to genuinely not understand why smoking is vilified

[Redpipe]

and yet drinking, overeating and other addictions that cost the NHS huge sums of money are not?

AIBU to genuinely not understand why it is just smokers in this country that are socially unaccepted?

Really? You genuinely don't understand why people hate a habit that stinks out everything it comes near, is totally antisocial, and kills people they love in a horrible manner?
You haven't given it much thought, have you?

For me it is because when I walk in the street and someone next to me has a mars bar I am not worried about where the hand goes with a hot smoking stick, I am not going to stink at the end of a night with someone eating cheesy pizza. I am not going to get ill from living with a chain biscuit eater.

It is about the effect on someone else. not about the ultimate cost. - For me.

Have you spent any time thinking about this?!

It kills the smoker & can kill people around the smoker. I believe it has been linked to cot deaths too.....no, no I'm with you, no idea why

To echo neverknowingly, I've never been blue lighted to hospital on a nebuliser suffering an asthma attack because of someone eating a twix next to me.

That's it, that's what I am, I chain biscuit eater - I knew it was a proper condition, thanks never!'

Really?

Are you being serious?? Really??

I have a long list but really, if you cannot reason with yourself on this one there is no hope.

Er... because smoking not only kills the smoker but adversely affects the health of those around them. Smokers stink of smoke even when they aren't smoking. Their cars and houses stink, they inflect their addiction on many people. If they smoke in my house (which I would never allow) my house would stink. Cigarette butts are one of the most common forms of litter. Cigarettes are a common cause of house fires. shall I go on?????

Also, not sure that alcoholism and drug addiction are socially accepted as funding these habits often leads to crime.

Are you a smoker?

I have one cigarette a day, alone, in my back garden, so I'm pretty sure I'm not going to spark an asthma attack/set someone alight.

Am I free to go?

Loving chain biscuit eater

Because with smoking it is directly causal in lung cancer, whereas the other things you mentioned are implicated in health problems but don't have the direct link to a specific disease in quite the same way.

*I have one cigarette a day, alone, in my back garden, so I'm pretty sure I'm not going to spark an asthma attack/set someone alight.

Am I free to go?*

Are you vilified and socially isolated because of your one cigarette a day lone in the garden?

It is partly that there are safe or good levels of alcohol drinking and food eating, but no such thing for smoking. However, I would argue that overweight people do come under the same kind of attacks when it affects other people (seats on planes or trains, for example), the way smoking affects other people.

The NHS cost thing is a bit "one step removed" for it to be the actual basis of people's reactions. The smell and presence of smoke is much more emotive.

There will ALWAYS be something that people go on about as though it is the world's worst crime - at the moment it is smoking. In a few years it will be something else. In my younger days it was nuclear war and pollution. Then climate change. Now smoking.

Obesity is going to the biggest killer yet, but people don't care because "I can't catch anything off an obese person, but I hate the smell of smoke".

But then there is always someone who will go on about ANYTHING that they don't do/understand.

No I am not a smoker
However, drinking causes no end of social problems and deaths
Addiction to food causes premature death and huge cost to the nhs?
Yes I have thought about this

well I hate having to get close to a smoker
I would hate for my dentsit/hairdresser/nurse/workmates- anyone I come into contact with- to be smokers, they stink and thats the best thing you can say about smokers
I have a friend who smokes, she is very careful not to smoke around anyone but I left a jacket at her flat, it stank when I got it

So smoking directly affects others but drinking and over eating doesn't? really?

How many third party alcohol related deaths do you think there are? Think, agression, drink driving etc. That directly affects the innocent non drinker just as breathing fumes third party can affect the innocent parties health.
Walking down the street and getting abuse from drunk groups or avoiding vomit directly affects the non drinker.

Watching health deteriorate from food addicts directly affects all our pockets through taxation.

I agree about safe levels argument runnerhasbeen although it could be argued that although food is necessary alcohol is not, it is poison after all!

Smokers aren't allowed to smoke indoors, so the risk of making other people ill is pretty low. I think it is just a bandwagon people jump on to attack other people's life choices. The amount of tax smokers pay more than accounts for the cost on the NHS. I personally think its none of anyone's business unless they are having smoke being blown in their faces.

I do however think that it doesn't stop at smokers, people really seem to like fatbashing these days, even though it has absolutely no effect on their lives. I think people just enjoy being judgemental cunts frankly.

I think irresponsible behaviour like drink driving, alcohol fuelled fights and violent behaviour are villlified actually, even more than smoking.

Rural, over-eating and over-drinking have VERY direct links to particular diseases the same way smoking has.

because it kills people and it stinks.

HTH.

one person's cigarette killed over 50 people in the tube station fire in king's cross. other people have mentioned the health impact, smoking also makes everything smelly,ugly and dirty. when smoking was allowed in public transport, the carriages were disgusting, people ended up covered in smoke and ash.

Someone drinking or eating next to me doesn't cause me health problems, whereas someone smoking next to me can.

Smoking is disgusting. I don't think most overeaters blow food at you or drop hot chunks of food on you. Yet there are loads of smokers who think nothing of blowing nasty chemicals in my face and dropping hot ashes wherever they please. When I was in a wheelchair during pregnancy, I got loads of people tapping there ashes in my face.

Er you haven't thought this through have you?