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

Smoking is not a matter of choice or personal freedom. Smoking is a physiological addiction and smokers should be treated as patients. Far from being a freedom, you are a slave to nicotine.

Who ever started smoking because it sounded like a great idea; "oh!, I want to be addicted to a carcinogenic pollutant which will make me stink and cost me a fortune". People take up smoking due to peer pressure during people's formative years. Once the people are hooked that's it, choice goes out of the window.

Tobacco companies are evil, their products are addictive and lethal, and they know it. They knew for years that cigarettes kill people, but they witheld that vital information. Indeed, they even put carcinogenic additives into cigarettes that "enhance" the effectiveness of nictotine, hooking you to their product faster. They *literally* make a killing. I find it amazing that they are allowed to trade at all.

Smokers who claim banning smoking (totally or in certain areas) is an affront to personal liberty and choice just want to selfishly persue their addiction with glee, and sod everyone else. They are incapable of acknowledging that they cannot choose not to smoke.

By the way, I was a smoker, but I chose to give it up. That's the only freedom there is with tobacco and it is a hard fight to gain that freedom.

*ducks for cover*

Ste

Come on Ste, don't beat about the bush, tell us what you really think

I would be very happy to see the end of cigarette smoking. Both my parents smoked, and I can recall even at the age of 5 or 6 being utterly repulsed by it and everything to do with it. I've never been tempted in the least to take it up because I can barely stand to touch a packet of cigarettes without a feeling of revulsion. Same goes for ash trays. I worked in a pub for 6 months and came out smelling like an ash tray after every shift. Thing is, after a few weeks I didn't even notice it any more. That's why most smokers don't understand the unpleasantness they cause to those who have not taken up their addiction. What's more, I really don't want to contemplate the number of cigarettes I must have involuntarily smoked during that time, and the relevant health implications.

The idea that smoking in the open air is ok is complete hogwash. You only have to walk along a street behind a smoker and to get great wafts of smoke in your face to know that.

My theory (and I'm sticking to it ) is that most people who dislike and deplore smoking see it as a weakness of character in those who do it. Everyone knows it's unpleasant, everyone knows that it costs a fortune, everyone knows that it kills you. And people still do it.

One thing I have noticed:

Someone sitting there alone in a pub looks out of place whereas someone sitting alone smoking looks normal.

Wonder why this is.

That justifies the fact that when I used to smoke, if I was waiting for someone in a pub or cafe, I felt like everyone was watching me thinking "she's on her own", then I'd light a fag and I suddenly felt I blended in. Weird.

Charlie

Never felt that meself. A pint and a newspaper is all I need.

Prohibition is a seriously bad concept that doesn’t seem to have functioned - at all -during human history. That’s not to say that banning things that are harmful isn’t a good idea – just an idea that never seems to work. Legislation is a very bad way of fomenting social change – correct that, it’s a bad way of doing just about anything.

Automobiles kill tens of thousands of people every year, they pollute, are extremely costly and often have defects that manufacturers are aware of long before they're corrected. Oil companies make fortunes when they're inefficient.

Further, to provide for them uses zillions of dollars worth of tax revenue that could be used for schools, hospitals and improving the lot of the elderly, etc. In many places, you stand more of a chance being punished for a traffic violation than you do for rape - showing a horrible mis-appropriation of police resources.

Drivers are horribly inconsiderate - one opened his door (on the street side - a violation) and hit my friend on his bike - breaking his leg in a number of places. The driver was indignant that anyone could be so careless as to ride a bicycle on a city street! When I moved away from the lakeshore, I had to stop jogging outside because of the fumes from the traffic.

I know it's absurd - but am I wrong anyplace? Do the arguments sound at all familiar?

Cars at least have the saving grace of allowing people to do things that they would not otherwise be able to do. Cigarettes do not.

Smoking should be banned, or driven underground at least. I have *never* come across a smoker who defended their right to smoke and saw it as a civil liberties issue, although I have heard contrarians using this in a general argument. Generally, 'freedom' in this context means the freedom to pollute the atmosphere of others. I went stone deaf when I was a kid because of glue ear and had terrible chest problems. All because of my dad smoking. He has now had two strokes as a result of this addiction.

Ban it. Now.

The FM

No bush beating here (apart from the President maybe)...

People seem to be parralleling cars and the car industry with smoking. You are not physiologically addicted to cars, you do not crave to drive, driving in itself does not give you cancer. The core argument is the addiction and lack of choice.

I think that prohibition is a bad idea too, it didn't work with alcohol, so there would have to be another way to do it. How's about a slow incremental ban supported by free, state-sponsered health-care for the sufferers. Also, a good start would be to just shut down the tobacco companies for willfully killing people with products their "customers" have no choice but to buy.

