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

...despite being a non-smoker myself, and I'm getting fed up with it!



Some examples:

Smoking is forbidden in a lot of offices these days, and so the smokers gather _right outside the entrance_ to the building to smoke, thus causing everyone entering or leaving the building to breathe in their smoke.

Smokers travelling on the tube can't wait until they're up at ground level and outside to light their cigarette, but do it while still on the escalator, causing the person behind to inhale their smoke.

Smokers about to get on a bus/tube train inhale a last, greedy, deep lungful of smoke before entering, and then breathe it out seated next to you.

Smoking is forbidden in the stairway of the house where I live and yet smokers leaving their apartment can't wait until they're outside to light their cigarettes. I don't even need to get out of my own apartment to smell it - there is a slight underpressure due to the ventilation system, and the smoke seeps into my apartment. So not even in my own home can I escape cigarette smoke!

Just ban smoking alltogether, everywhere, as far as I'm concerned. Then, finally, I might experience a whole day without having to inhale cigarette smoke, against my will.

a few talking points:

smoking bans are a direct infringment upon your freedom.

did you know that you breath in just as much toxic smoke from industry, exhaust fumes, and pollution? everyone who lives in a big city generally does. just a thought.

still, i feel very self concious whenever i smoke in public. i dont if im out with friends, and and standing in a group of smokers, but i feel that it is unfair to make other people breathe my smoke. when i need to smoke outside, i generally stand away from people and try to blow it in a different direction.

smokers are being continually marginalised and treated like trash by most of the general non - smoking public because of extremely clever government propoganda on the subject. a few years ago many people would not have had the same, negative reaction to smoking. the public are turning againsts us and we are now a 'we', segregated from society and becoming increasingly marginalised.

i feel that some of this government propoganda is unfair. i have researched the effects of passive smoking, for example, and certain advertisements on television nowadays tend to blow the the effects of this way out of proportion in order to have a shocking effect on the public. this is unfair in regard to the facts involved.

most of us started smoking young. most of us were drawn into it as teenagers because our friends do it and we thought it was cool. or because of advertising, (when smoking was allowed to be advertised). for those people who say 'why dont you just give up, you antisocial freaks of society who are killing everyone around you unmercilessly?' please take into consideration that smoking is just about as hard to give up as heroin.

most smokers want to quit, but this proccess is extremely painful.

have a little sympathy. dont hate us, try to help us.

and remember: in a few years, smoking will probably be banned everywhere in britain except your own homes, because thats just the way its going.

I agree with you that smokers are being marginalised by the propoganda in the media. The effects of passive smoking are as yet unscientifically proven but are paraded as 'facts.'

Nice pun by the way - 'blow the the effects of this'

thank you. i feel quite strongly about government propoganda and adverstisments on this.

however, even though the effects of passive smoking are as yet unproven, the smoke still stinks and it is not nice for a non smoker to taste someones second hand smoke.

But dont believe everything you see or hear in the media

Me too! Especially their latest offering. The one at the wedding where the heinous smoker spews forth thick, black acrid smoke all over the little kiddies n virginal bride. No mention of where the research data to support their claims about the harmful effects of passive smoking can be found though.

As for the smell of second hand smoke. Sure it may be offensive to some. As is the stench of body odour or the whiff of last night's garlic on someone's breath.

I have no problem at all with non-smokers being protected from cigarette smoke.

However I have a huge problem with a blanket ban on smoking, why could there not be provision for enclosed smoking rooms etc? Currently at my work place we have two break rooms, the smoking one is separated by double doors and air conditioning, no non-smokers are forced to breath smoke, and yet this is being made illegal.

The Government are taking more and more controls over your life...

Indeed. Maybe to 'protect' non smokers from our second hand smoke they should introduce the radical but effect law that all non smokers should wear protective face masks ala Jacko whilst in the vicinity of smokers?

It's gonna be interesting to see the smoking ban in place at the raves I go to seen as currently you can get away with smoking weed in the clubs...

