Merged Smoking should be banned universally

[DC]

I'm sorry, what would be a benefit of smoking?

the benefit is, i like it.

 

[23_Tauri]

What's preventing Old Guy from going to see the same people he's seen for the last 20 years? Nothing. And if he doesn't go because he can't smoke there, it's his choice to place smoking above companionship, isn't it.

True, but why be so mean to the old boy in the first place?

Social policy on health is health motivated. It's probably also financially motivated, because getting people to quit smoking will make their health care less expensive overall.

You think governments want people to quit smoking? Oh please.

We've had this conversation and the upshot is that tobacco smokers cover their health care costs twice over in the tax that they pay. So no, it's not financially motivated by government in the UK because the government loses tax revenue if people give up smoking. That is why the tax is set (and very slowly raised) at such a level that people don't quit, they just pay the extra tax with each successive budget. Chancellor not stupid, Chancellor know this.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I suppose, but that doesn't mean I should go and do something that's of no real benefit to the world to increase it even further when I know that's what it'll do. (a little "high" is something I can easily sacrifice.)

Suit yourself. But it's not your place to decide everybody else must make the same sacrifices of pleasure you're willing to do. I don't drink coffee, but I don't feel the need to insist nobody else drink coffee.

 

[Kahalachan]

I think suicide should be legal. Therefore smoking stays legal.

 

[dirtywick]

What's preventing Old Guy from going to see the same people he's seen for the last 20 years? Nothing. And if he doesn't go because he can't smoke there, it's his choice to place smoking above companionship, isn't it.

It is the choice he's presented with. I don't think that's a choice that people should have to make to begin with. I don't believe non-smokers were so desperate to go to a bar, but darn it if it wasn't for that darn smoke. They certainly aren't going now that they got what they wanted.

 

[23_Tauri]

It is the choice he's presented with. I don't think that's a choice that people should have to make to begin with. I don't believe non-smokers were so desperate to go to a bar, but darn it if it wasn't for that darn smoke. They certainly aren't going now that they got what they wanted.

^ This.

I wonder how many of the active members of ASH are now down the Dog and Duck drinking pints of Theakston's Old Peculiar to make up for those smokers who now stay at home to avoid facing the indignity of being shunned out onto the street to have a cigarette? Not many, going by the current rate of pub closures.

Those non-smokers who think that a game of musical chairs is akin to relaxing back with a pint and a pipe haven't understood that it runs counter to the whole point of relaxing with a cigarette if one has to break out of one's relaxation to go outside and mingle with the traffic in order to light up.

I dunno, call me a stinky, disease-ridden Luddite but I liked pubs the way they were.

 

[Noztradamus]

The best way to get rid of smoking is to work to make it as unglamerous as possible. If instead of being a method of rebellion that makes you cool, it was treated like walking about the place with cow manure on your gumboots and those that took it up made to feel like morons, then less people would be willing to take it up, and it will die a natural death with the older generations. While it is still glamerised and "cool" banning it will only result in more idiots taking it up.

And as long as the anti-smokers continue to behave like sanctimonious prats, smoking will be cool.

 

[sgtbaker]

I'm sorry, what would be a benefit of smoking?

A pack a day smoker, burns 200 calories a day, just from smoking. It curbs hunger and it increases the firing rate of dopamine receptor. Of course, I am speaking gratificational benefits and none of which are impossible to acheive by other means. Off the top of my head, though, those are the positive side effects to the smoker. As for benefits...

http://www.data-yard.net/10v2/parkinson.htm

http://85.18.251.150/34/circulation_2001_104_773.htm

http://www.data-yard.net/30/asthma.htm

http://www.data-yard.net/10b/kaposi.htm

http://www.forces.org/evidence/files/brea.htm

 

[IDB87]

I was pretty intimate with a hookah and some beers this weekend. Should I be arrested?

 

[GrouchoMarxist]

I was pretty intimate with a hookah and some beers this weekend. Should I be arrested?

I think the don't ask don't tell policy applies here.

 

[23_Tauri]

A pack a day smoker, burns 200 calories a day, just from smoking. It curbs hunger and it increases the firing rate of dopamine receptor. Of course, I am speaking gratificational benefits and none of which are impossible to acheive by other means. Off the top of my head, though, those are the positive side effects to the smoker. As for benefits...

http://www.data-yard.net/10v2/parkinson.htm

http://85.18.251.150/34/circulation_2001_104_773.htm

http://www.data-yard.net/30/asthma.htm

http://www.data-yard.net/10b/kaposi.htm

http://www.forces.org/evidence/files/brea.htm

Interesting list, sgtbaker, thanks. Food for thought there. The study of atopic disorders in Swedish residents particularly jumped out:

In a multivariate analysis, children of mothers who smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day tended to have lower odds for suffering from allergic rhino-conjunctivitis, allergic asthma, atopic eczema and food allergy, compared to children of mothers who had never smoked

The beneficial neurological effects of nicotine have long been known. It's a curious substance, which both stimulates and relaxes depending on dosage and setting.

 

[AvalonXQ]

I am very, very happy that smoking is banned in restaurants and most public places. I have no issue with one smoking in one's own home, but I appreciate not having to deal with other people's smoke when out and about.
I hate getting stuck behind a smoking person when walking down the street. Yuck.

 

[jiggeryqua]

I am very, very happy that smoking is banned in restaurants and most public places. I have no issue with one smoking in one's own home, but I appreciate not having to deal with other people's smoke when out and about.
I hate getting stuck behind a smoking person when walking down the street. Yuck.

Also, fat people. Much harder to jink round them, and you know they're going to slow you down, shifting all that weight. Not to mention old people, wheelchairs, pushchairs. The world would be a better place if it only had people like me in it.

 

[Kid Eager]

Also, fat people. Much harder to jink round them, and you know they're going to slow you down, shifting all that weight. Not to mention old people, wheelchairs, pushchairs. The world would be a better place if it only had people like me in it.

no, you're too argumentative and are likely to take up too much time in supermarket checkouts. Join the soylent green queue please...

 

[jiggeryqua]

no, you're [...] likely to take up too much time in supermarket checkouts.

So light a cigar and try to relax. I won't get done any quicker for you hopping from foot to foot and cursing under your breath.

 

[23_Tauri]

Also, fat people. Much harder to jink round them, and you know they're going to slow you down, shifting all that weight. Not to mention old people, wheelchairs, pushchairs. The world would be a better place if it only had people like me in it.

[irony alert on]But fat people can't help being fat. They only have to look a cream cake and they gain four pounds by the as yet undiscovered by science process of visual fatty acid osmosis! [/irony alert off]

 

[Kid Eager]

So light a cigar and try to relax. I won't get done any quicker for you hopping from foot to foot and cursing under your breath.

for some reason I immediately pictured Homer Simpson...

 

[JFrankA]

I am very, very happy that smoking is banned in restaurants and most public places. I have no issue with one smoking in one's own home, but I appreciate not having to deal with other people's smoke when out and about.
I hate getting stuck behind a smoking person when walking down the street. Yuck.

Yet you tolerate smoke coming from a car?

 

[jiggeryqua]

Yet you tolerate smoke coming from a car?

Don't forget cows. They fart. Though I haven't found myself stuck behind one on the street for a while.

 

[Kid Eager]

Don't forget cows. They fart. Though I haven't found myself stuck behind one on the street for a while.

just wait until they're in front of you in the supermarket queue...