h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks for asking! Just got off a flight with the usual respiratory disorder caused by breathing the soup the airlines pass off as breathable air. In the days when there were smokers aboard, the airlines were forced to change the air every three minutes - a costly thing to do in a pressurised cabin. Today, if they want to change it only when the doors are open, so be it. Therefore, in one respect, anti-freedom lobby has caused a lot of us to become pretty seriously ill virtually every time we fly. The problem is that smoke is annoying, it bothers me, and I imagine it bothers everyone. That doesn't eliminate the natural right for a person to have a bar, airline, hotel or whatever else that caters to smokers. If you don't like it, don't go.

That's different than a classroom, hospital, conference centre or other places where people aren't given a lot of choice or selection - naturally these should be smoke free environments. Actually, smokers should just have the consideration not to 'light up' in such places.

If you don't want to be in a place where people smoke, don't go there - if there's a market, start a business for like-minded people. I don't want my children around smoke, so I avoid places where it is (strange concept, eh?) but then I never really got that rush from telling other people how to live.

Most of us remember the great fear of the Red Menace who were going to take away our freedom - that freedom was the freedom of a market driven economy, by the way. (just in case anyone forgot) The dairy industry is one of the most serious environmental hazards we have - ever hear anyone getting upset about how much a cow pollutes? A spotted creature sitting in the pasture chewing her cud isn't annoying anyone - so she's left alone. If a smoker could have figured out how to do likewise, they'd still be in the back puffing away.

Being positive about the protest, though - if any of you really want to get serious about prohibiting just about everything you don't like, I'll make you a nice deal on black breeches and boots - it seemed to have great crowd appeal last time.

Ooh - do you have a brown shirt to go with that?

Sorry! (Must be the flu from the plane)

Brown shirts, black neckties - the very cool "Himmler look" round specs - the works. No order too small - no position too extreme. Nice line of hobnails, toe caps and other essential accessories for kicking in the heads of people who have a different point of view or lifestyle.

I'll take all of the above, and a big red fire extinguisher, please!

In reply to the 1st comment (dr_toronto) I think there should be nor provision for non-smokers in bars. However may regular bar customers smoke and I reckon many land lords are to scared to loose customers if they ban smoking and because they have small bars a no-smoking area is not practical.

Im pretty sure though that larger bars whith large no smoking area will actually do better business.

I also agree that perhaps some of the people who are so opposed to smoking in public should get off their A*** and open non-smoking establishments.... if the amount of people who are upset at smokers in these discussions turned up they'd be packed to the rafters! (after all most people dont smoke)

That's a pretty good way to approach things. Here in Toronto (where you're allowed to hit children but not smoke in restaurant bars) the first time they tried to outlaw smoking in bars the place turned into a ghost town in the evenings. This time, even though there have been some pretty big losses financially, they only prohibited smoking in those establishments that declared themselves to be restaurants. In other words, the landlord chould choose.

If this no smoking stuff was such a fantastic concept, why are there NO businesses anywhere in the world that have hit big money with the no smoking concept? (whereas, the tobacco companies are huge)

In the US and Canada, the government had to make it illegal to smoke on aircraft, even though the airlines save big money by not having smokers. I don't remember any airline bringing out big ads 'We now offer no-smoking flights!!', in order to increase profits. It just didn't happen. If so many people are interested, why must there be force applied to legislators and the media into trying to frame public opinion in such a way as to get what a certain group want?

Of course, the same arguments could be made supporting the legalisation of other drugs - and should.

Actually, I'm just out of those now - would a sand bucket do?

Afraid not - it would mean having to get too close to the smoker I was using it on.

It's kind of hard to avoid, for example, stations - where smokers, deprived of their drug for periods of up to 25 minutes during the journey from Reading to London, immediately light up on stepping off the train.

I am very dogmatic on the issue of smoking in public because I am actually allergic to cigarette smoke (it gives me asthma). I have no problem with people smoking in pubs, provided the landlords don't have a problem with me never going in them. But public areas, parks, anywhere there are children, bus, train, tube and airport buildings - all these should be smoke free.

