To be so sick of cigarette smoke everywhere I go?

[WanderingNotLost]

And I do mean everywhere. Walking to the train station, people walking ahead of me smoking and I can't avoid it. Walking into the train station, at least half a dozen people desperately puffing away before they have to get on a train for max. 25 mins. Breathing out the last cloud of smoke as they get on the train and then their breath stinks up the carriage. Lighting up as soon as they leave the station at the other end. Walking from the tube station to work. Outside the building entrance when I go out for lunch. Same story on my way home. When I'm at home, can't have the balcony door or any windows open as other people's smoke wafts in. If it's not cigarette smoke it's that sickly sweet vapour. I just hate it so much, and I'm so aware of how bad it is for people - and smokers choose to do it, the people around them have no choice about breathing it in. If it were up to me it'd be illegal.

And please, please, no ridiculous comparisons to exhaust fumes (not that I drive anyway). Cars etc at least have a highly useful function, they get you from A to B. Smoking has literally not one single redeeming quality to make it worth all the negative aspects.

I agree with you OP. I work opposite a main train station and there is always a crowd of people smoking at the door of my office as they are not allowed to smoke at the station entrance. I hate running the gauntlet to get into work.

Getting a lungful of cigarette smoke when you are running is just hideous. YANBU.

It's so much better now that they can't smoke indoors. Hopefully the mingling habit dies out completely soon.

Hardly anyone smokes any more. I see an odd person here and there smoking but only if I go into Town.
It is ridiculous to get so dramatic about a few people smoking. If they insist on standing next to you and blowing smoke in your face then you have a valid point but they don't.
The few smokers I know go out of their way to stand well away from other people.

YANBU! Fellow Londoner here.

We walk everywhere as don't have a car, like many city dwellers.
First thing in the morning is particularly bad on the street to school or the station. There is usually someone just ahead puffing away and outside the station always at least 2-3 smokers at the entrance (staff and passengers). Poor air quality means the smoke doesn't dissipate. I definitely avoid going for a run at that time and I worry about my DC's lungs.

After school on the way to evening dance class 3 times a week, we pass a university- big notices outside saying please not smoke, but always a big crowd of smokers outside. We then pass several pubs with smokers outside (outdoor heaters) staff on their break smoking outside the Sainsbury's local, and smokers sitting outside the cafes and sometimes the church. The bus usually has people smoking at a distance but the smoke travels. It really is a horrible problem OP.
Walking around Clerkenwell Green and Hatton Garden while my DC in the class, there are so many office workers smoking outside.

Nothing to do with class or social housing it's a combination of the smoking ban(which was brilliant!) which has forced smokers outside and the dodgy air quality.

Saddest of all was the really thick smoke outside the hospital which we had to pass every day when my poor mum was terminally ill on a respiratory ward. Lung cancer sufferers still puffing away. So tragic.

Tobacco industry is so evil and that is where the blame lies. Profit before people...

Tobacco industry are a bunch of utter bastards who are no better than heroin or crack dealers.

I can ignore smoking most of the time. It's just occasionally when a bunch of colleagues come in from a smoking break & get in the lift with me, & the collective stench at close quarters means I squeeze out in a hurry & take the stairs.

I get that "just giving up" isn't always that easy though, smokers are drug addicts & seeing someone huddled coughing over a fag in the cold & rain shows how desperate some of them get for their fix. I can see the argument for going back to having some smoke-friendly pubs or even cafes - licensed for nicotine & adult-only.

Second hand smoke definitely causes damage to your lungs. DSis and I both got diagnosed with asthma and COPD in our late 50s. We never smoked but our parents smoked constantly in every room in the house and on every journey in our small car. It put us both off trying even one puff of a cigarette.
The stink of those vaporette (sp?) cigarette substitutes makes me feel nauseous too

Yanbu. It's such a repulsive skink.

Yanbu. I completely agree. I cringe that I smoked when I was younger (18-28 maybe). Parents do it outside school, walking them to school, outside supermarkets, in busy city centre forcing everyone else their 2nd hand smoke. Outside our local train station, outside our local NHS "gateway" (you literally have to walk through a cloud to get to the entrance, I complain each time). Businesses need to crack down. It's dying out but not quick enough.

People with severe and enduring mental health problems purchase 43% of all tobacco and cigarettes in the UK.

