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Well, Scotland had a winter much harsher than anything England experiences, but I don't see any pubs or bars throwing in the towel.
Of the (ex) shisha cafes, I'm not aware of any that have closed. If they're a decent joint, with good food, drink and atmosphere, they'll survive. If they're shit, they'll close, but I haven't seen that yet. Just rebrand the place as a regular Moroccan Restaurant or something and move on. It's not like the regular customers are going to emigrate so they can smoke inside.
FUCK OFF!
you wanted to ban us from being inside, so deal with it.
Incidently, I am totally fine with the ban. I just feel sorry for the landlords.... all that money spent on a) new decor inside and b) furniture over the years ......
people now spend the majority of the night outside
Oh and as for the heaters outside ..... GOOD!!!!!
Possibly, though it's a bit of a cat argument. It could also be because people are drinking less
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/5276680.stm
There is fuck all evidence second hand smoke has anything more than a minute effect. Correlation doesn't prove causation.
Quite an apt name you've got there.
Play nice!
At first I thought in all honesty I'm glad, it will cut down on my smoking and save some cash, this may be true in the winter but I'll be back to the same in the summer. I always sit outside in the summer anyway. And maybe in winter, I just won't go out as much. It's one big loop, I don't think I'll be any better off either way, this is because I am a smoker. If this ban benefits non smokers healthwise and it's proven, then I can't argue.
That's a good thing too though
At the end of the day it's impossible to judge completely, only to get a general feeling. I think the good spin is that it encourages people to quit. Whether that's infringing on their civil liberties... well it's no different really to being forced to wear a seatbelt in a car or face a fine, or wearing a helmet on a motorbike.
Maybe it's the nanny state, but it makes us healthier (or in the case of helmets, more likely to be alive ) and theoretically happier in the long run.
I know, us gay lads and our tight burning fetish
So just because something doesn't serve a useful purpose, it shouldn't be allowed?
I refer you to some of the proven benefits of smoking (well, the one main one)
Anyways, smoking brings a lot of people a bit of pleasure. I personally love a fag after a couple of beers or after a big meal. Are you saying that it's not bringing me some benefits? Granted, it's also doing damage to me but you can't deny that the people who do it get pleasure from it otherwise we wouldn't do it. So stop being such a fascist. Just because you don't like something doesn't give you the right to scorn other people who choose to do it.
I also echo the previous sentiment. It was all you non-smokers who forced us outside in the first place so you've only got yourselves to blame if you don't like walking past people smoking on the street. So short of nipping home every time you feel like a fag, where else are we meant to smoke?
Actually I'd say that a lot of people smoked not because it's pleasurable but because it's physically addictive and people suffer withdrawal symptoms if they do not smoke.
"All you non smokers"? The reason why the smoking ban was put in place wasn't for non smokers to have a pleasant evening, but because it was unfair for people who work in bars etc to be subjected to cigarette smoke which has proven links to cancer, heart disease et al.
Yeah, it's all just a coincidence. :rolleyes:
That would explain a drop off in rates of heart disease. It wouldn't explain the clear deviation between the reduction in heart disease when you compare smokers to non-smokers. Seems quite clear to me that one group is no longer being exposed to smoke on a regular basis, and is therefore seeing a greater reduction than those who are still smoke. If anyone is drinking less, it would be the smokers, not the non-smokers, and yet it's the non-smokers who are seeing the biggest benefits.
Ok then find me some evidence.
Will do, but it'll take a while because there's a bunch of people annoying me in my house right now. But I'll just start you off with a list of organisations that agree with the scientific consensus, and I'll find you some studies later on.
The World Health Organization
The U.S. National Institutes of Health
The Centers for Disease Control
The United States Surgeon General
The U.S. National Cancer Institute
The United States Environmental Protection Agency
The American Heart Association
American Lung Association
American Cancer Society
The American Medical Association
The American Academy of Pediatrics
The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council
The United Kingdom Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health
Though with all due respect, if you can't find anything yourself considering the overwhelming scientific consesus, you obviously just don't want to. Meanwhile, if you'd like to hypothisize as to the reasons for the reduction in heart attacks in Scotland, I'd be interested to hear your theories.
Alternatively it could be lots of non-smokers go drinking with smokers and as smokers go to the pub less so do non-smokers.
I'm not saying you're neccessarily wrong - just that the evidence isn't nearly as conclusive as you claim.
Nope, it's just a practical example of what has been shown in studies time and time again. The evidence didn't need this example to already be pretty conclusive.
Why not? its certainly not inconcievable. My parents often used to go out on a Sunday lunch with my uncle and aunt. Only one of them smokes, but they've stopped doing it unless it looks a nice day and they can sit in the beer garden.
And lots of groups of people will contain a minority of smokers
Well the evidence tends to show that passive smoking is a risk. However it also shows that its a negligent risk for most people in pubs and the risk is mainly to those with asthma etc (ie it's not a reduction in heart attacks). The biggest risk is people who live with smokers.
That said I'm going to slightly change my argument because I was talking about this to someone and they pointed out the heart attack reduction is more likely to do with people who have used the ban as a reason to give up smoking and its impact on their husband, wives, lodgers, grannies etc. So there's a correlation, albeit not a direct one.
Unless your statistic came from a controlled experiment testing the whether the ban a) stopped people smoking and b) that it caused 17% less of those people to have a heart attack than was statistically likely then post hoc ergo propter hoc, innit.
In fact this suggests that actually the risk doubles!
Really? I'd honestly forgotten.
Possible. Although again, I can't see why the number of non-smokers suffering from heart attacks would be reduced more than smokers. You could argue that one smoker could effect more than one non-smoker, though I'm struggling to thing of many people who live with more than one other person of heart attack age. From what I read in an article on it though, the fears about people smoking more at home have proved unfounded, and the levels are pretty much the same as ever (maybe people who smoke more at home have been balanced out by those who chose to quit ). But if the above statement is your opinion, then it does kinda prove what I was claiming: fewer people have had heart attacks as a direct result of the smoking ban. Whether this is because of pubs, homes, people quitting or whatever is pretty academic (though interesting).
My point was simply to refute Thundertruck's insinuation that more people's livelihoods have been destroyed (something he hasn't backed up) compared to people's lives benefiting. In my opinion, this doesn't change the main argument about people's choice, I just like to make sure all the facts are heard first.