to hate smokers

[onemiddlefinger]

I don't actually hate the people (well, not all of them anyway), but I find it so disgusting walking though someone's cloud of smoke. There was just a woman having a cigarette next to the door of my office building and there is no way for me to enter the building other than though hercloud of death! And that happens frequently. Would IBU to bring this up with our office manager and ask for this to be banned?
Actually I wish all smoking in public could be banned, or at least in all bus stops and doorways that have people coming in and out of. In fact they should have designated areas only and those areas should be easily avoidable by others. But I don't suppose this will happen anytime soon...

[Loveloveloveher]

Just yesterday I had to move twice at the bus stop because smokers kept choosing to stand right next to my baby to smoke. What is wrong with people?

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

Here's the thing: While smoking rates have fallen amongst the better off, the remaining smokers are on average disproportionately poor and massively disproportionately affected by mental ill-health. These are people who are already stigmatised. It hasn't stopped them being poor, neither has it improved their mental health (quite the opposite!) so why would stigmatisation work to reduce their smoking? There is some evidence to show that people with mental health issues (including basic high-stress shit-life syndrome but most especially those with psychosis) are self-medicating with nicotine and that it does actually help with their symptoms. For these people smoking is not a luxury item - they simply fall to bits without it.

Stigmatisation ('denormalisation' in Public Health speak) has worked quite well to reduce smoking among the better off middle classes who have a smorgasbord of life choices. It has utterly failed to affect the smoking rates among the most vulnerable in our society (rates within MH haven't changed for 20 years) - it's therefore simply cruelty for no good end. Please stop it.

The tide has indeed turned against smokers but it's a largely manufactured tide and it brings its own harms.

naty1 - are there any other ways you think teenage girls should modify their behaviour just in case they become pregnant one day? That line of thinking leads nowhere good.

[Shakey1500]

Plenty I can attest to that. During my psychiatric stay I don't know how I would have coped had I not been able to smoke (there was a designated room) This was in 2005, I'm not sure if it's banned now?

[fiverabbits]

My DD is in the largest hospital in Wales which has notices everywhere saying the whole site is a smoke free zone. Yet in the 40 minutes I sat in the car last night whilst my DH visited my DD every 2nd person lit up a cigarette, this includes patients in dressing gowns who then went back onto the wards. They should be fined and made to pick up the hundreds of ends that litter the door outside the main entrance.

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

It's being banned widely Shakey. I suspect that smoke-free is a major target at the moment so hospitals have little choice.

All MH in-patient services and prisons should embrace ecigs without delay IMO. They don't work for everybody long-term but they're good enough for most people to get by. They have a tiny fraction of the risk of smoking to users and those around them and none of the 'think of the children' arguments are relevant in an adult setting.

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

naty1 what precautions do you recommend to teenage boys to prevent them producing damaged sperm leading to disabilities in their hypothetical DC?

[naty1]

Condoms for both.
You cant compare boys and girls - like it or not physically different and while smoking can affect sperm and fertility constant replenishment of new stocks make less of an issue. Girls have 1 set the more they damage them then they remain damaged.
Hence i was reading better fertility in old age if you dont/never smoked.
It is silly to start smoking (as a woman) knowing its addictive, if you know you need to give up in pg but i guess only if you want kids.
Its not really such a 'this will lead to..' Because the only other things i can think of like that are class a drugs.
Surely then smoking is causing MH issues, all the chemicals and nicotine dependence cant exactly be good.
With the poor its very complicated. They want something to enjoy. Possibly less education/ understanding of the health implications. Feeling like they dont care if they live. But some people just like doing stuff they shouldnt.
For example DH doesnt smoke. Sil does, tries to quit, DN also now smokes :( they both are much more rule breaking than DH. Neither tried that hard at school, possibly easily led. There is definitely a stubbornness too. Which DH has. This is despite the grandfather dying of cancer.
Hoping DC inherit from me as having them go on to smoke would really worry me.

[Puzzledandpissedoff]

Speaking of hospitals ...

