Legal age for smoking

quote:

Originally posted by David Scott?:
Tonym, they should make their employees stand somewhere away from the customers then - and tell them they can't have extra breaks. You don't strengthen the anti-smoking case by making such weak arguments.

You're obviously not an employer then.

No, but I'm employed by an employer which has just such a scheme. Come on Tony, stand up to those people. Don't let them push you around.

quote:

You're quite wrong though. I've never heard any informed person suggest there's an actual risk from the level of exposure to smoke that comes walking past a smoker in a doorway. Being exposed to a smell you don't like isn't harm. Don't be such a wimp.

So are you arguing that exhaled smoke is less carcinogenic or that the amount involved is unlikely to be harmful?

The latter. For all I know the former may be true too. I can see some logic to it, but who knows.

So do we ignore cumulative effect?

Chris,

It is indeed my uninformed, unqualified opinion that in this situation you could quite safely ignore the cumulative effect. I say this because:

• The amount of smoke you're likely to breathe in as you walk past someone in a doorway must be tiny. And when I say tiny, I mean SMALL. As in really really little if not a tiny bit smaller.
• Those studies which showed effects from passive smoking showed effects from situations such as living with smokers and working in smoke filled rooms - much, much higher levels of exposure.
• I have never read about or heard of any public health body or research organisation or any qualified person of any kind suggest that any research whatsoever indicated that there could be any risk at all from walking past smokers standing outside in a doorway. And I really can't imagine that those organisations would be shy of publicising such claims. Can you?

I think the list of things you would have to eliminate from your life in order to arrive at to the point where people standing in doorways smoking was the most dangerous thing left, would be a very long one.

quote:

Originally posted by David Scott?:
No, but I'm employed by an employer which has just such a scheme. Come on Tony, stand up to those people. Don't let them push you around.

Sorry David, but that's a very naive comment.

David

We will probably have to agree to disagree on this.

Yes of course the greater the concentration of the greater the risk but why should any innocent bystander be subjected to that risk - ignoring the vile stench and antisocial aspect.

Smokers should refrained from (or in my view be prevented from) smoking in places where non-smokers are present or are likely to be present. It is the only way to deal with passive smoking in an effective manner.

KR
Chris

Chris,

Why do you think there's any risk at all? Do you avoid bonfires?

Tony,

You need to believe in yourself more. Try some assertiveness training. Or take up smoking - it might enhance your social status and make you seem more authoritative.

quote:

Originally posted by David Scott?:
Chris,

Why do you think there's any risk at all? Do you avoid bonfires?

How can you not think there might be some risk?

I tend to stay away from the direction that the wind is blowing the smoke when I attend bonfires

Chris,

Ok. I think we've taken this as far as it goes.

Stay safe and, whatever else you do, keep breathing.

All the best,

David

Thanks David

You look after yourself too.

Chris

quote:

Chris,

Why do you think there's any risk at all? Do you avoid bonfires?

quote:

Tony,

You need to believe in yourself more. Try some assertiveness training. Or take up smoking - it might enhance your social status and make you seem more authoritative.

I've seen some loonie arguments in defence of smoking, some of them sadly in this normally quite civilised board, but I reckon these rank with the looniest.

Sadly they're indicative of the attitude the majority of us have to put up with. In my experience your average smoker is not receptive to the "please consider others" argument and will smoke anywhere unless asked not to. This puts the onus on the majority who just want to be able to go out and have a pint or two without coming home with their clothes stinking of the foul stench of stale fags, having had their arms poked with lit cigarettes, and sometimes clothes ruined by fag burns. Most of us don't want to be involved in confrontations and to patronise somebody by saying it's up to him to become more assertive is frankly ludicrous.

In recent years my employer has spent many thousand pounds to provide smoking shelters for a relatively small number of people and is currently building more because senior management doesn't have the balls to stand up and say no you're not going to disfigure and pollute the main access to our buildings. At the same time they're also asking for voluntary redundancies and I have had no pay rise in two of the past three years.

The world is going fecking mad and I expect that within 2 or 3 decades people will look back and wonder why the silent majority put up with it.

quote:

Originally posted by David Scott?:
Tony,

You need to believe in yourself more. Try some assertiveness training. Or take up smoking - it might enhance your social status and make you seem more authoritative.

You've not had the pleasure of my company, and being slightly less employee-friendly than Genghis Kahn assertiveness isn't something I need more of particularly.

Anyway, thankfully I'm retired & don't have to deal with staff/HR issues any more.

Tomk,

Sorry to spoil your rant, but if you really took these to be arguments in defence of smoking you need to pay a LOT more attention.

And if a typical night out for you really ends with you coming home with clothes stinking of the foul stench of stale fags, having had your arms poked with lit cigarettes, and sometimes clothes ruined by fag burns, you must be hanging out in some pretty wild doorways. Take tonym with you next time and he'll whip those louts into shape and take them on a quick sweep across northern China.

David
(Unlikely to be a typical smoker as he doesn't smoke.)

You young whipper-snapper! You need a sound thrashing, by jove!

Come on now Ghengis, back in your yurt.I'm sure there's a jar of sheep's eyes in there somewhere.

An interesting solution to the heroin issue

Wonder if the model is extendable to smoking? Nicotine itself is already an extremely potent toxin, so we may just need to tweak the delivery mechanism.

You looked at that picture of that woman holding her daughter's ashes and then you typed that?

quote:

Originally posted by David Scott?:
You looked at that picture of that woman holding her daughter's ashes and then you typed that?

That was indeed the order of events - look, then type.

Hey, it's a modest proposal, I admit, but we're just spitballing here. I think this may have legs. It's an aggressively assertive approach - surely you can appreciate that.

What would Ghengis do?

Dear jayd,

There are times when I am glad that I made up my mind, perhaps twenty years ago, never to visit the USA!

You just helped re-inforce the very rightness of that decision!

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
Dear jayd,

There are times when I am glad that I made up my mind, perhaps twenty years ago, never to visit the USA!

You just helped re-inforce the very rightness of that decision!

ATB from George

Dearest, most fabbo GFFJ:

Many's the time I've questioned the famous sense of "humour" of the British. Now makes one more.

America probably didn't miss much.

Snoodgie-boodgies,

jayd

Jayd,

You sound pleased to have said something heartless. Do you think it makes you a realist? Unsentimental? Someone who doesn't stand for any nonsense? Perhaps you're only putting on an act to try and shock me.
I hope and expect that other people will show you more compassion should you ever need it.

quote:

Originally posted by David Scott?:
Jayd,

You sound pleased to have said something heartless. Do you think it makes you a realist? Unsentimental? Someone who doesn't stand for any nonsense? Perhaps you're only putting on an act to try and shock me.
I hope and expect that other people will show you more compassion should you ever need it.

...and now makes another (assuming you're British. If not, I'm sure you have an equally good excuse).

Indignation of a most excellent righteousness. I am deeply impressed by all of it, really. (C'mon, Ghengis, grow a pair!)