After all, most people don't smoke, and it only takes one smoker to light up to remove the choice of all those around them to breathe clean air (or what passes for it in the UK these days).

Using non-smoking areas tends to alienate you from the group you are with. You become two small factions.

One feels great sympathy for those of us that are burdened by reactions to any environmental stimulus - people like yourself that suffer reactions have every right to have your voices heard. The problem is that there are a lot of people involved in 'issues' that really ought to get a daytime job.

In essence, what would help would be designated places where people could get their tobacco fix without bothering the other half of the adult population that doesn't ever smoke, in the train situation, like a wagon for smokers. Wow! what a novel idea - let's have train cars for smokers, maybe even a flight or two - and then they wouldn't be in everyone else's hair. If these folks wouldn't need to get their fix on the platforms and in the subway passages to the stations proper, then people that don't want to mix with smoke wouldn't have to.

This is a very big problem - it's horrible to see factionalised friendships over such an issue. During years spent in Latin America, I was never confronted with this kind of thing, since people are much more free there to do what they want to. It's a pretty big problem.

First, I have a day job, and a life, thank you very much. More of that in a moment.

Second, the train usually has a smoking compartment, but only one. All these services are chronically overfilled, you can go weeks without getting a seat even once.

Right, back to activists. I am very anti smoking because I am allergic. I do not dispute anyone's right to smoke, just their right to inflict that smoke on other who choose - often for very good reasons, as in my case - not to.

If you want to smoke at home, please do so. In fact, I am perfectly happy for you to smoke anywhere you want, as long as I and my children are not subjected to your smoke. Not, I think, an unreasonable point of view? Cigarette smoke is, after all, both toxic and carcinogenic.

I think there is a difference between having a firm view on something and being a zealot. I think my views on smoking are firm but reasonable, especially in the context where the majority do not smoke and presumably, therefore, do not enjoy the smell or effects of tobacco smoke. For a really strident view on smoking you need to ask an ex-smoker!

I wasn't trying to imply you were in that sub-set of folks that were zealots for the sole purpose of inflicting their concepts on everyone else - if you took that, I'm sorry and was very wrong. You have a real problem that requires a real solution - not a politically correct whitewash. I was attempting to imply that this has probably not been done, nor would it likely happen until voices of reason (such as your own) were allowed to rise above the clamour of the zealots.

It may be apropos to relate this true story at this point in the conversation:

A friend and business associate and I were scheduled to meet in Santiago, Chile a few years ago. My associate had taken a kind of curious round-the-world route, calling on customers on the way, and by the time Santiago was reached, was in hospital with double pneumonia.

One of the Chilean doctor’s first questions was to ask if my associate did a lot of flying on North American airlines – at the time virtually the only ones that didn’t allow smoking. Finding this a rather odd question, my friend asked of its nature – and was told that they had seen, in Chile, a notable number of people with fairly severe respiratory problems whose common link was doing a lot of flying on North American carriers, due to the really abysmal air quality aboard those aircraft.

This is not to suggest that allowing smoking on aircraft would improve the situation (although it would), it rather suggests that if passenger comfort and health issues are at question, then perhaps the solution inflicted has hit a bit wide of the mark?

The issue of air cycling is a vexed one. If the airlines gave a flying f*** on a roling doughnut about the people who pay their wages, they would be urgently investigating ways of mitigating deep vein thrombosis. But they aren't, they will wait until they are being sued.

Remember Ford and the Pinto fuel tanks? The lawyers said it would be cheaper to pay the claims than revise the design. That's how big business thinks, I guess.

Boy did you ever hit the nail on the head here!

I'm a smoker & I hope a considerate one, respecting other peoples views, but, I have a big problem with people eating in the street, on public transport, in the supermarket before they have paid for it, perhaps the old fashioned concept of ' good manners 'is what should be addressed, rather than the persecution of smokers. btw are not drunks on an airoplane dangerous?

Drunks on aircraft are especially dangerous when they're driving the craft. A second type of drunk that is dangerous is the one that has to steady himself by using my seatback whilst I'm asleep - that one is very dangerous to himself, since I'm going to wake up very angry.

Consideration and respect are supposed to be cultural ideas that govern our lives - and unfortunately all too often don't.