A friend of mine who used to be a bouncer in Aberdeen says it makes life much easier when smoking's banned in pubs and clubs... If people are smoking they get spoken to, regardless of what type of smoke it is, no more sniffing and nosing around and trying to follow faint vapour trails!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu1_bYjqFvg

yip.... the smoking ban in scotland was moaned about by many, but in actual fact, it has ,to my mind, vastly improved life for everyone. smokers now get to congregate outside and talk to strangers in a way they never did before, we are getting more of a 'street-culture' in the major cities at night, with more pubs and cafes making the effort to provide nice outside eating/drinking spots, and, of course, the non smokers really dont have much to whinge about anymore

.......everyone noticed how much many pubs and clubs really stank of much more unpleasant odours when there was no cigarette smoke to mask things too......

>>smoking bans are a direct infringment upon your freedom.>>

Your freedom to do what? Ruin the health of not just yourself but everyone who inhales the smoke from your cigarette? I wouldn't object to people smoking if it _only affected themselves_ - but it doesn't!

>>did you know that you breath in just as much toxic smoke from industry, exhaust fumes, and pollution? everyone who lives in a big city generally does. just a thought.>>

Yeah, but I can't taste or smell those things - but I can taste and smell cigarette smoke, and it both tastes _and_ smells awful, to me.

Harvard School of Public Health recently investigated the level of nicotine in cigarettes and discovered that there is now 11% more nicotine in cigarettes than there was 9 years ago.

The tobacco companies are doing everything they can to keep people staying addicted.

And these are the kind of people you want to support by giving your money to them?

You're willing to risk not just your own health, but the health of everyone near you when you smoke?

Why?

In Sweden, the university hospital in Malmö recently made a survey of the army examining a little bit more than 300 young males.

A non-smoker has 49% higher sperm quality than smokers (something to consider if you wish to become a father one day).

Males who had mothers that had smoked during the pregnancy were more prone to deformations of the prostata and the bitesticles (not sure about that last expression, but it's not in my dictionary).

Nothing good every came from smoking, only bad things.

But your argument seems to be 'I should be allowed to smoke because I feel like it'?

>>...everyone noticed how much many pubs and clubs really stank of much more unpleasant odours when there was no cigarette smoke to mask things to... >>

But were those odours harmful to your health in any way?

There are odours which are "much more unpleasant" than cigarette smoke? That is a joke, yes?

TRiG.

>>>smoking bans are a direct infringment upon your freedom.>>

>>Your freedom to do what? Ruin the health of not just yourself but everyone who inhales the smoke from your cigarette? I wouldn't object to people smoking if it _only affected themselves_ - but it doesn't!

But it surely does if you can't even provide smoking rooms... As I said above, my work provides two break rooms with double doors separating them, this is shortly to be made illegal... It is a reduction of you freedom...

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erm, the smell of stale urine and vomit, the stench of smelly unwashed people and ripe sweat offends me and many others i've spoken too......

...i agree, cigarette smoke is unpleasant, and prefer to smoke outside anyway, i dont like to make other people breath my smoke or have my house smell of the same.....but if i choose to smoke, and am aware of the risks, and dont attempt to impose my wishes or habits on other people, and do my utmost to protect them from the negative effects of my nasty smelly habit, then why should it be a problem??

........

The problem isn't you personally, but those of the smokers that show no consideration what so ever and frankly don't give a whether they force their cigarette smoke on other people or not.

Those of the smokers who don't even bother to respect 'no smoking' signs.

no, i know...

...it drives me doubly mad that people will still smoke on buses.... the drivers wont enforce it coz theyre scared of repercussions (or maybe just dont care) and the public (myself included) are also a bit scared of the confrontation with the scary looking guy/girl-ned up the back.....

If cigarettes are SO bad and dangerous for nations of people.Why doesn't the government,in all of their wisdom..just ban the sale of cigarettes and tobacco,completely ? They won't of course,because they enjoy the tax we pay thats why !!