lnr | Smoking ban

Entry tags:

poll,
smoking

Smoking ban

Lots of people are talking about the UK plan to totally ban smoking in enclosed public places which was voted through yesterday evening. Most of my friends list who have commented seem keen, though some have reservations. I'm curious as to what those who've not said anything yet feel. Do propogate this as widely as you like. Personally I think it's a good move, though I would have been as happy with the amendment which allowed smoking in private clubs. I do think a total ban in pubs is an excellent step. And no, I don't smoke, though I have in the past been in the "Well... a bit " category. - oh yeah and just to add I am still occasionally tempted if I'm out with one of the few friends who smoke. [Poll #673518]

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A nagging unease as to what they'll ban next.

When they came for the foxhunters I did not speak up, because I was not a foxhunter.
When they came for the smokers I did not speak up, because I was not a smoker.

Yes, me too. I don't like the government's nanny state attitude and generally disagree with banning things.

But this case? Well, smokers are harming lots of other people, and I will like the end effects so it's a tough call for me.

What you said, really. If it wasn't Nanny Blair banning it I'd be a lot happier.

They aren't banning smoking. They are banning inflicting your smoke on people who don't want it. It's more like banning drinking and driving. You can drink all you like just don't put me in jeopardy by driving.

That comment up top about how, for smokers, it'll be just like at work - well, going to the pub *shouldn't* be just like work. Sure, some people work there, but the smoke should be accepted as one of the job's problems, like heat in a foundry, or being gibbered at by coked-up tools if you deal with PRs. And 'you can drink all you like'...well, for how long? With all the anti-binge talk being talked, I would be deeply unsurprised if some legal limit on how much booze people can buy came in within the decade. Already they're talking about pricing booze up, in dire contrast to that brief and quietly buried campaign against 'rip-off Britain'.

Why should smoke be accepted as part of going to the pub? I'm old enough to remember when people smoked in the office, in hospitals, in the theatre, in cinemas, on planes, on buses, everywhere. We've decided that people have a right to be free from second hand smoke in those places. Why are pubs different?

Hospitals should be as healthy an environment as possible, so it made sense to ban it there. Aeroplanes already have enough problems with air filtration, so it made sense to ban it there. In theatres and cinemas the fug tended to impair the view (the prime purpose of the experience), so it made sense to ban it there. But the total ban on trains and buses was already a step too far - apart from anything else, I would sometimes hit the smoking carriage just because it was easier to get a seat.
The ban in pubs is, like the (theoretically still law) ban on swearing in pubs, an unjust imposition for somewhere which is meant to be a place of relaxation. I've nothing against non-smoking pubs, maybe even giving them tax breaks - though it's noticeable that in all the time I was in Cambridge, nobody ever suggested going to the Free Press, and business in the smoke-free Wetherspoon's has been way under expectation.

Aircraft never had problems with air filtration - they never bothered. The major change since aircraft banned smoking is that the air is actually staler and stuffier on board.

When you're going several hundred miles an hour through clean air, diverting some through the cabin is never a problem. The actual expense is in warming it to a sane temperature. As it's that warming that takes energy, now they don't have the smoke, they don't refresh the air so much.

Re: Other:

barrysarll.livejournal.com - 2006-02-15 13:21 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Other:

bellinghman.livejournal.com - 2006-02-15 13:42 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Other:

catyak - 2006-02-15 15:02 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Other:

bellinghman.livejournal.com - 2006-02-15 15:17 (UTC) - Expand

OK, people go to pubs to eat and drink; to enjoy food and beverages. That would suggest that they might like their senses of taste and smell to be unimpaired. What interests me here is that all the same arguments for not banning smoking were deployed when smoking was banned in hospitals but I have yet to find a single person now who seriously argues for its reintroduction.

At work I have to deal with the consequences of other people being inconsiderate all the time. I agree that the pub shouldn't be like work. I want to not have to waste my friend-designated leisure time dealing with the consequences of people who know they're making other people ill, smelly and itchy and continue doing it anyway.

In theory it's already an offence to serve alcohol to someone who's too far gone. It's rarely enforced though.

D

Yeah, I know. I always thought they should have that in restaurants too, for the obese. "I'm sorry sir, I think you've had quite enough."

People *work in pubs*.

Yes, I know. That's why I said, in the comment to which you replied but don't seem to have read, "Sure, some people work there, but the smoke should be accepted as one of the job's problems, like heat in a foundry".

Re: Other:

lnr - 2006-02-16 10:55 (UTC) - Expand

*agrees*

Absolutely... what's next? Alcohol? Fatty foods? Being out in public unaccompanied by another adult?...

Being overweight. I've already heard health experts suggesting it.

ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

Why can't you be against a ban on ONE THING and for a ban on ANOTHER thing that is DIFFERENT?

Jesus...

Because once the mechanisms are in place to start banning stuff, each ban gets progressively easier to implement.

By that logic we should never ban anything...

Re: Other:

catyak - 2006-02-15 15:03 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Other:

barrysarll.livejournal.com - 2006-02-15 15:48 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Other:

pippaalice.livejournal.com - 2006-02-15 16:18 (UTC) - Expand

The comment just illustrates that everyone seems fine with banning stuff... right up to the point where it affects something *they* don't want to see banned because if affects *them*.

I understand the comment. But I *actually* believe that banning fox hunting and smoking in pubs and killing people and various other things are CORRECT! I don't believe banning smoking in the street or indeed completely or eating fatty foods or doing drugs ARE correct. Many of these things barely affect me BTW but I would defend to the death ppls right to do them because I believe those things are actual RIGHTS.

Re: Other:

artela.livejournal.com - 2006-02-15 16:01 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Other:

chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com - 2006-02-15 16:12 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Other:

artela.livejournal.com - 2006-02-15 16:48 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Other:

pippaalice.livejournal.com - 2006-02-15 16:17 (UTC) - Expand

But I don't agree with smoking in clubs and bars or ripping foxes to bits. I do agree with smoking on streets/outside places/in private. I do agree with being able to drink as much as you like as long as you are not dangerous. These are things I will stand up for, I will not stand up for smoking or foxhunting and I resent the idea that just because I don't somehow it will be 'told you so' if they ban something I agree with.

Forget for a moment that foxhunting is "ripping poor innocent fluffy animals to pieces" and think about whether you agree with the fact that this is a law that was passed not for pragmatic but for political reasons. It was passed in spite of the fact that it makes no significant positive change to the everyday life of the vast majority of its country's people; in fact it has a negative impact on some small rural communities; it's enormously unpopular with a very respectable sector of the public; in short, its major benefit is essentially to make the Labour party look morally better than its opponents.

To me that's not lawmaking for sane reasons, that's politics gone mad. This government has an extremely disturbing nanny-state attitude in any case: it seems to believe that governments are unbiased and entirely fair-minded institutions which should (can!) be blindly trusted with telling the public the difference between naughty and nice, and the hunting ban is a case in point. I disagree with the hunting ban because I think it's a vile little piece of covert class warfare, disguised as morality by manipulative rhetoric; and it disturbs me, frankly, that our country is currently in a state where that kind of thing gets precedence over genuinely important stuff like sorting out the appalling state our education system and health services are in.

*applause*

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