"Legislation is a very bad way of fomenting social change – correct that, it’s a bad way of doing just about anything." Does that include drink driving laws and racial equality laws?

My sympathies FM, I hope no permanent damage came to you. Sorry to hear about your Dad

Ste

A world that was completely free from tobacco smoke and litter would be wonderful. I can imagine the bliss of leaving the office without having to go through the fog of smoke, being able to go through a shopping centre without finding myself with a face full of smoke from the person in front and . . . ah, this would be heaven . . . being able to go out to eat with my son with no worries of smoke filled restaurants. I could stop being so wound up by people throwing their ash and butts on the floor and out of car windows.

On the other hand, I can respect another person's rights and desire to smoke. I don't understand it and I don't like it, but I do see that there are people that *want* to smoke. My own parents and partner are among these people. I don't believe that we can totally ban people from smoking when so many people want to do it. Whatever the health implications, a person has to have freedom to do what they like - the problems occur when what they like effects other people.

So, in my view a compromise needs to be found. Whatever that means, at best it will make life bearable for the majority of people for the majority of time.

I would personally like to see that compromise prevent smoking in places where under 16s are likely to be around. Many pubs and restaurants are "child friendly" - if they are genuinely so, then they shouldn't allow smoking. Others are aimed for the adult market and thus, much as I hate to say it, smoking should be perfectly acceptable. I would also like smoking to be banned from public places such as shopping centres (indoor or outdoor) and the like, but this would be hell to police.

I chuckled at the comment about swimming pools having peeing and non-peeing ends, but this makes a wonderful point. Many of the places that have "smoking / non-smoking areas" are pointless. Maybe they are making a gesture in the right direction, but it doesn't work! Airports are major offenders - I've spent far too long waiting for delayed flights in airless, smoke filled lounges. Many restaurants also try to achieve the best of both worlds with assigned areas, but the air con is too old and ineffective to make it work.

Thanks for the kind sympathies, Ste.

The only permanent damage I suffered as a result of glue ear was an inability to listen to libertarian arguments for allowing smoking . I think a gradual ban is in place, in that the price of cigarettes is gradually becoming prohibitively expensive. However ,since junkies will do anything for a fix I can't really see this having a prfound effect upon tobacco consumption.

At the very least, if smokers wish to poison themselves, it is quite right of society to demand that they do it in private, away from the rest of us who wish to remain as healthy as possible for as long as possible.

The FM

So some smokers say "Yes, I actually *want* to smoke". Are you sure that isn't the nicotine speaking, and not the person? I would admit, however, that some people do enjoy smoking and I think they should be allowed to do it in private, as FM suggested.

Perhaps we could make the world a better place by phasing in Marijuana in place of tobacco

Bars and restaurants here in California banned smoking a while ago, and it really works. If you want to smoke, you go outside. It's a joy to be able to go out for a meal and know you're not going to be made sick by someone else's selfishness. At first, being a Brit, I thought banning smoking in bars was utterly bizarre, but it actually improves the atmosphere.

Smoking in California is fast becoming totally socially unnacceptable, which is what you'd expect from the health-fascist capital of the world . It's quite rare to see a person on the street or in a car that is smoking.

FM, you think a gradual ban is in place? Interesting, I can see your point though I wouldn't be so sure. Sounds too much like a conspiracy theory to me

Ste

I've seen smoking compared to driving in some other threads of this forum, mostly concerning the pollution aspect of both activities. Eventually (still some years into the future unfortunately), fuel cells will be developed which can power a car with almost no harmful pollution at all. Electric cars aren't pollution free - the pollution is simply shifted from where the car is, to where the electricity that powers it is made. Cars are both one of the best and one of the worst things that has ever happened to mankind, but I guess that's an argument for another forum.

Prohibition of course, never works. The only thing that can be done with something like smoking is to change public opinion about it and make it socially unnacceptable, the way that driving drunk has been. That process has already begun in some ways - it used to be that "No Smoking" areas were set apart, making out that the non-smoker was the minority or against the norm. Now in a lot of places, it's the other way round - if you're a smoker, you're the one who has to find the designated area and be apart from everyone else. You'll never stop everyone smoking, just like you'll never stop everyone from driving drunk, but if public opinion can be turned against something, you can at least cut down the incidence.

The "choice" and "freedom" argument always seems to come up too when discussing smoking. Choice is used by people to justify all kinds of things that they want to do, regardless of the consequences to others. When my parents and schoolteachers were teaching me the values I should live by, that was called 'selfishness'. Choice is seen by so many people as the Holy Grail of modern Western life. You've got to have choice in every aspect of daily life, whether it's really a good thing, or simply choice for the sake of it. So now we've got people driving their kids halfway across London and back every day, clogging up the roads just because they chose to send them to a school there instead of the one half a mile away. Crazy. If the one half a mile away is not as good as the one on the other side of town, the answer is to make it as good. When I was growing up, I was taught that responsibility is more important than choice, and that if what you're given is below standard, then you must do what you can to change it.

