Smoking

[wellinghall]

[Poll #1334926]

Comments

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

It's selfish on both sides, because they both expect others to go out of their way to please them.

Smokers, though, harm other people with their smoke, so it's *more* selfish for them to expect other people to fit in with them. However, I think it is similarly selfish to wear strongly smelling perfume (or anything else strongly smelling) when you'll be in close confinement with other people, but other people (who do not have asthma) disagree with me.

[miss-t-ide.livejournal.com]

I don't have asthma, and I agree with you.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

I know what you're saying, but is it selfish of me to expect others not to harm me?

Regarding asthma, are you saying that strongly smelling perfume can trigger an asthma attack for you? Strong smelling perfume is an asthma trigger for me too.

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

I don't think selfish is quite the right word, and of course every time we want someone to do something for us no matter how reasonable it seems to our society, that is "selfish" in one sense of the word. But people need to be more considerate of others' physical needs I think, full stop and as a matter of course. There's a lot of emphasis at the moment on pussyfooting around people's spiritual wants, so why not even moreso their actual basic needs?

The thing is, would we say that a non-driver asking that drivers "don't drive on the pavement/don't speed" was being "selfish"?I doubt it. Well that's what smokers are doing to everyone around them, endangering their health recklessly. I can see the argument for smokers' pubs/rooms in a way but the problem is protecting the workers. What's wrong with smoking in your own home and if you want to smoke more socially have people round, form the smoking equivalent of a coffee morning or whatnot?!

On the topic of strong perfumes and the like, I don't have asthma and I still agree, especially if they have been informed of the problem and work in close confines with you - no-one NEEDS to wear strong perfume; people DO need to be able to BREATHE.

[gayalondiel.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about the perfume, but it's harder to enact - I like perfule, especially of the BPAL variety, and the only person who has ever asked me not to wear it when I come over is my dad, who is growing very sensitive to scent these days. If someone else asked me not to then I wouldn't wear it if I was going to their function, however it's less likely to have a broad proximity effect than smoking (I think, do correct me if I'm wrong) and unless people have actually had this conversation they are probably not selfish, just ignorant of the consequences.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I am an asthmatic non-smoker who reacts to cigarette smoke, but I wouldn't put my dislike of smoke in pubs as strongly as thinking the other guy selfish. I'm not a regular pubgoer by temperament: many people who are regular pubgoers smoke, if a landlord feels his business is better off catering to the smokers and annoying the non-smokers, then that's mildly annoying to me as an individual if I happen to go in there and it's too cold to sit outside, but I don't think it's selfish of the smokers.

Similar to my views on dogs in pubs actually: my personal preference is that all pubs be dog-friendly: no doubt if you have a dog allergy or phobia, that preference seems very selfish, but it's still my preference.

On the front of trying to please as many people as possible, the best solution seems to be a good range of pubs catering to as many different sorts of preference as possible. Although I liked the idea of the antismoking legislation to start with, I've gone off it. It seems too pushy now.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Heavens, I seem to be out on a limb, looking at the other responses!

I grew up in an atmosphere of yacht clubs and big bands and my mother was a teacher, so my early youth was surrounded by fagends and beer: stale smoke has got that sort of nostalgia to it to me...

Aha, you say, that's why she's asthmatic! but honestly, I don't think it is, my grandfather was exactly the same: I think I just got the wheezy genes.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

To compare the desire of (some) smokers to be permitted to smoke in pubs with your desire for pubs to be dog-friendly. The key difference is (ignoring the people who are allergic to dogs etc.) that the smoke harms everyone, while the dog harms nobody.

I can see where you're coming from when you say it seems too pushy now. However, I can see that smokers have failed to kerb their behaviour to the general detriment of everyone else (smoker and non-smoker alike). And without firm, in-you-face legislation (like this) I can't see that changing.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

I see your point, it owuld be better all round if pubs were looked at and licenced by size (by the local magistrates) as to wether they could have indoor smoking in one room (say the old snug), or an outdoor are for non-smokers on sunny days (sited upwind of the smokers based on prevailing breeze), a child friendly area etc.

