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Ban smoking in cars when carrying children

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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Skive wrote: »

    Not at all. I think it's good that whilst we have the freedom smoke we no fully know the risks involved in smoking. Would you just ban smoking full stop?

    I think you've missed my point really.

    Would I ban smoking? On balance, probably not, though it's a close thing either way. There are a lot of points for either side of that argument.

    Anyway, back to this, what I was getting at is that the law would be introduced with the associated costs of enforcing it, and the benefits would be minimal. Those who already wouldn't do it would carry on not doing it. Those that do smoke with their kids in the car are aware of the health risks of doing so, I don't believe that making them aware of a punative risk would make a big difference. So there's cost for little benefit.

    Still, as it mostly seems to be smokers who are pro this law in this thread at least, I guess one of my arguments - that it would annoy the smoking lobby - is not valid.
  • SkiveSkive Posts: 15,282 Skive's The Limit
    Mist wrote: »
    Anyway, back to this, what I was getting at is that the law would be introduced with the associated costs of enforcing it, and the benefits would be minimal.

    What costs?
    Weekender Offender 
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Actual costs, such as police time, prosecutions etc. Essentially the bureaucracy that surrounds having a law.

    These would have to be paid for, or take resources from elsewhere. I'd rather they not take resources from elsewhere because I'd rather that a traffic cop is dealing with dangerous driving than pulling someone over for smoking.

    Would enough be made on fines to cover it? I doubt it.
  • SkiveSkive Posts: 15,282 Skive's The Limit
    Mist wrote: »
    Actual costs, such as police time, prosecutions etc. Essentially the bureaucracy that surrounds having a law.

    Do you think fining people for not wearing a seatbelt or driving whilst using the phone is a costly waste of time too?

    As far as I can work out a cost would only be incurred when somebody was found to be breaking the law and a fine would cover that.

    I don't think anybodies suggesting dedicated police patrols it. If copper sees fag ash lil smoking in her car with her kids, pulls her over and gives a her a fine I think it's worth it.
    Weekender Offender 
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    but by that token i dont understand where all these restrictions will stop. if someone smokes it seems pretty unavoidable that their child is going to come in contact with at least some of the smoke. should we ban smokers from having kids? it seems messed up that smokers are being targeted again and again and pulled to the fringes of society. gov just need to ban smoking altogether if they are gonna keep doing this. (please dont ban smoking government)

    Smokers are not "being oulled to the fringes of society". The are not being persecuted or unfairly punished in any way. The recent changes in the law only stop smokers inflicting the poison they're breathing in on others. Smokers are not banned from pubs, smoking is banned in pubs. It's not the person that's being targeted, it's the damaging effect it has on people.
    In my opinion people who smoke around their kids don't deserve them, but I don't know any parent who does that. Also, in my experience, when smokers respect non-smokers right not to be poisoned, their right to smoke is respected.
    To answer Kermit, I agree this is a problem, and the government have a responsibilty to find cleaner fuels and ensure they're affordable. But the fact is the government, and anyone who barely knows the child involved, doesn't really care about whether they have asthma or not so they'll continue driving without worrying about it. The difference is parents are supposed to care about their children and not expose them to anything harmful to "save their civil liberties".
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Skive wrote: »
    Do you think fining people for not wearing a seatbelt or driving whilst using the phone is a costly waste of time too?

    Pretty much, yes. The same concepts broadly apply - it's more about the message and education of those who don't comply. But those laws aren't being discussed here.
    As far as I can work out a cost would only be incurred when somebody was found to be breaking the law and a fine would cover that.

    Possibly, assuming there's no pro-active measures going into it, which would lessen any effectiveness even further.
    I don't think anybodies suggesting dedicated police patrols it. If copper sees fag ash lil smoking in her car with her kids, pulls her over and gives a her a fine I think it's worth it.

    Maybe, but you've got to at least tell people the law is coming into effect, and each fine will have paperwork associated with it, as well as police time.

    In the end I think it comes down to what would work best. I'm not convinced that banning necessarily does anything best.

    Anyway, this same topic is being discussed on a few internet boards, and I've not seen anyone yet who actually says that they smoke with their kid in their car, and what their reaction would be to the law. It seems that there's not many people that such a law would actually affect.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Although I can go on various roller coasters including Oblivion, I have a history of car sickness. I hate the smell of petrol. As a child, every time I requested my step-dad to smoke his pipe, it would ward away my car sickness. Am I a smoker now? No, and neve was and never will!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Monserrat wrote: »
    Although I can go on various roller coasters including Oblivion, I have a history of car sickness. I hate the smell of petrol. As a child, every time I requested my step-dad to smoke his pipe, it would ward away my car sickness. Am I a smoker now? No, and neve was and never will!

