Should We Now Move The Smoking Ban To Public Open Spaces?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31602414

[MargoTester]

Mallyh - you are as entitled to you view as much as TTT . Like you I rarely join this type of thread but I do object to being called a whining selfish person by somebody who does not know me. And yes I smoke but I have never smoked in the car, in front of children, or in the street. Ignore the rhetoric.

[ToraToraTora]

mallyh, your veiws are welcome it's just that whenever this subject comes up someone will always say "what about the tax etc" - the fact it took 68 answers this time is testament to the fact that even the smokers have realised that smoking costs fare more than it reaps. So as you rarely take part here you can be forgiven and please forgive my standard reposte to the premise.

mamylane: "There has to be a reason why the Government doesn't ban the sale of tobacco altogether. " - yes prohibition doesn't work see the US, better to make it socially unnacceptable and prohibitively expensive and downright inconveneient to persue as an activity.

[EDDIE51]

Every car hire/lease company in the UK now specifies that cars are Non Smoking' only and charges a heavy penalty if they detect a smell of smoke on return of the car.

[MargoTester]

Mallyh - the last thing you are is stupid, anyway you must feel a lot better now that you have been 'forgiven' I have just been ignored .

[Mamyalynne]

TosaTosaTosa thanks for your reply.

[dustypuss]

Should this be outside every office/pub

http://www.guy-sports.com/fun_pictures/smoking_tar.jpg

[Mamyalynne]

Yes why not

[mallyh]

Margo i agree these no need for that x

[Hypognosis]

The tax thing.
I think that was a Jeremy Clarkson canard. He reckoned that a lifetime smoker would easily have paid enough tobacco duty to cover their treatment costs. I have a lasting desire to see the workings-out for myself but, deep-down, realise that he just made that bit up.

Still, now we're all living 20 years longer, there's steadily advancing decrepitude, arthritis, dementia to work out the costs of. Had you thought about that? Will the "grey pound" consumerism generate enough from VAT to plug the gap? #election2015

Meanwhile, the younger generation can't inherit grandma's house any more, because most of it goes on care home costs. They are impoverished while someone who was already rich scoops that up that yummy equity (which Dragon's Den person is minted from running care homes?). So there are subtle disbenefits on the young, in that they now have to earn every penny and losing losing the grandparents is just the bereavement, with no windfall to take the edge off.

Re: smells
One time that I gave up, as my sense of smell came back, I discovered that London streets smelled faintly of stale urine, so I soon started again. I'm in a rural area now, coming up to six years smoke-free and it's silage, manure and every smell inbetween. Oo-arrr!

[craft1948]

How very weird, I've been a smoker for over 50 years and have never had any problems selling houses or cars...

[-Talbot-]

York's answer to Arthur Daley ^

[EDDIE51]

This put the lid on the idea that tobacco tax pays for the health services
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/7463690/Every-cigarette-smoked-costs-taxpayer-6.5p-think-tank-warns.html
The exact opposite is true, each cigarette smoked costs the UK taxpayer 6.5p. It is certainly more now with the increase in health care costs.

[chrissa1]

Me neither, craft1948.

[chrissa1]

Eddie. That report is dated March 2010 and the price of a pack can be nudging £10, now.

[Baldric]

I haven't smoked for about 20 years, I'm quite happy with the way Pubs etc are nowadays, it's nice to go for a Drink/Meal and not come away reeking of smoke.
I would like to see smoking right outside doorways stopped, it's not pleasant picking your way through a pile of dog-ends or cloud of smoke just to get inside and pay for the privilege, but I can see how difficult that would be to implement, I'll settle for the improvement inside and to be honest I do think smokers are getting a bit of a raw deal recently, just don't let them back in!

[craft1948]

Thanks Talbot!!
I'm a smoker but I don't whinge about the nonsense written by the virulent anti-smokers. I was quite happy about the smoking ban in restaurants as even I didn't fancy a fag between courses.
When the ban smoking in pubs came into force I simply stopped going into pubs. When it came into force in my workplace I just opted to work at home.
Smoking in the street is a no no, my mother always said it was frightfully common...

[Hypognosis]

@EDDIE51,

Thanks for posting that article link.

I have to dispute this part
"… £2.9 billion lost in productivity during smoking breaks…"

If you take smoking breaks you have to work that bit harder back at the desk because your work targets will be the same as your non-smoking colleagues. You risk being turfed out for "performance issues", if you don't keep up the pace.

You can be meeting all your targets and still have colleagues look down on you as if you're getting an easy ride. No-one batted an eyelid about the co-worker who was on the bog so long that the timer switch left them in the dark (by their own admission!)

Maybe they mean lost productivity in terms of non-smokers making sure they get *their* 30 minutes' slacking off per day, too?


Bigger than all of this, though, the tobacco companies are still making substantial profits (must do, or they wouldn't bother) but the article makes no separate mention of the corporation tax revenue from these companies. No special disincentivising tax penalties on them, just 23p per packet extra duty lumped on the unfortunate addicts, sorry, I mean consumers, exercising their 'free choice'.

[EDDIE51]

No one smokes by choice , even though they would argue endlessly that they do. You smoke because tobacco is more addictive than it's close cousin Heroin.

[EDDIE51]

Nicotine is more addictive than Heroin is what I meant to say, sorry.

[horseshoes]

Our hospital is now a No Smoking Site yet there are still people smoking right outside the doors so you have to walk through their smoke. Yuk. I don't see the point of imposing a ban and then not enforcing it. My friend and I go car booting at the weekend and I always manage to get behind a smoker blowing clouds of foul smelling smoke. It disgusts me...... and yes I'm an ex-smoker.