The dog bit is harder, although pubs could have signs up saying "Dogs Welcome/Not Welcome Here" so allergy/phobia sufferers knew that there may be a dog inside.

And I agree a lot of the anti-smoking stuff has gone too far, no smoking in bus shelters that are a roof and one wall!?!

[rustica.livejournal.com]

I'm never totally convinced by the comparison with dogs, because legally *some* dogs are allowed into pubs. I'm thinking, obviously, of assistance dogs. Whereas there are no laws that allow *some* smokers to smoke in pubs.

Which is to say, I agree with you on the dog argument. I'm just quibbling :)

[miss-t-ide.livejournal.com]

I'd like to ban people from smoking on the street too... I hate that I can't walk to the tube station from work without passing little groups of people polluting the air with their cigarettes. I'm probably less tolerant of that since I got pregnant...

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

I think it's selfish to smoke in front of other people, full stop, unless they also smoke. I used to think it was just annoying, but then I started working in a university health research department and now I can rattle off a list of all the major unpleasant diseases caused by smoking, plus the most accurate current estimate of how likely a smoker is to die as a direct result of smoking. (It is about 50%. Russian roulette, anyone?)

My former boss does a lot of work studying the effects of public health interventions. Time and again he finds that, in any given area (but particularly in poorer areas, where there tend to be more smokers), the most effective and cost-effective thing you can do to increase the general health of the population is to implement smoking cessation programmes that work.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Ah, but do smoking cessation programs = no smoking in pubs? I'm not sure they do.

100% in support of getting people to stop smoking, but my impression of the smoking ban is that people aren't necessarily If the pub closes and people sit at home smoking and drinking instead I don't see that helps.

What I don't like about the smoking ban in pubs is it's so pushy. It's not about persuading people to take adult decisions for themselves and their families, it's about pushing people about, and I just am not quite comfortable with that.

[segh.livejournal.com]

I think that, as far as possible, there should be smoking-pubs and non-smoking pubs, and let the market decide; in villages that can only accomodate one pub, smoking and non-smoking bars. A blanket ban on smoking in pubs simply means ridiculous use of patio-heaters.
I knew that as soon as they'd got legislation against smoking they'd start in on drinking: and that is what is happening now.

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

I think patio heaters should be banned. No really, I really do. Heating the outdoors, that is ABSURD.

I agreed with your suggestion for a while, but I've never managed to figure out how to protect the workers in that scenario. Which is probably why we have a ban rather than smoking rooms now (ie. the lawmakers couldn't work it out either)?

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

I've certainly been less inclined to avoid pubs since they stopped being toxic hell-holes where I was unable to breath properly.

On one level I agree with Bunn about the problem with pushing people about. But there are many banned habits and practices that are far less dangerous to the bystanders than smoking cigarettes is.

I'm also always gently puzzled/amused/annoyed by the perpetual complaint of many smokers that they 'just want to be treated like everyone else'. Any other activity releasing similar quantities of toxic and/or carcinogenic chemicals into the atmosphere is subject to much heavier regulation, if not outright banning. A company that dumped the equivalent of a 20-a-day habit into its offices would be facing huge fines and probably prison sentences for the responsible corporate officers.

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

In an effort to make my position slightly clearer: I have no objection to people doing whatever they want in the privacy of their own homes. But I don't see why smoking in public places (particularly in crowded public places) is any better than walking around punching people - both involve knowingly doing harm to those around you for your own pleasure. That's acceptable (IMO) if and only if the other people have consented to it (and there is a case for special smoking-allowed pubs on those grounds).

[gramarye1971]

As someone who watched all four grandparents die painful and occasionally prolonged deaths from smoking-related causes -- heart attack, lung/liver cancer, and two cases of emphysema -- this is my view as well.