    See! Every cloud :)
    Smokers are not "being oulled to the fringes of society". The are not being persecuted or unfairly punished in any way.

    Yes. We. Are.

    A selection of articles to prove my point:

    www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1875561.ece
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/6730697.stm
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8109495.stm

    The last one particularly riles me. People in psychiatric wards are not being punished for crimes. They are being effectively fostered by the state for their and society's good. The wards are effectively their home. Would it be too much to ask to be allowed to smoke in your own home since the people there have no option of leaving the hospital? Would it be too much to ask to have a small terrace or place outside where the patients (twice as many of whom percentage-wise smoke as do in the normal adult population) could smoke? Nope, because, as usual, the Government knows what's best for you more than you do. Go back to bed, people of the UK, your Government is in control. Go and watch Britain's Got Talent. We are in control.
    The recent changes in the law only stop smokers inflicting the poison they're breathing in on others. Smokers are not banned from pubs, smoking is banned in pubs. It's not the person that's being targeted, it's the damaging effect it has on people.
    In my opinion people who smoke around their kids don't deserve them, but I don't know any parent who does that. Also, in my experience, when smokers respect non-smokers right not to be poisoned, their right to smoke is respected.

    You've really fallen for that whole passive smoking thing hook line and sinker haven't you.

    An exerpt from the James Delingpole article I posted a couple of pages up:
    ...James Enstrom and Geoffrey Kabat. Between 1960 and 1998, these two American researchers - fiercely anti-smoking, both of them - conducted a survey of 118,094 Californians in a bid to discover once and for all whether or not the inhalation of other people's cigarette smoke causes heart disease or cancer. Their conclusion? No it doesn't.

    So why are the results of the world's only large-scale, long-term survey in this field not more widely appreciated? Because these honest scientists have been ignored by governments and smeared by health campaigners as being in the pay of "Big Tobacco". Indeed this is partially true - but only because the anti-smoking organisations that originally supported their research (such as the American Cancer Society) dropped them like a hot potato the moment they realised they were failing to reach the "right" answer. Scientists need funds, so their work had to be completed with support from the tobacco industry.

    "Passive smoking" in other words is a total lie, invented by health and safety agitators and connived in by the state in order to railroad through an iniquitous law by pretending it's about the "public interest".

    Their study, the only large-scale study into the effects of passive smoking, is corroborated by several sources:

    http://www.heartland.org/publications/environment%20climate/article/12587/Secondhand_Smoke_Fears_Overstated_Study_Finds.html (links to the study at the bottom)
    http://www.lifeclinic.com/fullpage.aspx?prid=513218&type=1

    Sadly I'm at work and can't open most of the links that come up when you put in the names of those two gentlemen into Google as they are links to advocacy websites, but you get the idea.

    We get it, smoking is bad for you. But it's not that bad and there are good people who smoke too. We're not all evil, we're not out to mug your granny and steal your puppy. We are exercising a democratic prerogative and enjoying a legal activity. If you've never experienced the pure and comforting joy that smoking tobacco brings, you are missing out on one of life's most exquisite pleasures.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    So thunderstruck your argument now (let me sum this up quickly, correct me if I'm wrong) is that smoking isn't really that bad for us, passive smoking has next to no effect on us and it's all just the government trying to stop people having a nice time?

    Just looking over the study you posted, it looks fairly flawed. I am not a doctor but just as an undergrad student there are enough alarm bells going off that I would approach it with a massive pinch of salt, and look at the other evidence. Which all seems to indicate the same thing - that passive smoking does have a significant effect on mortality and health.

    I am not anti-drugs, on the contrary, but it is irresponsible and ill-informed to claim smoking isn't that dangerous. Along with alcohol which has many dangers that haven't come out yet (funding, anyone?) they are both dangerous but socially accepted. Because of human nature where we believe we are rational creatures, we need to come up with some justification for our behaviour. Even if that means grasping at flawed studies that are largely rejected by the scientific community.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    ShyBoy wrote: »
    The difference is the benefit of cars - in allowing people to travel - is far greater than the benefit of people smoking.

    Smokers pump billions of pounds per year into the UK Government's coffers. Far more than car users do, when you take into account the cost of subsidising roads.

    It's bizarre, really. You can sit in a gas-guzzling 4x4 in a traffic jam, pumping noxious fumes straight into your child, but light up a Marlboro whilst doing it and you're a BAD PARENT.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote: »
    Smokers pump billions of pounds per year into the UK Government's coffers. Far more than car users do, when you take into account the cost of subsidising roads.

