India knight on smoking in times

[FluffyMummy123]

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I agree that all non-smokers have a right to go out, have a meal, have a few drinks, without coming home stinking of other people's smoke. Absolutely. I also think that smokers have a right to go out, have a meal, have a few drinks, and smoke if they want to. If pub landlords, club owners, restaurant owners, were allowed to make their own decisions, you would find that they are all used at least to a certain extent, and the ones which were not turning over enough would go out of business. Those would not necessarily always be the ones which allowed smoking.

I want choice. I have a friend who has never smoked, doesn't want to, but desperately misses going to a pub, hearing a live band in a heady smokey atmosphere.

A place where I worked (years ago) did some research on air pollution. The air in reception (open to the street), was apparently far dirtier (more polluted) than the air in the smoking room. Partly because they had a really efficient air purifier. But still, the road you walk down is not exactly clean.

If pubs and clubs smell revolting then it just goes to prove that they have never been properly cleaned and ventilated. Now is the time to get their act together, not suggest that they do nothing and get the smokers back to mask it!!

A heady smoky atmosphere!!! I have heard it all now!

Well I know it sounds daft AbbeyA, but it is what she says.

I don't think that she can be a contact lens wearer!

Smokers are just hacked off that they have to be exposed for the addicts they are - standing outside in the pissing rain for a few puffs of a cancer stick. It looks pathetic. It is pathetic. I'm glad that smoking is becoming increasingly socially unacceptable.

Barnstaple - Really interested in your workplace's study on smoking rooms having leaner air than the streets. What were they measuring? Care to give us a reference?

This bucks the trend of international, peer reviewed research, on air quality in smoking venues.

Incidentally, the scientific consensus is that "air purifiers", ventilation systems etc don't protect people from the toxins in secondhand smoke.

I am glad that pubs and restaurants are non-smoking now but hypocritically I am also glad that they weren't when I was growing up, as some of my fondest (and haziest, obviously) memories revolve around smoky pubs...

Firepile, try reading Mumsnet and other forums for the urban myths I was objecting to. 'everyone knows' so many things about it and each time they get more ludicrous in the telling. Did you know you can get cancer if someone passes your house while smoking? Even if they pass in a car ffs.

Then look at the way certain posters (not me) have been insulted on here. Tell me if you think that's right.

As for the passive smoking links I'm afraid that there is now no way to tell who is telling the truth. There are studies by the tobacco companies and of course I don't believe them for one minute and nor should you. Then there are other studies which lean the other way. Unfortunately since it's already been decided it is the root of all evil "because you can just tell" there is now no way to get unbiased facts or have a rational debate without (some of) the anti smokers getting hysterical.

I think judging smokers as persons is so American, makes me want to light up 20 marlboros at a time.
I think the ban is great, even if at first I wasn't best pleased, given that I smoke only when I go out, which happens so rarely anyway. But it's great being in smoke free restaurants etc.

I am a occasional smoker, I don't mind standing outside pubs for a smoke, dontcha know thats where all the cool people hang out these days?

At home I smoke in our front garden and only when the children are in bed.

I think I am polluting less lungs than the people who drive, especially those that drive to pick up a pit of milk.

lol, don't think you're allowed to mention car pollution. They get all defensive about that.

AND as a smoker I like the smoking ban. Pubs and restaurants are so much nicer now. I only smoke occasional roll ups so people chain smoking marloros or puffing on cigars really irritated me.

In clubs or at gigs however I miss it. The smoke adds to the atmosphere and reduces the stink of whiffy bodies/ stale beer/ the loos.

Nah@franca. I'm sorry, but I do judge smokers. I don't judge youngsters who smoke - young people are entitled to be hedonistic and devil-may-care about life. But if I am entirely honest, I do judge adult smokers. I judged myself when I smoked. I hated the fact that I was an addict and that my addiction meant I could so easily rationalise putting my health and the health of others at risk. I try not to be a judgemental person, but it's very hard not to judge someone when they are blowing their secondhand smoke in your face! More than anything, I pity smokers, and as patronising as that sounds, it is the honest truth. I pity them in the same way that I pity drug addicts or alcoholics. It's terrible to be addicted to something that is probably going to kill you. Walk past a pub on a freezing winter's day and watch the smokers huddled together in the rain puffing away. It's not a happy sight.

Yes Mrs Hattie

You wouldn't believe the sight of me just last week. Shaking with desperation until I just had to go outside and huddle with the rest of the addicts for a fix. And it's getting so much harder to 'score' these days, I am 26 but got ID'd just last weekend.

pmsl@Devil. It is an addiction, though! But you all stay there in denial, reeking of fags! I have read (the very American, very evangelical) Allen Carr and I am now a happy (only slightly Nazi-ish) non-smoker. And it feels goooooooood . And I smell good

MrsMattie, I cannot fault your post. It makes sense. It is actually right. But I personally don't want to feel like that. There are so many categories I cannot stand at the moment: those who elected Berlusconi in my country, those who drive in the city centre, those who park on the pavement, racists, anti abortionists. I could go on. Smokers are still not high on my list. Perhaps because I fancy the odd cigarette. Perhaps becuase there are many people I love that smoke (in Italy there is not a class division on who smokes or not YET), perhaps because I'm in denial, perhaps becuase I'd love to be still in the seventies.

sorry, my English was all over the place in my last post

I read allan carr twice, and both times put it down when he tells you too. He's shite.

The only way I'll stop smoking is if I keep getting pregnant and breastfeeding, overlapping until I am 50.

I know exactly what you mean@franca. Honestly, I do. When I was an occasional smoker, I still felt that way. Smoking still had romantic connotations in my mind. It signalled freedom and hedonism and not getting bogged down by petty details. It conjured up images of French philosophers in smoky cafes, wild Irish pub bands, being young and carefree and not giving a toss.

I agree - I also found the American obsession with health really odd (still do - especially in a country where there is such a divide between those who are horrified by a lit cigarette and the whole 'supersize food' culture. Weird!). This whole thing of checking your bloody cholesterol all the time, denying good wine to under 21 yr olds and fining people for smoking on the street - yuck, not the sort of society I ever wanted to live in. However, I have to say that since giving up smoking completely, I feel like my eyes have been opened. Without getting all Michael Moore on everyone and boring you half to death, I really, truly believe that smoking is a terrible, poisonous addiction and that making it socially unacceptable is a good thing. Even better would be to shut down the evil bastards in the tobacco industry who profit from getting people hooked on something that is likely to kill them. they're the real villains - not the smokers. But the government isn't going to do that, unfortunately, so the next best thing is to take our health into our own hands and make sure that every other message we send out as a society condemns smoking.

MrsMattie . Yes, I totally see your point. I think I'm still too nostalgic, in a way. Even if I don't smoke more than 20 cigarettes in a year.

Who's been insulted greyriverside?

MrsMattie you say about the "divide between those who are horrified by a lit cigarette and the whole 'supersize food' culture" but that now your eyes are opened. Do you mean that you now think smoking is the only thing that matters? or do you still see it as one of many things that are bad for health.

I havent read the article but I do enjoy going out to cafes etc now without it being smoky. I do think though banning smoking has caused its own problems at night with people congregating outside of pubs etc smoking and generally being loud and drunk.