[rustica.livejournal.com]

I disagree with you only on the issue of smoking-allowed pubs, and that is because of the workers in them. We've spent so long making sure that people can't be hired or fired on the grounds of sex, inclination, race, etc, but to require people to either be smokers in order to be employed, or to put themselves at risk for someone else's habit is just utterly abhorrent to me. It opens the door to a return to so many other discriminatory practices.
/rant

I totally agree with you about smoking in public places, btw, except perhaps if they were adequately fenced off from non-smoking areas.

(Though I remember seeing some people smoking something that released a lot of very blue smoke while they were sitting in a very smelly wild garlic patch in a Newcastle park. I must say, that showed a certain amount of initiative not usually associated with potheads!)

[osymandias.livejournal.com]

I think I agree largely with tigerfort's position here. I think I would have been more supportive of legislation making it illegal to smoke on streets/ in parks etc - any public spaces. I'm certainly not complaining about it being banned in pubs, however.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering how many people answering this are in regular contact with people that they like and respect that smoke?

Two smokers I know are people who are about as far from 'selfish' in any other sense of the word as one could possibly imagine. They are people who always go the extra mile for others, who volunteer, who take responsibility, who are just all round great human beings. Knowing them has changed my view of smokers a bit. I still don't like the habit, but I no longer think of it as necessarily a sigil of stupidity or bastardliness.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

One of my best friends (he was my best man) is a regular and fairly heavy smoker. I don't get to see him very often (the last time was late September and before that April).

True, smoking isn't necessarily a sigil of stupidity or bastardliness, but people who are truly unpleasant or thoughtless are in my experience more likely to smoke; just because everyone who smokes isn't like that doesn't alter the overall situation. :-(

[findabair.livejournal.com]

The ban on smoking in public places has been in effect in Norway since 2004, and at this point almost everyone I know are happy about it, including the smokers. I've heard several people say they smoke less in pubs when they have to go outside, and that they feel much better themselves when they come home at night and their clothes smell less of smoke than they used to.

As a non-smoker myself, I've been happy about it all along.

[gayalondiel.livejournal.com]

I'm in the slightly odd position of a guilty occasional smoker who thinks the ban is a great thing. To my knowledge I'm the only one... Then again, I never smoke indoors as it destroys the uupholstry, only outside where I'm either with other smokers or on my own. I'm not about to screw anyone else's lungs over.

[garamondbophin.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear - I fear I'm entering the lion's den here, but I said I'd leave a comment, so...

Some of you have mentioned the possibility of segregated areas: I am old enough to remember when we still had smoking and non-smoking compartments on trains; engraved glass in old pubs show that they used to have separate smoking rooms, away from the non-smokers; we used to have smoking rooms at my first permanent job etc. It probably wasn't perfect, but it seemed to work and everyone had the same protection from the weather - now I have to freeze and get rained on, as all those special provisions have been removed. I'd settle for something like a little hut in a mutually agreed "safe" area, not too long a walk away from work. Is that too much to ask?

I always used to ask if I was allowed to smoke and/or went to the appropriate place to do so - now I am so ticked off that I sometimes deliberately blow smoke at people! I used to be able to consider this subject rationally and would apologise for being a smoker; now I find myself spouting off about "both my parents and their parents and so on back to Sir Walter Raleigh all smoked and lived into their 80s and died of things not related to smoking" and "I've known dozens of bar staff who smoke as much as me and hate the ban and only two who didn't and only one of them disliked the smoke from her colleagues" and "if you want to get rid of noxious fumes, ban internal combustion engines" and... I think you get the drift.

Calming down a bit, both strong perfume (which makes me cough to the point of choking, though I am not asthmatic) and smelly food (which makes me nauseous) within the office are officially against our company's rules, but nobody takes a blind bit of notice, so I go outside for a smoke whenever either turns up! Oh, and I only pollute people's walk from the station to the office because the powers that be have so limited where I can smoke that it is very difficult to get out of the way of non-smokers in that area.

One other mischievous thought: if smoking were banned entirely, would a situation develop like Prohibition with booze - consumption would actually increase and all the profits would go to organised crime!

Seriously, though: I'd like to be as accommodating as possible to non-smokers, but in some ways things like this ban are making it more difficult, not less. I'll be more flexible if you will too.