To hate smokers

[Siennablue]

I have just spent ten days in hospital with my gorgeous dd2 as she slowly recovered from pneumonia. I met lots of great doctors and nurses they were amazing. But the majority of parents were scum. Children kept being admitted with asthma, tiny children struggling to breathe. One 18 month old was on her third admission. Almost every parent smoked, and so did every person who came to visit these poor kids. Then every few hours they have to leave the kids and go for a fag. They made the ward stink.
Wouldn't you think your baby gasping for air and screaming in terror would be enough to stop you smoking?
Bloody scum

NONE SMOKING YABU :)

YABU (cumfy - NS )

Oh sorry, you are NBU but my point was about hospital funding and taxes from cigarette smokers.

I can't use the word, "scum" about parents who have children who are struggling to breathe due to obesity but I do wonder. These people are not paying into the system in the same way that smokers do and it is also generational.

Why hate smokers as they are actually helping in terms of money and removing themselves from the treatment lists and state pensions?

that's not the question though - the OP was hating people for smoking away from their kids under stressful cics - and assuming their children had ling problems because they smoked

I found both things judgemental

people do lots of things around and to their kids I dislike - which is why I choose NOT to do those things myself - I don;t tend to spend my time judging them for it - I find a quick tut and a boob heave works well

Ling - oh dear LUNG - fat fingers!

I think dangerous drinking and being dangerously overweight are also incredibly selfish. They are all vices.

Being in the army is not selfish - it is a person's career and in most people's view - it serves a purpose.

As for smokers dying and not claiming a pension - what utter rubbish.

What about the massive levels of disability caused by strokes, COPD, heart failure - many of whom are smokers.

You are right gordy. Apart from the Ling damn you auto-correct

But the wider implications of the government having no smoking tax money and how everyone would screech to high heaven if it needed replacing riles me.

Are you saying that smokers don't die younger than most people germum?

You need to get in touch with the people who state this as a fact on the cigarette packets I buy every few days.

I wish it were "utter rubbish" but if even the cigarette companies agree to have it on their packaging then you really should challenge them with your superior scientific knowledge.

I'm sure they would be very grateful to hear and to advertise the fact that cigarette smokers actually have prolonged life-spans. But they can't can they? Because it isn't true.

look op, you find it annoying - that's fine, you have a right to find it upsetting, horrible or whatever you like. you don't have a right to call parents who smoke scum. you don't really know anything about them.

of course smokers die prematurely - I have already stated that in an earlier post.

But they also suffer more than their fair share of illness and disability whilst they are still alive. And that costs money! Some of it is offset by the tax they pay on cigarettes but it doesn't account for all of it.....chemo for cancers, post stroke care, COPD care, the elevated rate of hospital admissions, etc etc I could go on and on.

I once had a colleague (scientist) who was fond of declaring that practically all diseases were due to life-style and environmental factors.
Not saying I agree about that but this is undoubtedly true for quite a lot of diseases so where would you draw the line at calling people scum OP? Are parents of obese diabetic (Type 2) children also scum? What about children who already show signs of fat deposits in their arteries - that must mean their parents are scum too? What about people who have children when they have a family history of certain genetic illnesses, do they pass muster with you?

No parent is perfect and all parents very probably make bad decisions at some point - stop judging because you might find yourself being judged in the future. Think about it.

Siennablue... I hope your DD is better very soon. I can understand that you feel absolutely desperate about her, it must be a really worrying time for you.

I don't like the smell of smoke, it really does stink and can't be covered up, but I don't think it's reasonable to say that you hate smokers. I think some of them just don't realise (or won't acknowledge to themselves) that it's bad for their kids whether they smoke in front of them or not. Hospitals are stressful places and every smoker, in times of stress, is going to want a cigarette.

I dislike the excuses that some smokers come up with for reasons to smoke. If you're going to smoke, acknowledge that it's having a bad affect on your kids as well as yourself rather than kidding yourself on and justifying it, FGS, and don't be so flipping chippy to someone who's going through hell worrying about her daughter in hospital.

germum - smoker do pay more in tax than their illnesses cost. They generate around 10 billion and cost around 3 billion. That is it in a nutshell.

salmotrutta

do you mind me asking where you have got your figures from?

what about smokers who are in the army?

I will be as chippy as I like when somebody calls me scum

People who eat too much fat and are non-smokers aren't told to not eat hamburgers or other shite in the hospital grounds by automated voices. Shite that they may have purchased within said grounds.

I'm in favour of a junk-food tax so I'm not unreasonable. I want to share the burden. I'd like a tax-break on healthy foods and for formula milk to be unbranded and affordable.

Smokers whose only crime is to smoke, not to be obese, generally have less treatment. There are stats for this. And they have paid shit- loads via tax compared to your McD's addict.

www.nelm.nhs.uk/en/NeLM-Area/News/2009---June/09/Smoking-related-disease-costs-NHS-5bn/

Depends what age the parents are. Anyone over 25yrs old is past it. But the real villains and the stupid ones are the teenagers who smoke.
In town the other day, a kid not more than 11yrs old was walking around with a lit cigarette cupped in his hand.
I so wanted to whack it out of his hand, but he looked like to type to attack

Ripeberry ..not all teenagers are going to attack you,,.you must get over your fear of youths

germum - It was a report on BBC news I think but here's a link that might be useful:
www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cigarette_tax_receipts_v_cost_of

Interesting first post

'Interesting first post'

Theres been a few