please empty your brain below

Yep, spot on as ever

Completely agree.

And why should we pay for them on the NHS?

One guy I used to work with used to take a fan to the wedding receptions he went to (we were photographers), and when he was sat next to a smoker, he used to blow their smoke back at them.

And why should the NHS pay for the idiots who fall off ladders doing DIY, those who get drunk and beaten up on Friday nights, people who drive too fast, teenage mothers who get themselves up the duff, blah, blah, blah. Please try and find a more original argument that actually stands up to scrutiny.

Can't agree with you on this one.

Actualy, I'll elaborate on that last comment. Do you find smoke that terrible that your neighbours are not allowed to indulge in their habbit on their own balcony? Would you show the same consideration that you seem to expect of them if they were vegitarian and couldn't stand the smell of meat?

Can we ban chewing gum too?

Look! Do you want visitors to your site or not? Jes kiddin'

The worst are people who smoke until they are in a crowd of people going down into the underground, and then drop their smouldering fags at the last minute. It's normally blokes in work shoes who don't seem to realise that some of us wear sandalls in the Summer. I've been burnt a couple of times

Frogma,

I'm ot sure your argument stands up to scrunity any more than the NHS one does.

We need to eat food to stay alive; we don't need to smoke to stay alive.

A better analogy might be if dg were a vegetarian, and enjoyed nothing more than a good burst of sprout-induced flatulence, which he liked to practise on his balcony.

Avtually, even that's not so bad as it's unlikely his noxious bottom-burps will actually shorten their lives.

Hehe, I see your point. Certainly the neighbours don't need to smoke to stay alive.
However I think that the damage to one's health is probably nil once the smoke has been diluted a few thousand times, so the the reason to object would be a dislike of the smell. Therefore wouldn't a vegitarian who does not like the smell of cooked meat and argues that eating meat is no more necessary than smoking have the same right to complain?

Then again I'm probably biased

Love the colour cards. You should get t-shirts made up: I'd buy one.

If you want Tshirts, try www.spreadshirt.net - they would do them (on demand, no upfront payment)

Of course there is always the cynical argument that in a society where an aging population is a problem anything that reduces lifespan of its consumers while being a tax raising instrument is a good thing.
Then again it doesn't solve the smell problem.

It's never really bothered me, even though I'm not a smoker.

why should the nhs pay for the idiots who fall off ladders doing diy? because that would be an accident, smoking is self inflicted damage. why should the nhs pay for those who get drunk and beaten up on friday nights, or people who drive too fast? becuase at the time of treatment, it might not be the injured persons fault. why should the nhs pay for teenage mothers who get themselves up the duff? what?

i would like to see smoking banned in all public places, for all the reasons given here, and also because i hate litter, and smokers are some of the worst culprits for dropping litter. i hate the smell of smoke, and i would prefer it if i never had to breath in cigarette fumes ever again. i think a majority of people agree with this, so i guess a smoking ban of some description is inevitable.

I concur!

The solution according to Hunty.

Every millionth cigarette has enough poison to kill you instantly. Lets see if the morons that smoke decide to give up then. Or just let me stab smokers in the face with a rusty spike.

And another thing. If you blow smoke in my face I reserve the right to step on the back of your heels or flick crap at you or shoulder barge you in the street. You know who you are you inconsiderate moronic fucks.

I'm an ex-smoker who now cannot stand smoking at all. It's smelly and vile and I cannot believe I did it for 14 yrs. I particularly hate parents who smoke around their children, especially in the car with all windows closed - yuk yuk yuk. Only smokers will defend it.

I suppose complaining to your MP is out of the question?

dg writes: given who my MP is, out of the question

... and I am continually fed up with having to duck and dive when walking down the street because there's a smoker in front of me, trailing noxious fumes behind them and right into my face.

If every smoker who dropped their cigarette butt on the ground was forced to EAT IT, we might make some progress.
Something like 50\\% of all litter on the street is related to Smoking debris. ( he says making up a random statistic )

Speaking as an ex-smoker (as of beginning of May) can I plead with everyone just to chill out? For goodness sake, anyone would think we were talking about people randomly axe murdering others in the street. And before someone tells me about the evils of passive smoking, could I say right back that there are zillions of common things more carcenogenic than second hand ciggie smoke, so let's get things into perspective.

No, not a nice habit, but then we can't all be perfect pod people with perfect lives, attitudes, complying with all the nice rules imposed on us by everyone else.

Katherine, I am an ex-smoker too, but given your one month of not smoking contrasted with my eleven years, allow me to explain why this is a big issue:

When I used to smoke, I truly believed that non-smokers were making issues out of nothing, that my smoke wasn't affecting them. I honestly had no idea as to how the extent of my habit affected other people.

Of course now I know just how wrong I was, and with hindsight, feel like apologising to all the people in restaurants, bus stops, tube stations etc. that I thoughtlessly blew smoke into the faces of, and for not caring that my actions affected their health.

It's only now, many years as a non-smoker later, that I can see how utterly selfish I was when I smoked. This issue for me, is not about living by laws or rules, it's about having common decency for others. And like I used to be, I imagine most smokers don't give a shit about this.

So I'm all for banning it in public places. Going to the States (and I can only say this in relation to this one issue), is like a breath of fresh air: every restaurant, bar and club I went to in New York was smoke-free. Bliss.

Well, I have been a non-smoker for more of my life than I have been a smoker and I was never one of those selfish smokers that would quite happily blow it along behind me on the pavement. I got annoyed by that when I smoked and I get annoyed by it now.

I'm just trying to say that in the great scheme of things, second hand smoke is not that actually that big a deal, either as a public health issue or a politeness thing - it has been whipped up to a frenzy that way by disapproval. And quite frankly we're on our way to disapproving of everything. You can't move for it. Or have fun.











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