1960s about 60% of all adults smoked. Now it is down to about 18% and still declining.

Also there are many things that were once a part of our culture that we no longer practice, such as burning people at the stake, bear-baiting, ****-fights, and extreme racial and religious discrimination. So I don't think smoking can be properly defended on the basis of tradition.

I sympathize with smokers to a certain extent - their world is shrinking and changing, but they made a conscious choice to smoke (a very foolish choice I believe) and now they must live with the consequences.

[Hilarious Joke]

I especially sympathise with those people who started smoking before they fully understood the risks.