to think that people have the right to smoke without being villified as if they were using cocaine?

[stitch]

i'm a non smoker. make that a never smoker, apart form one incident when i was 13 and had a huge coughing fit.
i am really really shocked at how people are reacting towards people smoking. it is not the worst thing in the world, and i just feel really uncomfortable athow they are making smokers out to be pariahs.

its illegal to smoke in bus shelters with more than 3 sides, BYW (which is most of them)

FYI

Message withdrawn

If they're not, they should be. I would never smoke in a bus shelter (unless it was a deserted one ... in the middle of the night ... and it was raining ... perhaps). Most smokers at least attempt to be considerate of others, especially children.

Reformed ferret?

Isn't that what they use in the cheaper chicken nuggets?

Custy... well, you asked

Pinky etc...so if you've been driven out of the beer garden because it's now a smoking garden, all the more reason for people not to smoke in the park, yes?

Isn't this where we came in...

@ hunker

v good

OH. Who am I being lumped with? I think you should be more careful to see what individual people's opinions are,before you lump everyone into a for or against camp. Some of us are a little more complex.

Night nigth ladiesx

gosh, I do seem to be hitting your buttons PInkyminkyohnooo tonight - I'm really not trying to!

The 'etc' wasn't me lumping you with anyone - just being too lazy to type the full name accurately.

I don't think there is a 'for' or 'against' camp, really.

Personally, I'd like it if smokers accepted that, unless they are in a designated smokers' area OR their own home, unshared with non-smokers including but not limited to their own children OR in the open air at least 100 yards from everyone else, that their fags are liable to cause unpleasantness to others.

But I didn't 'get' that at all in my own smoking days, so, fair enough, lots of smokers don't appreciate the courtesy & tolerance being exercised every time a downwind non-smoker refrains from comment!

I don't want to make smokers uncomfortable for the sake of it, but I can't even begin to tell you how my life has improved since the smoking ban.

I can now go to restaurant without having to leave ill and choking halfway through the meal. I can travel on public transport. Dh, who is asthmatic, can get through a day at work without an attack. I am lot less worried about dd, who is also asthmatic.

And the best thing is that smokers now have a sort of awareness that they are affecting other people. They may feel persecuted- but it doesn't actually make them ill, they can move away out of that bus shelter for a quick fag and then come back.

I remember what it was like before the ban, trying to ask somebody not to smoke next to your desk in the office or at office parties, despite the fact that they knew that they were working with severely allergic people. Pre-ban, it just wouldn't have occurred to most smokers that this was any of their responsibility.

I am happy to be tolerant of smokers as long as they don't share their smoke. But I did find in the olden days that most smokers were totally unaware of how much their smoke spread and smelled and impacted on other people.

well there is no credible evidence that cocaine use increases likliehood of cancer or respiratory difficulties or SIDS but plenty to implicate smoking in all of the above.

no problem with adult smokers doing so responsibly.it is when they smoke in park/bus stop over children. carlessly wave fags about like a baton in the street, that i object to.and ime majority of smokers are responsible it is the small minority who are irresponsible

smoking ban is fab in pubs/restuarants

only problem is now you can smell the toilets and other customers

I think it depends where they're smoking. I glared at the woman who was smoking in the queue for one of the ride's at Gulliver's Kingdom the other day. I mean ffs, its a kiddy theme park, there were lots of kids around, inc my dd. We couldn't get away as we were squished in the railing queue system.

I also detest the smokers that congregate in the porch area just outside the Tesco main door. You have to run though a big cloud of smoke on the way in/out of the supermarket which I hate.

At the risk of fanning the flames (arf) I just wanted to pick up on something DSM said:

"Smokers have the right to smoke, non-smokers have the right not to.
Smokers respect non-smokers rights by smoking outdoors. Can non-smokers not show the same respect back and give them the space to do so?"

Smokers don't respect non-smokers rights by smoking outdoors, they are abiding by the law, which, if they decided to ignore and spark up anyway, they'd be ejected from the place at the very least. It's got arse all to do with respecting non-smokers, it's got everything to do with the threat of the law. Which, as it happens, is in place because smokers didnt respect non-smokers enough to willfully go outside and smoke. They need threat of punishment in order to co-operate.

That's all

Jesus.. non smokers are not children needing to be 'threatened with punishment'. Law abiding citizens, thank you very much.

Yes, it has become law now smokers have to go outside. But that was the wish of non-smokers. So what, its not good enough because somkers were told to? If all the smokers of the world had got together and decided to go outside that would have been better?

Maybe it would be worth passing a law then, to force non-smokers to 'respect' smokers rights by not moaning at them when they are outside, abiding the law.

Also, your argument is totally ruined by the fact that most smokers, when in a non-smokers house, will go outside to smoke. Most smokers will not smoke in their house when they have children in it. That is a non-enforced respectfulness.

At the risk of lighting the touch paper (ta-darrr), I think smokers are smelly

Well, it wasnt just the wish of non-smokers.....but it was passed because smokers werent respectful enough to go outside without cajoling. Why else would a law need to be passed?

I think it's disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

I do ponder where you get your "facts" about most other smokers from. IME vast experience of other smokers, they are not as thoughtful as you'd like to believe. IME, folk such as yourself are in the minority. Like I say, a law about smoking wouldnt have needed to be passed otherwise.

My facts are really just observations and experience of myself, my friends, and to be honest, people in Edinburgh in general. However, it is a very friendly city and I am aware (again from experience) that not everyone is like that.

Why would smokers have gone outside before the law was passed though? Because non-smokers didn't like it? Why would non-smokers not be the ones to have to leave?

Now, obviously the logical answer is for the smokers to go outside, hence that was the decision made. However, before that decision is made, why would one group get preferential treatment over another? They would never decide. Hence, the need for a government. To make these decisions.

So I think that your argument of smokers not going outside out of courtesy pre-ban is a little pointless.

No, I rather think your point about smokers being respectful by going outside is pointless. That's all.

Some smokers are consideorate some just aren't. I meet more smokers that aren't considerate than I meet considerate smokers.

On my cycle home from work today (I live in Edinburgh), two cigarettes were thrown in my face from cars driving past me. These cigarettes were still lit when thrown in my face.

I guess it's a bit like drunk driving. In my parents generation, it was totally acceptable. Now it isn't.

I'm very happy for smoking to be totally socially unacceptable in the mainstream. It makes it much harder for me to casually do it and take it back up again!

i think smoking is like sex - its for consenting adults in private. i dont think adults shoudl be villified for smoking in private eg in their own homes - its a free country

dropping litter is an offence - whatever you drop. throwing hot things at cyclists or pedestrians is dangerous and stupid, but lots of drivers do dangerous and stupid things