"I would also like smoking to be banned from public places such as shopping centres (indoor or outdoor) and the like, but this would be hell to police."

I don't think it would be as difficult to police as you might imagine Willow. If it was banned in *all* public places, whether indoors or outdoors, and if there was a completely insulated area for smokers in places like pubs, then anyone seen smoking outside of those areas would be breaking the law. Hell, there could even be special clubs where people could go and smoke their heads off if that's what they wanted to do, but if they held a membership card for one of those establishments, their NI contributions or private health insurance premiums should be doubled to pay for the extra expense they're likely to cost the hospitals in the future.

Happy sigh at all the nice people who have posted here!
If prohibition is a problem, then let them pollute their own homes and private clubs, isn't that enough?

It would be Kaz, if that's where they'd keep themselves. It would also mean that I'd never be able to visit a lot of my friends though

You must have posted while I was still composing Ste. I went to a bar in Santa Monica a few years ago where it was quite obvious that most of the people there didn't care much for the 'no smoking in bars' law, and were quite happily puffing on cigaretes. I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to do it as long it's posted as a smoking establishment, for bars/pubs and smoking seem to go together. Mixed environments don't work though.

Because, 'You're never alone with a, "Strand,"!!

As a matter of fact, drunk driving laws and racial equity laws are probably prime examples of how poorly governments do things - in essence establishing huge infrastructures to attempt to mask their own inability to do anything.

A vast number of traffic accidents are caused by bad drivers - government has it in its hands to require better driving skills, but of course would never do that, the auto manufacturers and oil companies would never brook having the number of vehicles reduced. In order to dress up the window, they've come up with programmes like those against driving after drinking - a common sense thing that everyone agrees should be stopped. Pretty safe stance! If, therefore, the objective was to save the maximum number of lives, the course of action would be clear, make it harder to be a driver. If, on the other hand, one wants to safely pander to the press, then the drunk driving programmes are the way to go - safe political ground.

Racial equality laws haven't altered racial tensions a bit. Forcing an employer to have a proper racial 'mix', or to give preferencial treatment to members of 'minority' groups has fueled hatred and augmented a sense of injustice.

After a century of mis-use by Marxists and Leninists, the term democracy has become one that is difficult to grasp for many people. Meaning rule of the people it is, of course, the exact opposite of rule by special interests. Very few European countries have a elected head of government and are ruled by professional bureaucracies at the direction of the party in power.

Please understand that it is difficult for a liberal democrat to understand a legal structure that is not based upon majority rule and a cultural consensus of those governed. Indeed, it is repugnant that a people should have laws forced upon it by the will of the few, no matter how well intentioned those few.

One of the wonderful things about the system in most of the west is that governments can make a big issue of things and then do nothing about them. In the case of a child being damaged by the smoking habits of the father, one would assume that both the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man and the subsequent declarations of the rights of children, ratified by most of the world (hence having the strength of law in the signatory nations) would apply.

Both clearly show that a government has a primary right to protect a child in these circumstances - as this is a typical 'let's legislate something and then forget about it' case, one could safely bet that no western nation has ever allowed its laws on child care, education or protection to be questioned in relation to treaty obligations.

By default, therefore, it already is a serious crime (and well should be) in most of the world, for a parent to allow his smoking habit to damage his children. The same applies to allowing children to be exposed to potentially harmful elements - anywhere - such as cigarette smoke. Ever see that tested in a court?

If a bit of subjective distain for legislation shows through, in Ontario you can hit a child, but not a dog. Great law, eh?

So you would disagree that the drink driving laws have has no impact upon road accidents and deaths? Even if a few lives are saved due to people refraining from drinking then driving, where they would otherwise have done so should be considered a success. Bad drivers are a whole other matter.

Even if racial equality laws have not altered tensions, racist employers can be identified and ethnic minorities have greater opportunities. It's just trying to level the playing field. Affirmative action said that if you have two potential employees, one white, one black, and they were identically qualified, that you had to choose the black person. The reasoning being that they had less opportunities to get themselves to the same level as the white person, so should be rewarded. Mixing races up in the workplace also enabled people to meet other cultures, which is always healthy. Now this has stopped because of the anti-PC backlash we're seeing white dominance re-emerge in the workplace.

Any sense of injustice seems to come from the right-wing, who have never been the strongest champions of civil rights and equality.

Saying that legislation is a bad thing is akin to desiring anarchy.

Sweden outlawed the corporal punishment of children. Now virtually no children there die at the hands of their parents, compared to the UK, where we hear of a case like Anna Climbie's just about every week.

Legislation? Let's have more of it!