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."

It is a pain in the arse to smoke? Poor you. Er, give up?

I do back off whenever I can - at bus stops, on pavements, at hospitals [bar having a father in a wheelchair] at playgrounds, at days out, name it, I back off. However, if I sit first at a table outside with my family as a treat on a sunny day and order food, and then someone comes and sits next to our table, lights up, holding their fag away from themselves and their family, towards us, there is not much I can do. So in that situation yes, smoking should be banned in eating areas.

Anyone with manners wouldn't smoke when people are eating. I guess you met a rude person. How rare.

Well this thread has made me laugh. you seriously think it is rare to eat outside and sit next to another table where someone lights up whilst you are eating? what a sheltered life you must live.

You make me laugh. Your so HYSTERICAL about it. Chill woman.

Not hysterical at all dear. Just won't let stupid statements lie

ive done my school run walking this morning and made a point of looking at smokers

saw approx 5 mums smoking whilst pushing a buggy with the child facing inwards

to me thats disgusting. one the smoke is wafting over them

other point the child is actually seeing there parent smoke, therefore its ok and acceptable my mum smokes so all good.

bad parenting

I agree with banning it in some outdoor areas - nothing worse than being stood on a bus stop and some selfish person lights up next to you or having to walk through it.

I went to Longleat yesterday and some very generous people lit up next to us while we were having our picnic.... didn't even take the hint when it triggered my niece's asthma...

you see auntiemaggie thats so so rude, it happened to us at legoland yesterday, till i told him

its got to be made totally unnaceptable to smoke in public

its not ok do we realy want a new generation of smokers following suit.

ok there are people who want and like to smoke but do it in your own homes only.

But you see that is very rare Auntie Maggie

Yes, some smokers (like some non-smokers) are insensitive and stupid.

Some, like me and others on this thread, are polite and considerate and won't light up at the bus stop / in the street / anywhere near children / near open windows / doorways etc. It's just that you don't notice them because they're being discreet and tactful.

And wrt to the pub garden argument, the point is that the non-smokers have a choice as to where to sit. Smokers don't have many places left. The pub garden remains one of the few. You guys have won already, so why not sit inside the pub, or go to a restaurant or cafe, and save yourself the stress?

Or why don't you just give up?

Maybe because you enjoy it? well I enjoy sitting outside with my family on a sunny day without fag smoke in my face. God, in fifty years time people will look back at this era and shake their heads that people actually deliberately put these incredibly toxic, incredibly addictive little sticks in their mouths and inhaled, regularly. They'll think you were nuts, just as we now think people were nuts for putting lead make up on their face or x raying children's feet at the shoe shop. So why not quit while you're ahead?

OozingPus, that is great re you being polite and considerate and your second paragraph demonstrates that. But your third contradicts it completely, no? Why would you not light up in the street but be happy to light up where people are sitting? How is that sensitive or considerate?

I think banning smoking outdoors is going too far although I would personally welcome it with open arms. (Particularly when someone ashed, yes ashed , on my baby's head yesterday - the woman didn't mean to, I'm sure. She was walking along the road and ashed behind here where DS just happened to be cruising along in his pram. I was absolutely furious. But I digress ...)

Ultimately I think that the outdoors issue comes down to manners. Anyone who infringes on others (and in this I believe the right to not smoke another's cigarette prevails over the right to smoke one) is behaving badly. If you must smoke, smoke so that you are not affecting anyone else. And I'm afraid smoking at a table next to someone else is probably likely to affect someone else and is therefore very rude.

Our hospital has a complete ban on smoking in the building grounds and in cars in the car park.
It is enforced very well, especailly when people like me report all smoking to security who then move them along.

I really odn't need anymore proof that passive smoking outside does you harm and niether would you lot if you saw my DS passing a smoker, ok yeah he does have a severe respitory condition but thats not the point he is as important as every human in this world so i dont see why he should have to damage his little lungs anymore just becuase someone want to damage thier own.

Its a huge problem that needs sorting, there needs to be places for smokers to go so everyone else doesn't have to suffer and if it means some people giving up smoking in the process then even better.

A straw poll here:

How many smokers here wouldn't dream of dropping rubbish on the ground in public areas?

How many smokers here think nothing of stubbing out their fags on the ground in public areas and just leaving them?

Any ideas how long it takes for a fag end to bio-degrade? They are not made of paper, but of cellulose acetate - a form of plastic. They take TWELVE YEARS OR MORE to decompose.

Fag ends are small and get eaten by birds that mistake them for food, or they are washed down drains into our water supply and rivers. Fag ends have been found in the stomach of fish, birds and other marine animals.

Fag ends contains a host of poisons, including cyanide, arsenic and formaldehyde. And with several million discarded every year, the toxic chemicals they contain quickly add up.

