What a stuppid law???????????

...but not the alcohol industry?

Hey Narcotics are illegal.

So are expensive and sold by very nice pleasant people. Hence appalling crime associated with this vile industry.

Making tobacco similar would take it down that route. Look at the success of prohibiton in America.

I have never smoked and consider it a disgusting habit. But many friends enjoy the filthy weed. You pays you money and makes your choice.

Stop all and any advertising. Remove from supermarkets. Return to tobacconists. This will restrict access.

I would do the same for alcohol. Remove from sueprmarkets and put back into off licences.

Restrict access to the stuff and control the sale to specilaised retailers away from places where children go.

Sounds like it was in the 60's and 70's.

I hate seeing your local alcie at 8 am with a can of rot gut high strength lager and a fag.

David

Tony, I don't disagree but alcohol seems to fly under the radar of public awareness. It costs the NHS upwards of GBP 3 billion a year to treat alcohol related impairments and liver disease, most often related to alcohol consumption, has rising incidence rates when compared to cardio-vascular disease which are decreasing. I seem to remember reading that alcohol related conditions account for one of the top 3 single attributable costs of health care (treatment and the opportunity cost of lost sick days) world wide.

Not that this stops me enjoying a nice glass or two.

There's no denying the deliberate actions of the tobacco industry have earned our justified scorn, but you'd be surprised by the economic and health impact of alcohol and how silent we choose to remain about this.

I smoke and drink and enjoy both. Everybody has an opinion on every bloody thing in this world and I am fed up with it. Leave people alone to do what they wish. If the law is not being broken then what has it got to do with you. Just because you don't like it.

So my opinion should not be allowed because it does not agree with yours. Don't tell me how to air my views 

You stated that you're fed up with other people having opinions.

Tony

As a former smoker, I am so glad to be rid of that nasty, expensive, and unhealthy habit.  I only wish I had quit sooner.

All that said, I think people should be free to make their own choices, and if I own an establishment I should be free to allow or prohibit smoking as I wish...and those who want to or don't are free to decide whether they wish to patronize my establishment or not based on how I choose to run that which I own. 

It's really very simple when you think about it...

And you'd probably find yourself at the wrong end of some expensive lawsuits over only employing smokers and then illnesses caused to employees.

The world is changing, maybe not for the better sometimes, but I'd guess that in 200 years time kids at school will look back in astonishment at how we allow ourselves to be harmed.

I recall drivers in the early eighties, and bikers in the seventies protesting that there freedom was being taken away by helmet and seatbelt laws. Nobody complains now.

Tony

Ultimately the Government has to put restrictions around certain things in order that 'other' citizens are deterred from doing damaging things to people.

But there is a balance.

Personally the ONLY thing I would probably agree with the Tea movement in the US on is: Minimise Government.

In the US they banned alcohol - result? The Mafia becoming a behemoth. With politicians and police turning a blind eye to an activity they had some sympathy with, alcohol consumption.

Ban smoking or alcohol? I would forsee a similar result. After all, the law has been SO successful in stopping illegal drugs! Huge amounts of capital is being plowed into legal concerns by criminals laundering the money they are making, undermining all our institutions - and this is for an activity for which NO group of officials has any sympathy.

Personally I agree with removing the vending machines, it makes the availability a smidgen harder.

I would treat smoking as an illness, to TRY and remove any 'cool' element, and make treatments to quit free on the NHS - even setting up clinics, and publicise it to the parents via the school-children, hitting multiple targets with one stone.

M

I welcome the pressure on smoking because I hope that this will be the precursor to decoupling alcohol consumption from acceptable social behavior. Though I suspect it might take scores of years. The healthcare and social care savings will make anything saved through demonising tobacco look like a flea bite.

There are no provable connections. Common sense tells us otherwise but scientific proof doesn't exist, merely high probabilities. We should also avoid direct sunlight and where possible, breathing.

There are no wills and will nots other than anecdotes, which are not scientifically credible. 

I too think that alcohol is too readily available.

I well remember trying to convince the guy in the offy that we were indeed 18 year olds, for some  it seemed easier in the actual pubs. 

I am a reformed smoker too, and welcomed the law  as regards restaurants, I/we very rarely go to pubs, having to walk through the now concentrated smokers clouds is still annoying, as is tying to find somewhere to have a coffee outside without  a smoke screen.

I know, I know reformed addicts are the worst critics. Tough that's how I feel. 

Quote "Leave people alone to do what they wish. If the law is not being broken then what has it got to do with you. Just because you don't like it."

A key difference for me is that I don't walk down the street to find myself swimming in other peoples boozey piss.

The number of times I find myself and my kids downwind of someone else's fag smoke makes me want to gag. It stinks, it's vile and inhaling someone else's smoke makes me feel physiclaly sick. It makes my clothes and the clothes of my kids stink. It could well (en masse) make us ill. It could well kill us in sufficient (and I guess extreme) quantity.

So actually personal smoking does impact on other people. Fine do it in your own home and I guess Darwinism will bubble up in time and kill you off but so many smokers smother other people in the detritus of their filthy habit I will feel happier when it disapears altogether

I just wish smokers wouldn't use the rest of the world as their ashtray.

Yeah. What the hell is it with the apparent belief by smokers that cigarette butts are invisible and therefore not be considered pollution or littering? People tend to not throw other shit on the ground (at least where I live), but cigarette butts are the vile exception. The stinking little f%^kers are everywhere. It makes me puke.

If you have no self control, or the ability to employ moderation, then you should probably avoid life in general.

ALL THINGS IN MODERATION always applies.

You cant legislate stupidity out of our species no matter how hard you try. 

Stop failing to take responsibility for yourself and your loved ones.  The answer to being bad parents is not to vilify with blinders on.

WAKE UP WORLD!

-Patrick

HMMMMMM.  That is exactly how I feel about people with kids.... or people incessantly talking loudly on their cell phone.... or gratuitous public displays of affection.

The world is full of sights, sounds and smells.  Amazing huh???

Quote "The world is full of sights, sounds and smells.  Amazing huh???"

Not all of them are poisonous and directed at you by someone 3ft away who could give a fk

It's all a bit of a mess though isn't it?

They ban vending machines because of obvious exposure but it's ok to see all stood by the pub door way half cut in gangs for all the public to see while puffing fags and littering the whole street too. Meanwhile hard up butt hunters comb the streets late at night scanning for long fresh fag ends to fill their consumption.

To add - Parents with buggys have to dive in & out through the huge cloud from army smokers with the view for the little ones to breath and see in all it's glory...on their way to the local shop ect...

This country is nutts!

Every new law they come up with IMHO is just so badly thought through. 

I blame the cattle!

This is a key part of the program. Putting smokers on public display must discourage others from wanting to look, act and smell like that.

The same logic could be applied to EVERYONE driving around me, those who drive big trucks for no apparent reason, people who eat too much red meat, or eat bananas.

The world is COMPLETELY interconnected.  It is just a fact of life that you will be affected by others.

Whether it is smoke, perfume, annoying kids, a huge carbon footprint, the business you may own that poisons our water, your disgusting body odor etc....

There is PLENTY to go around for everyone. 

I am sure YOU affect my world negatively as I may by smoking in yours.  To single out cigarette smoke makes NO SENSE.