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

I never go to pubs on my own...ne reason: smokers.

I only go if I get invited or want to go!

I feel cornered by bunch of smokers and can not handle it any longer.

I opened can of worms!

I can not win and I do not want to win!

Re: huddles of smokers outside a no smoking building

This annoys a lot of non smokers and is not an easy problem to solve. There is no way in a million years I would approach a group of smokers getting their fix and ask them to move somewhere else (even when moving somewhere else is a reasonable request...at the moment the place where smokers from my building stand is right in a breeze which blows the smoke into my office window...they have been asked by management not to stand there but it still happens and it does annoy me that I cant have an open window but im not going to ask them to move because I know I will either get direct abuse or they will huddle around the corner and mutter nasty things about me - either of which wont make this a nice place to work)

The best solution to this problem is to have smoking rooms in buildings...but that costs employers money now - a no smoking building is a lower insurance risk, a room takes up space. Plus lots of companies want to look like they have *morals*.

As a non smoker I'm going to start asking future employees how they treat their smokers because I don't want to run a gauntlet of smoke four times a day.

I couldn't care less if people want to smoke and I'm not going to pretend that 0% smokers is a great idea, I just don't want to feel like I'm forced to breathe smoke and that my colleagues and friends are forced to make me breathe it (if that makes sense).

again this is not meant to sound preachy in any way - if it does it is because I'm having a bad day not because I mean it.

Hey Pheloxi, I never go into pubs on my own either. One reason! Men.

(This is true, I will do all sorts of things on my own, but I will not go into pubs unless I am meeting someone. And if I am meeting someone in a pub, it is the only venue where I will be 10 minutes late).

Yes, you did open a can of worms, but you must have known that when you worded the question the way that you did, and when you continued to generalise about all smokers, to put words into peoples' mouths, and to misinterpret what has been said.

I opened a can of worms in the MacDonalds' thread. One thing I have learned there, is that my opinion is in a minority. Big deal. (No change).

If you read what has been said carefully, most of the smokers who appear to be attacking anti-smokers are actually attacking the arrogance with which the anti-smokers have put forward their opinions, the fact that a lot of the anti-smokers have clouded the issue with quasi-moral judgements, when it is one of physical and psycological addiction and (as Ouzo says) respect.

Have your spiritual beliefs been ridiculed in this thread? No? Mine have. Have you had your opinions consistently misquoted in this thread? No? I have.

Poor baby. Poor ickle Ben. I CAN stand the heat, so I stay in the kitchen. Probably too much. Good job that I am getting a life tomorrow...

Ben

Isn't it ironic that conversations about smoking/non-smoking on h2g2 inevitably go down in flames.

It's happened before and it will happen again. I remember a particularly juicy one between Peet the Pedantic punctuation Policeman and President of Headsnot inc. that made this thread seam like a polite teaparty (one wearing T-shirts saying, 'smokers deserve to die of cancer' as I recall).

One thing is for sure, our respective countries would be horrible places to live if everything that some did that annoyed others got banned.
(does than make sense? )

I only chose obesity as an example of a self inflicted illness in reference to the original question of "smokers what is more important your addiction or yourhealth". I could have chosen alcholism, drug abuse etc. ie. that health may be considered by these peope but due to addiction it comes second (I know its a bit simplistic). Also to illusatrate that anyone can justify what they logically even if it seems absurd to others.

I have seen lots of abuse of all groups of people on these pages, but I suppose fewer arguments polarise people as much as smoking (lord knows why if only people could be so passonate about the environment). There has been abuse of obese people but not on the scale of that directed against smokers who like the have obese problem have a problem (I smoke occationally so I guess that means me too).

pheloxi* you have indeed opened a can worms and i feel sad that you feel cornered by smokers, we are (mostly) nice people who dont mean to make your life a misery. I dont know your health history but perhaps a little toleration of smokers may be in order. Its a crappy argument but i used seethe with anger when I saw someone alone in a car pumping out noxious gasses, how inconsiderate! But hey that person may not do it too often, we are all inconsiderate to others needs occationaly.

Well, I do have a t-shirt that says: 'You say I'm a bitch like its a *bad* thing...?'

I cannot remember being this angry on site for a long time. Unfortunately it is probably showing, in the typos if not in the sarcasm ....



Ben

I must say it's interesting seeing all this from a different perspective nowadays. I quit about nine months ago having been a heavy smoker for about 12 years and I find now that close up smoke does irritate me. When you are used to it of course you don't notice. I am however still (and always will be) that way inclined at heart and I see no reason to apologise to anyone for the way I am.
I have little tolerance for those with no tolerance

In terms of giving up I think unless you *really really* want to - you want. In the end I found it rather easy really (crosses fingers that it will stay that way - I'm sure it will) because I simply didn't want to do it any more. It was ruining my health noticeably (hacking cough from hell in the morning and spiralling blood pressure - all now gone) and the desire for the fix was gone.

A little bit of live and let live does noone any harm.

'you want' = 'you won't'



Excuse for my typos? Lacadaisical attitude

Chamomile for Ben please! ASAP! And a

BTW - neat trick that - you are now smoking through your ears!

Just as a side question re whoever it was that mentioned the minimum age at which you can buy cigarettes (here in the UK it's 16) ...

I don't know when all of you smokers started smoking but I suspect in that in most cases it was before it was legally permitted. Certainly of the friends that I have who smoke (all of whom, incidentally, are just lovely!), only one of them started smoking after the age of 16 - all the others were the behind the bikeshed lot, smoking because it was cool (which at 14/15, inspite of the health warnings, is still perceived to be the case). Ok there's probably an element of p!$$ing off your parents involved but let's face it, once it loses the element of rebellion it loses a lot of what it is - that stands for most things in life I hasten to add.