Most smokers don't think of fag ends as litter but they are the most common form of litter on our streets. The statistics are staggering. An estimated 122 tonnes of cigarette litter, including packs and matches, are dropped every day across the UK.

Over 90% of streets are blighted with fag ends which are extremely difficult to clean up, ending up in cracks and gratings. If every smoker dropped a cigarette end every week, we would be knee deep in 624m fag ends within a year. The fact that we are not is because local authorities in the UK spend over £342m a year on street cleaning and litter clearance.

Perhaps people who are caught flicking their ends out on to the street should be given community service to clean up the parts that street cleaners cannot reach.

You know what I'm losing the will here. I put my fag out in a bin if there is one available. What did you expect to happen once you pushed it outside. What were smokers supposed to do with a cig butt if no ashtrays are provided. Just like people will wee on the street if no toilets are provided or there will be rubbish piling up if the bin men go on strike.

For the person who suggested I am teaching my child to smoke, sorry but she doesn't. The smokers amongst her peers are the ones with parents who hissed and almost spat at smokers, strange but true kids love to rebel.

Are you joking, abouteve?!! I don't wee on the street if there is no loo provided - I wait until I find one. Same with my litter - if there is no bin I carry my rubbish until I find one.

That's it! Of course! You smoke to ensure your daughter doesn't. You are an altruist after all.

Smoking kills. It damages your lungs and those of people around you. It is an addictive chemical that fools you into thinking you need it. That's it folks. So stop all this feeling victimized stuff, you've no idea how horrible it is for non smokers for you to foist your addiction on everyone else.

Just my observations on the couple of teens I know who have taken it up. One set didn't like their kids playing with mine because I smoked, both their DD's walk down the street fag in hand, nowadays.

As for my DD guess she has seen me try and fail to stop so figures it's not worth starting.

It's well known that if they close publics loos especially late and night when all the drunks are spilling out of the pubs in the city centres they will wee outside. Same with the bins and ashtrays people will use them if they are there.

I might get flamed for saying this, but if smoking is banned indoors, and outdoors (unless it is in your own home), I truly truly don't believe this will make the majority of smokers give up.

What I believe will happen is that more and more smokers, who previously may have smoked outside will smoke in their own homes.

Hooray I hear some of you say, but it is the innocents in these households I feel sorry for, the children, babies, elderly, disabled, who will have no choice but to inhale the second hand smoke day in, day out.

I really believe that smoking should never ever be forced down the lungs of people and animals that cannot walk out of the vicinity and away from the area where the smoking is going on, but to ban all smoking outdoors, is going to, imvho, lead to a huge rise in childhood complaints that are exacerbated by second hand smoke.

It is extremely difficult to quit smoking, and to force people into having nowhere they can smoke, apart from their homes where they may have young children or elderly people suffering as a result of their choice is really not the way to go imo.

How would this be tackled, if it happened, which it surely will if all smoking anywhere but the home is banned?

Shall we start to police what people can and cannot do in thier own homes, if it is detrimental to vulnerable people's health in that home?

I fear this could lead from smoking to what we eat, how much exercise we take, as well as a multitude of other things we perhaps should be doing for our children.

Who would decide what was right and what wasn't?
Gordon Brown, or his predecessor?

Sorry if this has already been covered, but imo it is foolish to think that if we make smoking an unseen habit, it will stop smokers smoking.

I don't believe it will. Otherwise we wouldn't have any drug addicts.

Noted re drunks and litterers, abouteve. Hopefully we can agree it isn't acceptable to wee or litter on the street even though some people do it?

The majority of smokers who have stopped because they felt they had no choice really, because it was made so difficult for them by other people to continue smoking are highly likely to start again.

It has to be the smokers decision to give up. They have to want to give up, as opposed to feeling they should give up or they have to give up.

By making smoking more and more difficult, it will just drive smokers underground, where it will affect everyone living in the smokers home, travelling in the smokers car, etc etc.

It is the vulnerable people I feel for.

It is difficult to give up yes. But not as difficult as, say, studying for your A levels or abseiling. It is even more difficult in very stressful situations. But it is never impossible. I don't think banning smoking from public places like bus stops and pub gardens will force them inside. And if smokers really are more willing to smoke inside next to their own children and babies [and many are, I've seen them] than to give up, well, the alternative is not to allow them to smoke in public places over other vulnerable people, the alternative is to provide better support to give up and better incentives/motivations [eg for those on benefits]

I'm sure I read an article recently that said that the smoking ban hadn't encouraged smokers to give up and that the numbers stayed the same.

Ultimately I don't care (well I do really but ykwim) as I think the ban has been a great thing that has improved my quality of life.

Also I do wonder when they say that the numbers have stayed the same whether they take into account whether or not smokers smoke less, ie the number of smokers may be the same but they smoke fewer cigarettes which is a good thing.