I did't see that statistic, but I did read this in the link:

Around one third of adult tobacco consumption is by people with a current mental health condition with smoking rates more than double that of the general population.

I undestand that this report is published by ASH, and that they have their own agenda. But it still is a staggering statistic.

I rarely encounter any smokers when I go out these days.

Lucky you. Wish I could say the same!

I don't like cyclists getting in my way while driving, or people who spit in the street

Annoying/disgusting as those people are, what they're doing isn't actually damaging your health, is it?

Op. you sound like you've got some form of phobia of fixation or something. You sound both angry and obsessed. You're very sensitive to noticing it and to have such an extreme that you stopped jogging in case you come across a smoker and inhale passsively and fear vomiting and are angry with your mother, is well, as said, very extreme.

I'd maybe seek some help so you can go about your daily life. Explain to your gp your anger, the fact it's caused you to give up jogging and see if there is any therapy available to help you.

Bluntness

I think it is more noticeable now that it is so rare. Offices, pubs, restaurants, trains and platforms all used to be smoky. Now it is only at the entrance to all of those.

YABU -

And I say that as a non smoker! If it's in a public open space, then get over it. I see no reason why people want to ban in all together.

I did't see that statistic

You are right, and despite citing that statistic in my final year I cannot find the source, very disappointing! However here's some data in mental health, smoking and poverty:

ash.org.uk/download/mental-health-smoking-and-poverty-in-the-uk/

You might also find this fact sheet interesting.

www.ash.org.uk/files/documents/ASH_120.pdf

The reason why people with SMI fail to stop smoking is because of the attitude of nurses. We are literally killing our patients!

The vaping rage puzzles me. People rant on and on about what a health damaging habit smoking is, smoker takes this on board and switches to vaping instead, and still the wrath comes!

Well, there is an alternative. And one that would save you a fortune as well ...

I hate it to op. If I wanted my kids to inhale smoke I would buy them cigarettes. But there's sweet fa I can do about it.

I get annoyed when I'm stuck walking behind smokers, or when they're smoking in a bus stop and it's raining or something, but on the whole I don't encounter it much. It is gross to notice when you're inhaling someone else's exhaled breath.

Oh you're talking about in the open air!?

You need to lobby for the criminalisation of tobacco, maybe?

I'm still relieved that I can never be obliged to work in an enclosed smoky room again, personally.

Oh I see you got more unreasonable as you went along 🙄

Maybe you need a spliff? Knock on any random HA tenant's door. I'm sure they'll help you out 🙄

Bluntess - don't be so bloody patronising.

The reason people want to ban it altogether is because it is very damaging to your health and there is no way of confining the effects only to people who choose to do it. If smokers were only polluting their own lungs and blood, and making only themselves seriously ill, and making their own hair and clothes stink and the smell was invisible to non smokers and there weren't cigarette butts all over the pavement, well I wouldn't give a shit. But they're not. Why should my health be damaged, my clothes smell, my windows constantly have to be kept shut because of other people's fucking stupid choice to smoke?

Let's swap cigarettes with something else for comparison, say heroin. Heroin addicts know it's bad for them but hey, it's legal (in this scenario) and they like it, and they're addicted so they do it anyway. Now let's imagine that every time a heroin user injects themselves, everyone standing around them is also injected, whether they want to be or not. The damage a heroin user does themselves also happens to those people, in spite of never having touched the stuff in their lives.

Would that be ok? Of course not! So why is it ok for smokers to do it?

Maybe you need a spliff? Knock on any random HA tenant's door. I'm sure they'll help you out

I thought exactly the same sentence after the last post.

So much frothing isn't good for you OP. You live in London, the place is polluted. You're never going to get decent air in that place ever whether people smoke or not.

I smoke . Really wish I wanted not to but I don't yet. We can't smoke indoors so I've to smoke outdoors but I guess standing round doorways in a gang isn't ideal for non-smokers...

Breathing in other people's cigarette smoke isn't good for me either. But I have no choice about that.

Yes, London is polluted. But exhaust fumes etc are a downside to something that is otherwise extremely useful and fairly vital to modern society, e.g. transportation, energy etc.

Smoking, on the other hand, is just a shitload of downsides to something that has no benefit whatsoever.

I disagree. You don't need a car in London imo.

Well, there is an alternative. And one that would save you a fortune as well ...

Vaping has saved me a fortune. I spend £250 this year compared to £50 a week smoking.