Neil Rafferty said:
The ban will do nothing to improve the health of the nation, but it will give a warm glow to those who enjoy telling others what to do.
It will be a long time before it can be proved whether or not the ban has improved people's health - although I'm sure bar workers will cite lots of anecdotal evidence in quite a short space of time. When I was 16 I went out with a smoker for about a year, during which time I suffered from a terrible cough and ulcerated throat. Within days of us breaking up the symptoms had disappeared. Although I can't prove it, I'm sure it wasn't a coincidence. I support the ban not because I like telling people what to do, but because smoky atmospheres make me very uncomfortable.
Neil Rafferty said:
They have used abusive and dishonest methods to make smokers feel bad about themselves, even comparing smokers to heroin addicts
If that is true, I think the comparison is unfair in that heroin is illegal and can kill someone much more quickly than tobacco. But I think it's true that most smokers are addicted to tobacco.
Tokis-Phoenix said:
On a slightly different note, i know an aweful lot of non-smokers who do not like the implications of the smoking ban simply because the governments are taking away another peice of their freedom
What about my freedom to be a non-smoker? Someone smoking near to me infringes that right.
Tokis-Phoenix said:
Drinking/alchohol kills thousands of millions of people worldwide, far more than what years and years of smoking does, it tears families and livelihoods apart- if we apply the same sorts of motives for banning smoking to drinking, then the givernment is completely entitled to outlaw/ban that too. I'm sure there would be riots if they did, but it would be no different- it would be just another peice of freedom to do somthing as an individual lost.
I agree that drinking can cause health problems - but smoking kills far more people. Between 1998-2002, an average of 86,500 in England people died
each year from
[URL="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1736598,00.html"]smoking-related diseases[/URL]. In 2004, 6,544 people died in England and Wales from
alcohol-related conditions - in other words, smoking kills
13 times more more people than drinking. Even if we factor in
alcohol-related deaths that are not so obvious, estimated to be as high as 33,000, smoking is still far, far more dangerous to the health.
More important to me is that my drinking does not directly affect your health - whereas your smoking directly affects me (not literally yours :relief: ). Before I was a boring old married woman, I used to go drinking once or twice a week in a smoky pub. Every time I went there the smoke upset me - it made me cough and sneeze, made my eyes sore and my clothes smell. But I don't remember a single incident in which someone else's drinking upset me. Irritated me maybe
kashii:
As I have said before, I would support a compromise - all bars serving food or admitting children should be completely smoke-free (including beer gardens or patios), but adults-only bars where food is not served can apply for a smoking licence - I guess they could find staff who are smokers who wouldn't mind working there.