As a soon to be non smoker I can see both points of the argument.
Speaking as a smoker I am well aware that others don't like breathing in smoke.... hence why I don't light up in a restaurant or in the company of non smokers - even if I am out. I'll usually go outside or refrain completely. The pressure to give up smoking is immense and I did rebel for a while just because I was told by one person in particular to give up smoking (while he sat there puffing away!).
I have now decided to give up smoking but not because of anyone else or because of the shock tactics that are used. I'm giving up for my own personal reasons.
I know one day I'll be a non smoker no matter how many attempts I make. I'm going to keep trying no matter how long it takes. Some people say it's easy enough to start so it must be easy enough to stop - it doesn't work like that. Sure there is lots of support out there to give up smoking but you will only do it if you really want to - and I do.
If I fail - I'll just get back on track and get going.
A ban on public smoking won't reduce the number of smokers, they'll just do it somewhere else.
I don't know what I think about a total ban on smoking in public places - there are good arguments for both sides and that is something I guess I'll have to think about.
Not only that - if it was raised to £10, a load of smart asses would take a loan out and buy thousand of packets while still at the lower price and horde them to sell black market at a tidy profit.
You just can't win!
I smoke myself but i do agree with banning smoking were food is served, but in all public placers is just wrong. Its for the people who don't smoke good on you but i have tried to give up loads of times and its so hard i have only managed a week or so then start again.
I think what should happen is for the people who want to smoke there should be two rooms in the public house smoking and non smoking with a door you can close behind you and plenty of air filters and fans, as i don't think it will be fair making the smokers stand out side in the cold. you could say go stand in the beer garden but then its not fair on the children as that's where they play. as i look at it your dammed if you do smoke and dammed if you don't.
sharron
I smoke quite heavily ,maybee 20 cigars a day on average.
From my point of view if I am with non smokers or a mixed group I dont smoke. I dont smoke in my house or anyone elses even if they do. I have an ashtray in the back garden and thats it
Passive smoking is undoubtedly harmfull. I reserve the right to kill myself but not anyone else
ps Dawn one way of avoiding your clothes smelling is not to wear any :twisted:
I am a none smoker and I believe in smokers rights to smoke :smoke:
What pisses me off is the fact I don't smoke and I am forced to smoke everytime I go to the pub. Smokers complain that a smoking ban in pulic places would make them like outcast. They would find it difficult going for a meal or to the pub - Bollocks
As a none smoker I have had to put up for years with sitting in pubs/resturants and having to smoke. Which not only effected my enjoyment, but also my health and the enviroment. Yes the enviroment - The nexted day the clothes I was wearing have to be throwen into the wash as they stink of stale smoke - :cry:
All this ban will cause is the smokers to light up outside the establishment -big deal Lets be honest most places of work make you go outside to smoke.
I went to Ireland a few months ago and had forgotten that they had introduced the ban. I went into a bar on the west coast in a town called Bandoran......the little bar was run by these spinsters, both over 70 years old. The bar had alot of original features.
Upon walking in I turned to my Irish customer whom I was entertaining and said "Seamus, the smell in here is wonderful......all that wood and ale smell........its so nice to smelll the naturalness of it" .... He looked at me and said "you know why dont you".......I looked blankly and said no........ He said "its because they have banned smoking"
I can tell you, as someone who is on the fence on this one it almost totally sold me.......then I thought of some negatives...... It may make people smoke less therefore expect our taxes to rise......the money saved on NHS smoking related illness will not be saved, it will be used elsewhere in the bureaucracy system!
I was also told that there are more affairs happening in Ireland now then ever before. Why? Well if one person in a couple smokes and the other doesnt, they go outside to smoke and meet up with a member of the opposite sex and bang, they get on and hey presto before you know it they are shagging!!!!!
These are my thoughts guys and I am still on the fence. Ouch!
Time for my tuppence worth - as a smoker I am proud, and I do enjoy it, granted sometimes it is habitual ( no pun intended ), but after a Full English on a Friday ( going to a cafe is a weekly treat for me ) I do enjoy reaching for my fags with one hand, and mug of tea with the other.
My opinion on what has been concentrated on is - work places, ban, except on a separate smoking room / outside with a maximum of four over 8 hours; - public places, bars, restaurants, etc it should be up to individual establishments ( if patrons want to go in, it would be their choice ) but no separate smoking areas on the premises, either total smoking or non-smoking, and any prospective staff would have their choice either way before they joined, altough all cance floors should have a smoking ban ( good point again, Judy ).
At the end of the day, my, and everyone else's opinion is utterly worthless, because if this gets anywhere near Royal Assent, then the fianl draft will be a total fudge of compromises, so even these clear cut reasonable ideas ( if they were in the first draft ) would be mutated into something ubiquitiously despised.
No doubt I will be gobbing off about this subject again.....
what makes me laugh is if everyone stopped smoking this country would collaps, they make so much money off the tax's they don't really want you to stop they just have 2 be seen to care, they would ban the sale of fags if they cared th at much :!:
They banned the sale of duty free fags....why?.....cause they bad for you?.....no!! cause u wasn't paying tax on them :!:
I am a non-smoker and have been all my life, since childhoodI have been brought up in a family where my parents smoked heavily and I always detested every part of it, the smell, the pollution of air, the way people look with a cigarette in their mouths, and on a larger scale (but not every single smoker, granted) the total lack of disregard for others health and environment by smokers.
My first point is: Smokers have a right to smoke, as long as it doesn't intrude on others rights to breath non-polluted safe air. The negative effects of smoking on health are quite clear and quite astonoshing. Smokers should always uphold the attitude that they choose to smoke, so they should be the ones "inconvenienced" ie: leaving a club to smoke outside, not smoking after a meal, not smoking in work environments.
Secondly, I am frequently incensed by the amount of second-hand smoke I am forced to breathe whilst walking through my local town centre. Walking behind somebody smoking is terrible for a non-smoker, having to breathe in directly the smoke from somebody else, and having to wear the smell on our clothes and skin and hair. I am constantly dipping and diving across paths to avoid this.
Thirdly, When a smoker smokes, they smoke for pleasure and enjoyment, and the waste emission of that is smoke, which they have no problem producing heavily outside, in clubs, or restaurants. When I want to relax and enjoy myself, I drink. The waste emission of my drinking is urine. How do you think a smoker would react if I walked past them on the high street, and flung a jar of p*ss in their face?
So to conclude, I'm glad Blair is looking at banning smoking in public places, it would ensure my vote for Labour for the rest of my life.
P.S. To play devils advocate quickly, all you people moaning that when you come home from a club or bar and have to wash your clothes the next day because they stink, I have to ask you how many days you think it's acceptable to wear a set of clothes for, especially after a night clubbing, when you would sweat anyway? Jackets/coats fair enough, I can understand the aggrievement, but a pair of jeans and a T-shirt I would have thought you wouldn't wear after a night out anyway!
As the recent adverts go; "If you smoke, you stink!"
Dave :kiss:
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:rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao: yep i can valch for that! :thumbup: ....but Jim please next time put ya fag out when you go to pinch bums.....OUCH!!! 