    It's bizarre, really. You can sit in a gas-guzzling 4x4 in a traffic jam, pumping noxious fumes straight into your child, but light up a Marlboro whilst doing it and you're a BAD PARENT.

    Be a little more reasonable about this - smokers by and large can wait until they are out of their car to smoke, just the same as mobile phone users. And they would be free to smoke so long as children weren't in the car, which it seems most people wouldn't do anyway. So it's a broadbrushed law that will be hard to enforce but on the margins, will be a good thing. Just the same as now smacking your child might land you in hot water, it's silly for those who smack humanely but, at the end of the day if you can discipline your child without force then you're being nudged to do that.

    Cars, on the other hand, do not have so much in the way of choice about them. Are you going to walk to work every day? Of course not. So you are going to travel by automobile most likely. Now, whether that be bus or car is already dealt with by taxation - you get tax breaks for taking a more environmentally friendly mode of transport. It still works out that it's more convenient and cheaper to use a car than a bus, but that's a problem with bus pricing which imo should be 1/4 of the current price.

    Benefit isn't about tax revenue, what amount of taxation is adequate for someone who has terminal lung cancer related to their smoking? Even if you taxed smokers to the hilt, that money goes partly into the care of those who die from smoking related illnesses, but it doesn't stop them dying. That's what allocative taxation is, making things that are bad expensive and making things that are good cheap. Smoking is bad, cars or at least mobility is good.

    Like I said in the first post, I think there are loads of logistical problems with this law and it does stink a bit like a revenue generator just like speed cameras, but then it is undeniable that smoking is harmful and it's nothing to do with bad parenting, it's simply about ensuring the welfare of those children in the car with whoever. I don't see a problem with the sentiment and trying to draw parallels with car transportation isn't appropriate as they are obviously not equals - you choose to smoke, you don't choose to use a car.

    Just to add re: traffic jams, they came up with a new method of taxation a few years ago, whereby your tax would be a product of vehicle type, roads used, amount used - but obviously that wouldn't get through parliament as people complain too much about their freedoms being infringed, so instead they just have to bump up car tax and petrol tax which affects everyone the same regardless of whether they are in a 4x4 in a traffic jam or an eco car along empty country roads.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    ShyBoy wrote: »
    trying to draw parallels with car transportation isn't appropriate as they are obviously not equals - you choose to smoke, you don't choose to use a car.

    For 95% of the country's population, that's utter tosh.

    I drive to work. It's slightly quicker and slightly cheaper. I could get the train and the bus, or I could cycle and get the train, or I could use my employer's carshare scheme, but I choose to use my own car instead.

    My point is that far more damage is done to our children every day in traffic jams than is done by having a couple of tabs whilst you're sat in the car. If you're sat in the traffic jam the concentration of harmful chemicals is about 75% more than if you were walking alongside the traffic jam.

    You can talk all you want about how cars are essential, but they're really not anymore. Most people can use the bus to get to work, or they can get Tesco home delivery and they can walk more.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    ShyBoy wrote: »
    So thunderstruck your argument now (let me sum this up quickly, correct me if I'm wrong) is that smoking isn't really that bad for us, passive smoking has next to no effect on us and it's all just the government trying to stop people having a nice time?

    Partly correct.

    Smoking is bad. Everyone knows this and to deny it would be folly.
    The dangers of second-hand smoke are blown hugely out of proportion.
    I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Gov't is trying to stop us having fun, but it's not far off. Strikes me as biting the hand that feeds it (and feeds it a lot better than virtually every other demograph of the populace).

    I accept that smoking (as in, first-hand, me puffing on a fag) is bad. It does lots of nasty things to me that we've been saturated with since the day I was born. I know the risks, and as a responsible adult in a free, I still choose to do it.

    What annoys me is that no-one ever focuses on the good side of smoking and all it has done for us and society. Here are some of the reasons why I smoke:

    1) It relaxes you
    2) It keeps you thin by suppressing your appetite
    3) Allows you to bond with cool and weird people outside pubs
    4) Gives you an excuse at social events to excuse yourself from boring company
    5) Makes coffee taste that much better
    6) Goes so well with beer that it's untrue
    7) Has given us some amazingly iconic imagery over the years
    8) Gives you a cool gravelly voice

    And much more besides.
    ShyBoy wrote: »
    Just looking over the study you posted, it looks fairly flawed. I am not a doctor but just as an undergrad student there are enough alarm bells going off that I would approach it with a massive pinch of salt, and look at the other evidence. Which all seems to indicate the same thing - that passive smoking does have a significant effect on mortality and health.