Visiting a large Nottingham one recently, I saw a lady in floods of tears on a bench at the edge of the grounds, fumbling hands pulling a ciggie from a pack; clearly something awful had happened, but within a hospital that's perhaps not surprising. She hadn't even lit it when a uniformed guy stalked over and harangued her at considerable volume and length, completely heedless of her stunned face

Okay so she shouldn't have smoked there, but given the state she was in I doubt she'd have stopped to think. It just seemed such an inhumane way for the man to speak to her ... not unlike some of the attitudes we see on here, really

[Davsmum]

I smoke. I never smoke close to people or indoors, even my own house.
When I was a child I lived with parents who smoked A LOT and they smoked in the house.
I suppose someone who has never smoked or been brought up with smokers may not like to smell it or be near it at all - but to be honest, I think complaining about walking past someone who is smoking is a bit soft!

I hate walking down a road polluted with car & Lorry fumes, it i sfar worse than a cuple of people passing me with a ciggy! - who do I complain to?

[HelloItsMeFell]

You'd be surprised Davs walking behind someone who is smoking and it drifting straight back into your face can be incredibly unpleasant. Even worse is when they walk past you and exhale a full lungfull of smoke in your direction just as you've taken a breath in, and you cannot dodge them.

You'd be amazed how often it happens.

And two of the most disgusting smells ever are

1. when someone doesn't stub their cigarette out properly and it sits there burning into the filter
   
   
2. the smell on a person's breath when they've been outside in the cold air for a cigarette and then come back inside to sit right next to you. There is something really awful about that smell that's almost worse than being in the presence of the smoke itself.

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

Hello I don't think you have a rational relationship to smokers or smoking. Like many people you dislike it but some of your replies have gone into detail about things that really don't bother people normally. I have a 'thing' about metal - I can only use stainless steel cutlery, the smell of tarnished metal makes me feel ill, scraping metallic noises set my teeth on edge - even thinking about metal makes me feel queasy. Your reaction to some of the cues around smoking remind me of this - not a phobia exactly but a deep aversion that is not coming from a rational place.

You'd be amazed how often it happens.

Yes, I would. I commute through SE London several times a week. It's jam-packed and there are plenty of smokers. It's incredibly rare that I get even a whiff of it (and since stopping smoking my sense of smell has become very acute) - these days the majority of smokers seem ready to apologise for breathing and go a long way out of their way to avoid inflicting it on others.

As it happens, I found myself walking behind two smokers on the way home this evening and consciously thought 'how bad is this really?' I took a big sniff and the answer was 'not that bad at all, it's just another slight bad smell mixed in with all the others'. The most disgusting smell in my neighbourhood is dog shit.

[Davsmum]

You'd be surprised Davs walking behind someone who is smoking and it drifting straight back into your face can be incredibly unpleasant. Even worse is when they walk past you and exhale a full lungfull of smoke in your direction just as you've taken a breath in, and you cannot dodge them.
-----------------
HelloItsMeFell
Worse than car exhaust fumes? Can't you get past them? I mean, How long does it last?
To be honest, these days you don't see that many people smoking, even in public. Most smokers I know try bloody hard not to blow smoke anywhere near anybody.

[Jayne35]

The other thing worth mentioning is that it is well known that smoking dulls your appetite and your sense of taste and smell, so perhaps smokers are not the best placed people to tell non-smokers that it really doesn't smell that bad and they should stop making such a dramatic fuss.

^ Really? I gave up 6 months ago and haven't noticed an 'improved sense of taste and smell', nor have many ex smokers I have talked to, so I'm not sure if this one is actually true.

Reading some of the nastiness on this thread towards smokers is awful, no-one should judge and insult anyone like this. As others have said there will always be inconsiderate/selfish people whether they smoke or not.

[Jayne35]

Also I have NEVER taken a break at work other that than the ones I am entitled to take either now or when I smoked. I'm sure that's true for most people.

[naty1]

Must depend on your work - the only ones taking breaks were the smokers at mine. Certainly regular everyday ones.
If you watch hells kitchen the smokers sense of taste is impaired.
My DH used to come to our house start sneezing - he has no allergies and could smell the smoke at the door. It gets ingrained. My family couldnt smell a thing - 20-60 yrs living with a smoker.

[BackOnlyBriefly]

I've never worked at a place where I could take smoke breaks, but then lots of 'working' people spend their day posting on MN so times have changed I guess.

[naty1]

Wouldnt know about that never had internet access at work. Probabky to stop fb MN etc but mainly viruses

[Davsmum]

Makes me laugh when people moan about workers taking smoke breaks.
I used to have a ciggy in my breaks - I would come back and work faster and harder than my colleagues who were gossiping and chatting. They could have taken a break outside if they wanted to but instead they just wasted longer inside chatting. They did not consider that 'a break'