Banning smoking outdoors?

[MrsMerryHenry]

Did anyone else hear about this on R4 (PM programme) this evening? I can't find an article about it anywhere. Is this a serious proposal?

It does make me when smokers complain about infringement of civil liberties over this issue. I don't believe I have ever heard a smoker talk about non-smokers' civil liberties being infringed every time someone lights up. And non-smokers have been putting up with second-hand smoke for about as long as humans have walked the earth. So although a very small part of me feels a wee bit sorry for smokers, that they're being pushed into a corner, the rest of me goes "ROFLROFLROFL it's about time."

I would be happy with all NHS property, but as Po said, it's ineffective if the staff can't police it.

Better security might help I suppose, there.

Banning smoking entirely on nhs property would be a nightmare for people in mental health units. Already the indoor ban makes life extremely difficult for patients and staff on wards where there is no direct access to outside space. I'd like to do an audit of the number of incidents that have started from patients being forced to wait ages for their nurse to have time to escort them to the outdoor smoking area. I tend to think that the stress of being in or having loved ones in any hospital for any kind of serious health problem may mean that it's not the best time to be denying a crutch, even such an unhealthy one. Practically banning it would just mean a fug of smoke at the hospital gates. Having said that, I think more careful thought about where smoking shelters are sited is warranted to ensure that non-smokers do not have to be exposed to the smoke.

There's no fug of smoke at the gates of the hospital in our road...a small heap of fag ends, but no real noticeable cloud or even groups of people, usually. It is so far from the actual building that most people probably don't bother.

Next door to us the people do have mental health problems but not of the type where they need escorting to the garden.

You have to fight your way past the smokers to get in my local hospital. The staff and the patients all congregate there.
I couldn't resist linking this video
The Editors and Smokers Outside Hospital Doors

armi

link doesn't work
here

Where will it all end? If we're talking about cost to the NHS, what about drug abusers? Or how about people who don't exercise, or eat the "wrong" foods & put on weight - in the long run, they're going to be much more of a burden on the NHS than those who choose to take better care of their bodies.

And what about people who eat sweets and don't floss before brushing their teeth properly Clearly, they'll cost more to the State in the long run so should they be allowed to have an NHS dentist?

Or what about people who have cars - at a cost to people's health (and the environment)? Should they contribute more to the NHS?

There are myriad ways we could ALL lessen the burden on the NHS - to target smokers (and I am not one) is totally unfair.

Either we abolish the NHS completely and have a pay-as-you go health system, or we accept that everyone is entitled to health care on the NHS, regardless of their personal habits.

Of course everyone is entitled to NHS care. That doesn't mean people should be allowed to poison others for a pleasure that is transitory , addictive, and dangerous.

Just a quick reply to the poster who has black nostrils from walking through London, this used to happen to me 23 years ago, it's just pollution not from the outside cig smokers sorry.

I thought that London would have cleaned up it's air since then but not so. Never experienced this in any other capital.

Yeap, the black snot thing is general pollution. It is better than it used to be (judging by my personal snotometer when I go up to town -snot now greyish rather than black!)

However, it's an interesting point, because the only difference with smoking is you're doing that to your lungs! So if you don't like the black snot thing (which I think we're all agreed isn't pleasant) it beggars belief that people should choose to do that to their lungs.

I would much rather stand next to a smoker than a drunk person, to be honest .... let's ban alcohol as well, eh?

but macmcrae - if you ban alcohol and tobacco however would the government make their money??? [innocent emoticon]

Oh and I am a smoker too!! I don't smoke in the house ever because of DD but DH and I do smoke on the patio. I am a considerate smoker though - I don't smoke walking through congested areas or near to children and I try to make sure I am well away from building entrances.

Surely it doesn't need to be banned outside? I mean, we suck in more poisons from the buses and ridiculous SUVs chugging through our cities than we do from second hand smoke.

Always seems hypocritical when smokers don't smoke in their own homes, to protect THRIR children, but happily smpke outdoors puffing over everyone elses!

Quite, MrsGisbourne. And hilarious when the only arguemnt smokers can come up with is 'oh you better ban alcohol/cars/walking along the street/horseriding/abseiling etc.

It's a perfectly acceptable argument though pofaced. Why ban ciggis completely when cars make more damage on the environment? We don't need cars and alcohol as much as we don't need fags. Alcohol is an especially good thing to compare it too actually, as I'd rather step on a fag butt whilst out then somebodies piss and vomit.

End of the day, we step on one anothers toes no matter what we do, and are always going to be infringing on somebody's rights.

Then the argument of people getting NHS care as smokers: people who are obese get free treatments for a variety of problems on the NHS and their obesity is down to them most of the time (how many people genuinely have thyroid problems?), should the NHS stop offering treatment to people whos problems could be caused through their own life-choices? That's a lot of us screwed over if they do.

tbh as a sometimes-smoker I prefer the ban indoors to what it was before, much nicer. But I find it hypocritical for people to promote banning it outdoors when they happily chug along in their cars. If any of you don't drive on principle, then I will happily listen to your arguments on why people shouldn't be smoking outside, but I see driving as a bigger threat to the world then a handful (compared to the population) of smokers. Especially as we all live and we all die as a fact of life, but we leave the world to our children, their children and so on and it's becoming beyond repair because we, as humans and supposedly as the superior species, refuse to do anything about it.

Very well said PixiNanny

The smoking ban and higher taxation have definitely reduced the amount people smoke. I used to smoke 20 a day, now I can only afford a couple of packs a month, and I worry constantly that I am bothering other people. The only place I smoke is late at night in my own garden, or at night in a pub garden when people aren't eating. I have asked my neighbours if it bothers them (I usually only have one cig) and they said it didn't. I can go weeks without doing it, I guess it's not that big a problem.
I wouldn't dream of smoking in the street, and I certainly wouldn't smoke in front of or near any children.
I will surely stop quite soon - because if I am banned from smoking outside, there will be nowhere I can do it, and I guess that's fair enough, it is pretty silly.
I am a little puzzled by the level of vitriol and sweariness on this thread...if people smoking in a pub garden gives you the pip, ask them to stop? My mum does...

Anyone whining about people smoking outside and how damaging it is to their health, and how it is not just a "smell" who drives a car is a big, flaming hypocrite.

The busybody bossiness of so many on MN is embarrassing.

Why assume that people who don't like pollution from fags, drive big cars?

That's a bit of a leap! Hardly a sound argument

I didn't say big cars, I said cars.

And I didn't assume, it was a hypothetical.

Outdoor pollution from tobacco smoke would be what exactly? What effects does it have? Whom is it harming?

The idea that a little bit of sidestream smoke in the atmosphere is damaging to people's health requires a little more than bald assertion and assumption before you start yet another round of bannings and interfering in people going about their business.

What a load of crap skidoodle. People need cars. they shouldn't use them as much as they do, and cleaner technology is needed [and coming] but you don't need cigarettes. Cigarettes are addictive. You can give up, you don't want to. The evidence for secondary smoking is concrete. If you sit next to somebody smoking outside you still inhale their smoke, it doesn't disappear into a vacuum.

I suppose you think my father, just off a ventilator and in intensive care, should have put up with the [illegal] smokers in the hospital garden, as he did, and that him coughing painfully through his tracheostomy pipe had nothing to do with the smoker a few feet from him. and I suppose you think that when my asthma is triggered by a smoker next to me in a pub garden it has nothing do with the smoker either.