Since when is smoking such a crime?

[HeathcliffMoorland]

I don't smoke. I never have (this is not a reference to the other thread, btw).

I find it unpleasant. Because of my field of work, I am more aware than most people of the health dangers. I would NEVER promote smoking.

If someone smokes in the same room as one of my children, I take the child away.

However, I've noticed a recent increase in the number of people talking about smokers almost like they're criminals, or disgusting people, or generally offensive because they smoke... It's not like they actually want to be addicted (for the most part, anyway).

It really does seem like there's a recent increase in intensity of people's negative reactions to smokers.

People seem very precious about the whole thing, or something like that. Anyone else noticed this?

Lozza - some more info on Smokefree whateva' :

www.smokefreelondon.com/article.php?id=122&sub=20

Incidentally - the death rates are from the Office of National statistics - who do you reckon THEY are being paid off by ?

I grew up in a household with a chain smoking Dad (at least 40 a day) and my Mum who is about 20 a day.

I was aware I stank, when we got told at school about how smoking could kill you I remember begging my Mum and Dad to stop or cut down but they never did. I also grew up very poor, wasn't allowed the heating on, although we never went hungry we had crappy clothes, no car, phone, holidays, crap food etc but there was always money for cigarettes. I got sent for them most days.

My Dad still smokes heavily and I suspect it's just a matter of time before it kills him. The smell off him actually makes me want to gag, he was up on Sunday and I had to tell the DDs off for calling him "smelly papa and telling him he stinks!" (they aren't old enough to understand when you shouldn't say things).

I often wonder about the argument about smokers and taxes if it is cancelled out by the money spent on medical care caused by smoking related illnesses.

Abouteve: 'As for cot death, I'm sure the babies who die this way are in non-smoking households too'

Well - it's a clear risk factor, to put it mildly.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7045230.stm

Mind you, I liked smoking...if it weren't for the ponking out other people's environment problem, I'd be saving it as a consolation prize for when & if I get diagnosed with something properly terminal...

sweetkitty, you are describing a typical 1970's childhood for most children, mine included. Dad didn't smoke, mum did. Dad, well, his death was premature but won't go into that, mum lasted until 81 and got cancer, but not of the lung.

I have been a smoker and a non smoker, albeit mainly a smoker throughout my advancing year and will honestly say that I don't think smokers stink that much, a bit wiffy after docking one but it soon disperses, sweaty people with BO are worse.

I think another reason smokers are the new devil is because the middle classes have, by and large, stopped smoking.

And it's OK to pick on chavs.

Just to point out that "chav jokes" are banned in our house. I don't think it's OK at all.

ravenak and other posters, I know what you are all saying but risk factors are just that. There is a risk that if we travel in a car we might be in an accident and die, just as we might if we walk as we could get knocked down. There is a risk that if we smoke in our houses our babies might die, they might also die if we don't. It's a risk so we should stop smoking or going out in the car.

If it was true that babies die because their parents smoke then I wouldn't be here now and neither would DD and many other people.

Sorry if I'm being thick.

I went to the doctors as I was having chest pains (turns out this was stress as I have not had them after giving up my three jobs) .

I told him I smoked. He asked me how much and send a small packet of rolling tobacco a week.

Apparently this doesn't even count as smoking.
(in terms of health risks).

Had a rolly outside of Gatwick airport and got a right earful from a woman for being in the wrong place. Granted I was, but to be honest it was outside and great big diesel buses were dropping people off every few minutes.She wasn't going to breathe in my smoke, she wouldn't have smelt it (had she not been in my face) and I could tell she was really enjoying "making her point".

Unfortunately for her I was on my last puff so she never got to finish her spiel before it was out. The point being she wasn't actually interested in the smoke, it was just the principle.Which would be fine except I remember people in this country having a bit of character and thinking before they yelled in someones face.

I'm not a smoker, I've never smoked, never will smoke as I can't stand the smell. However demonising it to the extent it has been is a little ridiculous. There are plenty of things that people put in their bodies that can cause cancer, etc. It's perfectly legal.

Everyone who drives a car is spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Why don't we all stop driving and give up our cars in exchange for all the smokers quitting?!

Also what of drugs and alcoholism which is a much more damaging addiction. I've never seen someone intimidating someone on public transport, etc becuase they were off their face on cigarettes.

IME the middle classes haven't stopped or the upper classes in fact the ones I know have continued and moved on to snorting coke aswell.

Might be a bit of confusion between the working class that don't class themselves as chavs, they have!

PS I do support the smoking ban, etc. I was less tolerant before the ban as in place as you couldn't even go out for a drink without your clothes and hair smelling.

Since the ban, I literally can't remember the last time I was inconvenienced by cigarette smoke.

"If it was true that babies die because their parents smoke then I wouldn't be here now and neither would DD and many other people."
It is true. You might be here, but many aren't - because their parents smoked around them. It doesn't mean that all babies exposed to a cigarette smoker will die of SIDS and it doesn't mean that every baby ever to die of SIDS was exposed to a smoker, but it is a major contributing factor - 30% of babies who die from it would be alive if their parents hadn't smoked.