Raising the minimum age would do nothing to stop people smoking, in fact it wouldn't surprise me if it had exactly the opposite effect.

What would happen if the minimum age was taken away, ie anyone could buy cigarettes?

Yes there would be parental uproar as they all have visions of little johnny, aged 3, sparking up on his way home from nursery but let's face it, does anyone actually enjoy the act of inhaling the first time. I know when I first smoked a cigarette it was filthy. It didn't stop me smoking again but to have become a regular smoker I would have had to really put in the hours ... force the addiction as it were. (incidentally in case there was any doubt, beyond the odd tab here and there, I've never been a smoker). On top of this, at almost £5 a packet, Pokemon seems infinitely more appealing.

Just a thought!

I knew someone who claimed he could do that. He looked really silly sitting in the pub with a Benson & Hedges hanging out of his ear

Have a poor misunderstood Ben... *runsforcover*

Erm, well, it is not really the wording of the question but the directions this thing here is heading. It should have been obvious to Pheloxi that he was going to meet some hardcore-smokers (like me; wake up,have ciggy, open eyes) on here.

What bugs me is that it is not really acknowledged that we are

a) addicted
b) humans
c) sometimes even reasonable.

And what really sets me off, is that the (OK, very small) non-smoking section in here, doesn´t care about us. When my body wants nicotine I give it to him. This has nothing to do with will-power. It is the same as with food. Thats what addictions are about.

OK, we might be weak because we don´t stop, but does this qualify us as second-class citizens? I hope not...

Another thing that really annoys me in here:

Generalizations. So there is a lot said on the internet that is not true. But if somebody here regards him/herself as a nice smoker, asking before lighting up and checking out wind-directions, then take notice of it.

So far I was the only one to say, that I would smoke even if asked not to. Allthough it shouldn´t read asked but yelled at.

But do the non-smokers car? Nope. Just whinging and turning on the same point.

So if this thread has proven something, then it is that h2g2-smokers are more tolerant, open-minded and maybe intellectually more flexible than non-smokers.

Ouzo, found the b*****d on the bottom of his soap-box and brought him back to daylight

Hey, a ciggie will do just as well, thanks.

My father could actually blow smoke through his ears, or one of them at least at one time. He perforated an ear-drum boxing in the army and reported in on sick-parade one day on the basis that smoke came out of his ear...



In reply to ali1kinobe: a lot of the same sort of quasi-moralising bigotry is directed at drug addicts and alcoholics. Hell, I KNOW it is. There is nothing a lot of people like more than a nice secure spot on the moral high-ground. And addiction is a good safe place to plant the flag.

Really you have been making a point which Pheloxi has chosen to ignore, which is that nicotine IS a physical and to a lesser extent a psychological addiction.

The wording of the original question pressupposes that you can make a value judgement over the importance or otherwise of an addiction.

The answer to the original question: 'smokers: what is more important, your addiction or your health' is so clearly 'the addiction' that I don't know why I have wasted so much time and energy on this thread.

Ben
(PS - for those who remember and are interested, the paperwork did not come through today, so at 12.00 noon I had to abandon my 1.00pm departure plans. I may be catching a 6.45 am plane in the morning. And then again. I may not.)

Oh what a sod

Go on, have a fag

Thing is, there is a difference between a non-smoker (I now consider myself to be one of these as I have given up) and an anti-smoker (who seems to believe that there is something morally wrong about smoking and it is only the 'weak or ignorant' that do so).

As a non-smoker I don't like it when people blow smoke in my direction and will politely ask them not to do it. Also even when I was a smoker I hated it when people smoked when I was eating, again i will politely ask them not to. What I don't do is accuse somebody of trying to kill me and give them an earful of abuse. This is the behaviour of the anti smoker.

Try visiting california, there the thought police would have it that you can't even smoke in your own home if you so choose - you certainly can't in any public place.

Hey, Ouzo, I will do a lot for a - maybe I should get misunderstood on site more often!

(Can I bum a ciggie off you, btw, I have run out).



B

Re: the age of buying tobacco - that was me Ekki, and I was just speculating what the govt could do to help stop/prevent kids from becoming smokers. It wasn't a solution.

Making it legal to buy tobacco at any age might work. It certainly takes away the "naughtiness" factor.

I mentioned some reasons why people start smoking way back in this thread - mine was rebellion. I was 12 and I used to ask the bigger kids to go into the sweet shops and buy cigarettes for me.

Perhaps there should be one day set aside in schools where every 12 year old is made to smoke 20 cigarettes one after the other until they are sick. It seems to be the popular way for parents to put off their kids that are caught smoking. It might have worked for me!

Please don't all jump down my throat and tell me how irresponsible that last statement was - I am trying to lighten up a very serious and emotionally charged thread!

and

Lady in a tree, you know that is actually not a bad idea. It took me weeks and weeks of practice at age 13 before I could smoke properly. Forcing me to smoke 20 in a row would have probably put me off to some extent.

That actually works fabulously well. Forcing children to smoke a pre-determined amount of tobacco, or drink a predetermined amount of alcohol does put them off for life.

I woner if making it legal to buy tobacco at any age would also work? Probably not as well. Tobacco would still be 'a bad thing'.

B

Of course...

Feel free to smoke of my pack...

I alway have at least two spare ones in my desk

Ouzo, smoke first, ask later