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?

[VivaLeThrustBadger]

Been on a crowded Oxford St the other weekend I was directly affected by smokers. Even dd was pulling faces as people walked along with fags at her face height in close proximity. It wasn't nice.

When I walk into work I have to run the gauntlet of patients smoking outside the entrance, literally have to go through a cloud of fag smoke. They're not meant to smoke their but in the past when I've nicely pointed that out I've had a mouthful of abuse. They can't be arsed to walk 15ft to the smoking area. And the smell comes through the window frames into the ground floor consulting rooms and makes them smell. I have opened the window mid appt before now and told someone to move.

[specialsubject]

I'm not particularly enamoured of drunks that need to be picked up by the NHS and make many places so unpleasant. But they do tend to stick to certain times of day.

smokers light up all the time, leave rubbish everywhere and SMELL HORRIBLE. If you smoke, you and your clothes reek, and also your stinky stick is really unpleasant for anyone downwind. And there is no magic curtain to keep it outdoors - it does appear that smoking makes you very stupid too.

don't care if you die early, that's your problem.

[YouAreMyFavouriteWasteOfTime]

branleuse - IME the level of consideration from smokers, is veerrrrry low.

so we have laws and good.

[GrandpaInMyBlender]

I wish I could go weeks without smelling smoke! I walk everywhere and there's always some selfish fucker smoking while dawdling along. The amount of times we just stop and wait until they're long gone because its impossible to overtake them with a pram (narrow paths round here). Then there's the lovely neighbours who can't smoke in their rented house who do it right outside ours instead. So we can't risk leaving the windows open for fresh air.

I think the reason a lot if people dislike smokers more than drinkers or overeaters is its in your face much more in daily life. To see drunk people I'd have to be in a place where drunk people hang out. Its generally avoidable. Whereas smokers are everywhere.

[FlapJackOLantern]

vive - well if authority hadn't taken away smoking 'places' and had given cafes/pubs the choice to be smoking/non smoking..........then people wouldn't be forced to walk down Oxford Street or stand outside where you work, would they? Tttch!

[friday16]

Because a smoker directly affects me by being smelly...Yes an obese person may cost the nhs money and risk leaving their kids fatherless, etc but that doesn't affect me directly

Smoking, like being fat, saves the NHS money. Oh, you want evidence? I've got Peer-reviewed papers and shit. The people who cost the NHS most are non-fat people who don't smoke. Smokers both cost less and pay in more, through taxation on cigarettes. Fat people don't pay as much extra tax, but the NHS is still hugely in profit because of their reduced life expectancy. And that's before we consider reduced pension costs due to lower life expectancy.

[Redpipe]

jaquelinehyde
I'm so sorry to hear your story.

[JaquelineHyde]

Jesus Christ there is some sanctimonious bullshit on this thread!

[JaquelineHyde]

Oh don't worry Redpipe I have learnt to live with it and have recently lost 10 stone so the abuse is far less than it used to be. Although I am still large.

[frumpet]

air pollution is a bigger killer than passive smoking , road traffic accidents and obesity . It doesnt say that it is a bigger killer than actually smoking cigarettes though . So smoking cigarettes is very bad for you , especially if you do it outside as you are hit with the double whammy of air pollution too .

[pianodoodle]

i dont get it either.

As long as the smoker is reasonable about it and keeps it away from non smokers as much as possible, I dont see why its anyone elses business

I think it's because it's an easy target, and an acceptable one.

No one's going to disagree with someone if they post about how awful smoking is because everyone knows it's a health risk etc..

They aren't really saying anything new but it makes them feel better to know they are somehow superior (in their minds) to someone else in whatever small way they can find ;)

[MurderOfBanshees]

I think it's more that if someone is sat next to you having one glass of alcohol then the chances of you being affected by it are slim to none. They'd need to have a few for their drinking to start affecting others.

But a smoker only needs to smoke one cigarette next to somebody for it to affect them. So it is antisocial even when in moderation.

[Redpipe]

Jacqueline

Well done.

[VivaLeThrustBadger]

Flapjack, did you read my post fully about the designated smoking area at the hospital less than 30seconds walk away which they ignore?

[propertyNIGHTmareBEFOREXMAS]

I hate smoking with a passion. I loathe walking through cigarette smoke and consider those who smoke around children to be utter, filthy, selfish cunts.

[YouAreMyFavouriteWasteOfTime]

to genuinely not understand why smoking is vilified

lets look at the effects of 2nd hnad smoke on children:

"Breathing in secondhand smoke is particularly harmful for children. Children who breathe in secondhand smoke have an increased risk of:

•cot death (sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS) – this is twice as likely in babies whose mothers smoke
•developing asthma – smoking can also trigger asthma attacks in children who already have the condition
•serious respiratory (breathing) conditions such as bronchitis and pneumonia – younger children are also much more likely to be admitted to hospital for a serious respiratory infection
•meningitis
•coughs and colds
•middle ear disease, such as otitis media (a middle ear infection), which can cause hearing loss"

www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/2289.aspx?CategoryID=53&SubCategoryID=536

is that list insufficient to vilify smoking?

[FlapJackOLantern]

Viva - most hospitals have done away with them. Ours certainly has. Now EVERYBODY has to walk the gauntlet.

[Redpipe]

I think the first few replies to my OP sum up exactly the over sensitivity to the one vice.

Posters in disbelief that I can't see how obvious it is that it really is the work of the devil over and above any other vice in society.

I would personally say cars cause more deaths and illnesses through pollution than any smoker does nowadays. Also that alcohol probably wrecks far more lives than smoking ever will.

[DontMentionThePrunes]

Well, it stinks, it makes people who don't smoke stink even if they are standing apart from smokers, and it makes people you love die slowly and horribly.
And I can't now sit outside a cafe with a lovely coffee in the sunshine minding my own business, because someone will come and light up next to me and make me stink. Cheers pal.

[Redpipe]

YouAreMyFavouriteWasteOfTime

I don't think you fully read my OP

[WinkyWinkola]

Not least because it stinks.

I mean you would grimace if you had to sit next to someone with B.O. and imo, fags on breath, hair and clothes really smell as bad, if not worse.

And people who work and have a fag and come back reeking - how is this professional? Is it professional to smell foul?

[DontMentionThePrunes]

My mother (lifelong smoker all through pregnancies, my childhood, still smoking despite various relatives dropping dead etc etc, thanks mum) tells me there is no point telling smokers they stink because it just makes them want to light up to spite you.
So that's nice and mature.
I wish the smell could be described to smokers in language that would make them understand how badly they smell of it.

[VivaLeThrustBadger]

Our hospital did away with them initially and everyone was meant to walk to the road to smoke. Of course nobody did. So they introduced a smoking bay but its still ignored.

[trianglecirclesquare]

Plenty of people drink alcohol with no ill effect, either to them or anyone around them. Smoking always impacts the smoker negatively, and always impacts negatively on those around them.

Also, the result of anti-smoking laws has been: fewer people smoke where a ban is in place; the effects of second hand smoke have dropped to almost nothing outside a smoker's home; non-smokers can go out in public without coming home smelling of smoke. It's an easy public-health win.

Anti-alcohol Prohibition laws in the US proved not nearly as successful.

[friday16]

And people who work and have a fag and come back reeking - how is this professional? Is it professional to smell foul?

It's perfectly legal to refuse to employ smokers, and it's perfectly legal to write that into their contract of employment and sack them for breaching it. Even if they only smoke at home.

So it's even more reasonable to assume that if a company's staff reek of smoke, the company itself doesn't care, and act accordingly.