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