To ask smokers to move away from station entrance?

[PinkyAndTheBump]

I don't like walking through a cloud of smoke to get into station. It's a small station, with single entrance on this side of tracks - like double French doors, so no other alternative.

Would it be unreasonable to request Greater Anglia to mark out a hashed yellow "no-smoking" area there? It's not as if it actually provides them any shelter from the weather than standing elsewhere, and don't get me started on the litter of their stubs!

I've tried (politely) asking smokers not to stand right by the entrance, but just get verbal abuse back!

The words mountain and molehill spring to mind. No, I don't smoke.

I walked through a crowd of 'vapers' today. Smelled bloody lovely. It made me stop and ask them what flavours they were using, because combined it smelled like fresh baked apple pie and custard. Mmm custard.

...and yet they want to ban/tax that now. Obviously the taxes collected aren't enough now that smoking is falling out of favour.

All this smoker - bashing really wants me to go and get some fans, and I haven't smoked in 6 years. Mmm... Cigarettes

Fags, not fans, obviously

YABU.

I'll be in the minority, but good lord, woman - worry about something important!

That's the solution. Fans outside the entrance to blow away the fag smoke

You solutions it MrsPiggie

icimoi

I agree but my point is all the things you mentioned I don't do (which I mentioned) I even carry a small thing in my bag incase I can't find a bin but I'm still tarred by the same brush that all the disrespectful people.

Smoking is not nice for people who don't do it but they should have a problem with disrespectful smokers.

If smoking rooms were still allowed, then non-smokers wouldn't have to worry about smokers huddled around doorways.

If campaigning hadn't killed snus in Europe 20 odd years ago, then most of the smokers would be using that instead, leading to a happier and healthier society.

Watch the same thing happen with vaping. In 20 years, we'll be wishing that we'd encouraged the ecig, as we run the gauntlet of smokers still huddling around doorways.

Smokers at my work used to smoke next to the ventilation where people said the intake was. Lovely.
I think there is a suggestion how far from buildings?
Though its not nice following behind a smokers trail.
Thing is they dont care about there own health or children so why would they care about yours.
Or they dont believe its dangerous or smells bad.

Why are the militant smokers getting the hump on this?

Because they are fucking fed up to the back teeth with all the bashing! It's constant! Yes, smoking is deadly to half of the people who do it and there is some evidence that SHS is harmful (third hand smoke BTW is entirely based on a couple of dubious rat tissue studies but some people feel this is enough to cut off their DC from ex partners and extended families). Yes, smoking smells bad, yes it creates litter and bla bla bla. Smokers know all this and it doesn't actually help them to stop.

Actually I don't think the smokers are getting the hump, they've just been through so many of these threads and taken so much shitty nasty vile flack that they are now blowing a bit of a raspberry and sticking two fingers up. There's a lot of humour in this thread and I for one am enjoying it massively

Start showing a bit more reasonableness to others and you might find that the smoker bashing stops

And this is the crux of it - smoker bashing will never ever stop as long as there are smokers. Not smoking near entrances is not good enough for some people - they'll complain that you're smoking in the street. Not smoking in the street is not good enough for some people - they'll complain you're smoking in public at all. And please, nobody ever think it's OK to smoke in your own garden - you are the neighbour from hell. Don't smoke inside your own home either - it seeps through to next door so you're still the neighbour from hell, plus whoever lives in your house after you will never ever get rid of the smell, even if they raze the place to the ground and rebuild it and nobody will buy your stuff on ebay and Apple won't honour your guarantee ...

All this for something which is legal, from which the government make a fucking fortune and to which the vast majority of smokers became addicted to as children.

So that's why.

I think YABU but on MN, you must not criticise smokers. It is a serious offence that evokes a lot of sarcasm and finger pointing in other directions.

And what Jux said.

There are two things you can do to actually help if you don't like smoking:

1. support ecigs - if the industry is not completely destroyed by excessive regulation we could make smoking obsolete in a couple of decades.

2. Campaign for a total ban on smoking and the sale of tobacco. Go on - have the courage of your convictions! Yes it'd leave a massive hole in the budget and loads of people would live much longer, costing loads and loads extra in pensions and elderly care and you'd all have to pay a shed-load more tax but it's worth it isn't it? Or would you actually prefer people to carry on smoking and dying at their present rate so you can benefit from the massive amounts of tax they pay and the reduced burden from the 100,000 odd early deaths per year, just as long as they don't do it near you? Be honest now

on MN, you must not criticise smokers

Now that is the funniest thing on the thread so far. Nowhere else have I come across quite the level of nastiness towards smokers as on MN.

Except clearly this hatred is more widespread. I was linked to this the other day. Someone has collected lots of the lovely things people say about smokers online and made it into a poster. You will probably have to DL it and zoom in - there's rather a lot of text there.

And meanwhile some of us are busy on the stop smoking section - you know, actually supporting people to quit.

Plenty- no i would want them to stop selling tobacco. I would back the stopping selling to over 18s policy.
Mainly as it permanently affects people - asthma etc. and there are still loads who smoke in pg. crazy that they might need a law to stop it.
I dont believe all this - gov couldnt balance budget stuff. It must have cost 000s for me and DSis asthma treatment.4hospital stays that i remember. Nurse visits, gps, antibiotics for chest infections. And this is mild.