FSID Smoking Page

The reason people are suddenly being so nasty to smokers is because they can. The smoking ban got people talking about it and some realised that other people disliked smoking as much as they did.

Most people like to be one of a crowd rather than standing out on their own.

So it's the same as if a lot of people are saying they hate gypsies or black people or single mums. People feel they can join in and be abusive to a particular group because others will be on their side.

What irks me about Smoking is people just being so damn fucking stupid and messing up thier precious Lungs, i say this as a mother of a child who has no choice about his Lungs getting junked up to the point where he can't breath.

I would like to take every smoker and place them in a CF ward for a day and see how much they smoked then.

I don't care if im judgey and should mind my own business, if you smoke near my kids outside or not i will say something, i dont give him over 30 different midcations a day to keep his Lungs as health as poosibly just for you to fuck it up from your shitty, filthy, stinking habit... millions of people have given up so just do it already.

Had a quick look at that loveinsuburia, still not convinced. I know lots of people who smoke still, who have given up, who's parents have smoked, or babysitter has but I am glad I don't know any babies that have died because of it and I hope you haven't or most people haven't.

Better get off this thread now because I feel awful using babies deaths to state my beliefs about the scare mongering about smoking.

TitsalinaBumSquash, smoking is a very bad idea. But do you get as worked up over say drinking?

Anyone who drinks damages their body just like smokers do. They also remove their own ability to make sound judgements which often leads to damage to others. Running them over in their car. Attacking them in the street or getting home and beating up the family. Perhaps dropping the baby even though they 'only had a couple'

Yet many posters in smoking threads when faced with that will say "oh well.. .. everyone likes a drink.... now getting back to those evil nasty smokers who I HATE!!!!!"

Is that quite right though Onager?
AFAIK a little drinking of say red wine actually has health benefits (and this is not self justoification LOL as I hate red wine sadly ) but also AFAIK there are no ehalth benefits to smoking whatsoever?

Now the parallel kicks in very quickly I agree, once someone exceeds the small glass with dinner level (and I do mean small) but it's not a compeltely level playing field.

btw loveinsuburbia the NHS doesn't support the numbers made on the site you linked to.

Since the ban it's been more of a problem for us because mine and my toddler's walk into town goes past a whole stream of huge offices, which creates a constant path of smokers on the pavement we walk along for a good five minutes, every time we go into town.

I don't know about the health implications of this, but I do know that for the last nine months, being pregnant, it has made me really gag, and I am pretty fed up of it. And twice my boy has ended up with fag ash falling on his coat as he walked past, which is pretty grim. I wish they'd have shelters or something.

I too think it's been a really quick change in attitude - when I was growing up (70's and 80's) everyone smoked.

Also the change in attitude to drivers who drive who have been drinking - never a problem when I was growing up. I'm surprised at the shift in attitude to this as drinking under the influence is not as much of a factor as being a shit driver in the first place.

We have criminalised both of these activities out of proportion to the harm they actually cause statistically.

I don't care about statistically: I care about the fact that dh has not had an asthma attack in this century. Long live the smoking ban!

I don't think people talk about smokers as though they're criminals! But I do think people are just utterly sick of it- great that it's now banned in so many places, but the hordes of smokers hanging around doorways etc is still foul.
Everyone knows smoking is really bad for you, and that to be a smoker increases the risks of your own kids taking it up etc. It's pointless to talk about the risks associated with other things, such as driving a car, because driving a car serves many useful purposes, whereas I don't think it's yet been proven that smoking has any positive points.

I don't understand why anyone smokes in this day and age, when the health risks are widely known, and it's pretty selfish to increase the risk to your children too.

And bizarrely a couple of weeks ago outside our hospital a woman came up to me (I was very obviously pregnant at 39 weeks) as I was sitting down on one of the 'No Smoking' benches while I waited for results, and told me matter-of-factly that she was going to have to light up there because she'd been in a hired car and couldn't smoke in that I did feel the pressure of not being labelled one of these new-fangled anti-smoking over-sensitive types, so I just had to get up and walk away rather than saying 'please not near me'.

I know that's just one person, but I do think there's a bit of militancy growing in some smokers because of it being outlawed.

I hold up my hand and admit that I am an anti smoker, or rather, anti smoking. My sister and I grew up in a house where both parents smoked heavily. The car was always driven with the windows closed and two adults smoking. I loathed the smell of cigarette smoke then and still hate it now.

Oh, and incidentally, my dad died of a heart attack when I was in my 20s and my mum died horribly slowly three years later, gasping for every breath, from emphysema.

It is for those reasons that my sister and I just cannot tolerate smoking.

However, I don't hate smokers, I hate smoking. I don't care if people want to smoke. If they are provided with somewhere where it doesn't impinge on those of us who want to breathe in smoke free air then that's fine.

The smoking ban has made life so much nicer for us as a family. I can walk through the local shopping mall and breathe in "clean" air. We can eat out and not have our meal ruined by a smoker at the next table. We can enjoy a drink in the pub without having to leave early because of the smoke. If both smokers and non smokers can be accommodated then everbody is happy.