I went out last night in Norwich. I don't smoke but came home smelling like an ashtray, my clothes stink of smoke, my hair stinks of smoke and not doubt if I could smell me lungs, they do to.
I'm not self righteous about smokers, I smoked at university socially, but I cannot see how making it more dofficult for people to ruin their health and the health of others is a bad thing.
And the daft line that people use "Well I'll smoke more at home so my children will have to put up with the smoke" is as pathetic an argument as anyone could use.
9 comments:
It's a question of property rights. A public house isn't, despite it's name, a public place. It is a private establishment into which some people are invited, others refused.
Dictating what people can or cannot do on their own private property is fundamentally wrong, whatever the merits of the intended benefit to society.
If you were forced to enter pubs / clubs, etc, the one may have an argument that passive smoking infringed on your own property rights, but which pubs one frequents is a matter of choice, thus this doesn't apply.
The argument to use is that the government has no right to tell us what we can and can't do on private property.
I will love the smoke free environment, but the ban is wrong. It was brought in just before many pubs started to look at going smoke free - something which would have offered us a choice, but the government thinks it has the right to control our lives so had to get the ban in.
I really don't mind people smoking, but in some places you have to hate it.
I'm still wondering why the government decided to pay for loads of useless signs - surely they should relax laws on non-smoking signs as we all know where we can smoke now!!
I think that the owners of the pubs should be the ones to decide if smoking should be allowed in the pubs that they own.
If there was a demand for non smoking pubs that demand would have been satisfied. It wasn't which says something.
On no account should a total smoking ban be allowed ! That is pure fascism, those who are trying to enforce it are pure fascists, and as such are dangerous and should be fought tooth and nail as any dangerous fascist should.
The solution to the smoking/non-smoking problem is to have separate areas. That works perfectly well and there is no valid reason to change it. There is a lot of medical propaganda about smoking that is unproven or false, notably on the subject of passive smoking.
It is pure humbug. The rights of smokers are just as important as those of non-smokers and let no-one say otherwise. Hitler singled out the Jews in the 1930's just like people are singling out smokers now. It is very very dangerous and these people must not be allowed to get away with this, if only because it is an open door to other things .........alcohol, fatty foods, car exhaust fumes etc etc. Rail Travel is dangerous, air travel, cars on the road.
You could argue that anything is dangerous and that it should be banned. The argument just doesn't make sense. I have not one iota of doubt in my mind that these would-be banners are wrong and they must be stopped.
The other thing, the most hypocritical thing of all, is that if cigarettes were really as dangerous as they would have us believe, then their sale would be banned, wouldn't it ? Ah yes, but there is too much money involved. Cannabis, which is not dangerous at all, is banned ? Why? No-one knows, but it does containes less dangerous products than tobacco.
All this goes to prove that the government are a load of hyprocrites and should in no case be listened to. It's time the public stood up to these people who really take them for a bunch of idiots.
And as you yourself are moderating this blog I doubt you will publish this. Allow freedom of speech, allow free choice, not draconian laws. What will be next? Your freedom to drive!!!
Is there anything worse than some idiot lecturing someone on censorship and freedom of speech when they themsevles post as "anonymous" !
For the recrod, there are already laws agains tdriving. For example, you cannot drive on pathways where pedestrians are. In the same way, there are now lawa that protect the safety of non smokers.
Hurrah!
"If there was a demand for non smoking pubs that demand would have been satisfied. It wasn't which says something."
This is simply false. It's magical thinking assuming "the market will provide".
Here in the US, in upstate NY, the bars (as we call them) all protested the requirement that if they had smoking sections, they must also have non-smoking sections which were in separate rooms from any smoking section, and larger -- claiming they'd lose business. There were zero non-smoking bars in this semi-rural area before the ban.
In actual fact, 99% of bars *gained* business substantially. The proprietors saw the smokers who came in -- they didn't see the non-smokers who were avoiding bars entirely. This reinforced their preexisting, and incorrect, belief that the smoking customers outnumbered the nonsmoking customers. The market failed to provide, because the people opening bars were, frankly, idiots.
They had to be given a kick in the pants by the law. *Now* some of them get it, though some of them still swear they lost business (even when their *own books* say otherwise).
Quite agree. We see fit to legislate in this country to prevent the use of mobile phones while driving, which kills approx. 20 people per year. Passive smoking may kill as many as 1,000.
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