Plus DM heart attack around 50, maybe 5 hospital stays and now breathing issues, high BP. Anti bs for lots of chest infections. Yes lots of tax paid but nhs never truly cost things and some issues arent currently proven. I suspect thyroid issues, infertility so that could be another 8k.
But who is to say how much this will reduce lifespan as medicine can treat so much. All these effects even after quitting around 10yrs ago.

Well, I'm an ex smoker (vaper now) and we're supposed to be the mosst intolerant of the lot

Let me first of all be honest and say I now hate the smell and can't believe I ever used the things. But do I moan and whine about others smoking, especially now they can only do it outside? No I bloody well don't ... it's a free world, smokers know the risks they've chosen to take, and a brief puff of secondhand smoke in the great outdoors isn't realistically going to hurt anyone, however much they try to persuade themselves it does

As most people know, vaping produces water vapour rather than smoke, but guess what ... all too often, people see this "cloud", assume it's smoke and choke, cough and wave their arms around anyway. Unfortunately, hysterics and the intolerant will always be among us; best, really, to leave them to their ulcer inducing, self imposed stress

YANBU I would include vapours in the request too

Oookay I see my previous suggestion about carrying and spraying Lynx amongst these groups of smokers didn't get much support.

How about Febreze? Or maybe just snort on your personal Neutradol?

Even better, what about a stylish pendant containing a scented tobacco-neutralusing candle?

Worn just under the chin it would definitely distract the wearer from the smell of cig smoke!

Before any of you rush to steal my idea, I must advise you that the patent is pending for this great new product (prototype name Hot Sniff)

Naty 1, tax on tobacco covers the entire cost of the NHS (for everyone, not just smokers) and leaves plenty of change. I'll get you the figures tomorrow when I'm on the laptop.

Oops sorry I got that badly wrong. Tobacco taxes more than cover costs of smoking to NHS but not entire cost for everyone. You need to then add in extra pension costs and care in old age. It would still leave a massive hole.

I would love to see a breakdown of what they include as cost to nhs of smoking as its hard to say, apart from lung cancer i would think and emphysema. Things like skin conditions worsened by smoking. Or say increased chance of breast cancer. Im sure not paying pensions saves a fair bit but medicine can support very sick people for a long time too.
I think the long term effect of 1 family member smoking is likely to be much higher than nhs figures would calculate.

Not to mention workplaces.

Both my and my DPs grandfathers died of smoking related things, leaving widows who have lived another 30 yrs and seen their grand and great grand children. Plus DM heart attack if fatal would have meant she didnt see hers at all. Despite quitting a few years earlier.

I agree that many smokers are considerate and do their very best to ensure that an addiction that they don't have total control over impacts as little as possible on others. And I always appreciate that.

But there is a large body of smokers who really show no awareness of the impact of their smoking on other people. When the law was on their side these smokers lit up between courses in restaurants while other people at the table were still eating; held their cigarettes out over adjacent tables to avoid the smoke going into their own eyes; insisted that tables be booked in the smoking section of restaurants even when the majority of the group were non smokers; lit one cigarette after another in confined workspaces without asking if anyone minded; and basically put themselves first all the time. I presume these are the smokers who nowadays see nothing wrong in hanging around in gangs of half a dozen or more right at the door of public buildings where people are entering and exiting, lighting up in crowded bus shelters on rainy days, smoking all over people in ATM queues and just continuing to aggravate non smokers.

I understand that considerate smokers hate being tarred with the same brush. But as long as you have the inconsiderate brigade, there's still going to be a strong anti smoking feeling amongst the general public.

I found a few figures ...

Tax vs. NHS costs:

Treasury earned £12bn from tobacco sales in 2011-12
Average cost of smoking to NHS each year = £2.7bn

Shortfall = £9.3bn
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Pensions:

Population of the UK 63,182,000
average life expectancy UK (wiki) - 81

Approx 20% are smokers = 12,636,400
ash.org.uk/files/documents/ASH_106.pdf

1 in 2 smokers will die prematurely = 6,318,200

losing on average 10 years = 63,182,000 years lost
ash.org.uk/files/documents/ASH_107.pdf

State pention = £113.10 per week = £5881.20 per year

Savings in state pension alone = £371,585,978,400

This assumes that all dead smokers would have been eligible for the full state pension during the ten lost years. Of course this will not be the case. However, Death rates from tobacco are two to three times higher among disadvantaged social groups than among the better off so it's safe to assume that the majority would be eligible.

These figures don't include housing benefit, winter fuel allowance, free prescriptions, bus passes ...

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I have been unable to work out the savings in social care. It's a much more complicated calculation.

I picked up a few stats from here which start to hint at the scale of the problem:

• The financial cost of dementia to the UK is £26 billion per annum.
• The proportion of people with dementia doubles for every five-year age group.
• 80 per cent of people living in care homes have a form of dementia or severe memory problems.

Sorry that pension saving should be divided by 10 to give a yearly saving of 'only' £37,158,597,840