    I could turn that around and say exactly the same about all the studies which support the passive-smoking myth. The above study has been the single largest one to date and was dropped by the healthos when they realised that the boffins doing the research weren't going to come up with the answer they wanted.

    Passive smoking probably IS bad for you but not nearly as bad as most of the advocacy groups would have you believe.
    ShyBoy wrote: »
    I am not anti-drugs, on the contrary, but it is irresponsible and ill-informed to claim smoking isn't that dangerous. Along with alcohol which has many dangers that haven't come out yet (funding, anyone?) they are both dangerous but socially accepted. Because of human nature where we believe we are rational creatures, we need to come up with some justification for our behaviour. Even if that means grasping at flawed studies that are largely rejected by the scientific community.

    Have you been reading Psychology of Irrational Beings 101? :) I'm not trying to justify my behaviour as a rational creature when what I do is totally irrational. I'm questioning what appears to me to be a load of bullshit scare tactics and shameless persecution by the same government that I fund proportionally more than non-smokers.

    Motorist do incomparably more damage to the world and the legacy for our children, so why are people who choose to smoke suddenly the baddies?

    Kermit, I'm slightly disturbed by the worrying trend of me agreeing with you :) Spot on.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If passive smoking is bad for you at all then you have the right not to be exposed to other people's smoke. That right comes before a person's right to smoke. If I walked up to someone and pushed them becuase my bus was late it would make me feel better and it wouldn't really hurt them but there's no way anyone would have the right to do that. Smoking is no different. It's not that smoker's are suddenly being persecuted, it should never have been legal to expose people to smoke if they don't want to be.
    I don't think anyone should be allowed to smoke in a hospital, whatever the circumstances. Hospitals are for people who are ill and being exposed to smoke won't help. I can see the point of doctors being reluctant to operate on smokers because of the health risks, but I agree that it's unfair because smoker's contribute a lot to the NHS. Other than that, I don't think there's anything wrong with how smokers are being treated. Many smokers only seem to object to the fact they have no right to harm other's, which should never have been their right anyway.
    I know smoking doesn't make someone evil. Many of the people I know who smoke would never smoke around children and usually ask adults if they mind them smoking. Smoking itself isn't the problem, it's being inconsiderate enough to expect others to breathe it in and feel thankful you have the right to do that to them.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If passive smoking is bad for you at all then you have the right not to be exposed to other people's smoke.

    Poppycock.

    Lots of things are bad for you and you have no choice at all about being exposed to it. Diesel fumes are bad for you but I couldn't sue Stagecoach when I used to live opposite the bus depot. I didn't have the right to make Stagecoach turn their buses off.

    The bans on smoking are going to ridiculous extremes. I don't want to sit in a smoky room so I was glad that smoking was banned in pubs and clubs. But it went far too far, I had no problem with people smoking in a smoking room providing I didn't have to smell the smoke or breathe the fumes in. Enforcing segregated smoking areas would have been fine but no, this government has to go for the absolute ban and big fines.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If passive smoking is bad for you at all then you have the right not to be exposed to other people's smoke. That right comes before a person's right to smoke.

    Rights? Where in the non-existent table of rights does it say that your 'right' to not be exposed to other people's smoke comes ahead of my 'right' to smoke?

    Rights are a human construct, and a very relative one at that.
    If I walked up to someone and pushed them becuase my bus was late it would make me feel better and it wouldn't really hurt them but there's no way anyone would have the right to do that. Smoking is no different.

    You seem to think that we get some sort of sick pleasure from 'forcing' other people to inhale our smoke. We don't. See argument re: cars below.
    It's not that smoker's are suddenly being persecuted

    No, it's been going for some time. Ever since James I wrote 'A Counterblaste [sic] to Tobacco' it's been happening. It really kicked off with the Nazis, hence the justification in calling those who wish to ban this exquisite activity Nazis.
    it should never have been legal to expose people to smoke if they don't want to be.

    I don't think it should be legal for people to expose me to exhaust fumes which aggrevate my lungs as well as causing immesurable harm to the world for us, our children and so on. However, it is, so I live with it. There are lots of things I'd ban if I could, but I get on with it because we live in a supposedly tolerant and moderate society which learns to compromise and accept that some people do things which piss us off.
    I don't think anyone should be allowed to smoke in a hospital, whatever the circumstances. Hospitals are for people who are ill and being exposed to smoke won't help.

    I wasn't talking about normal hospitals, I was talking about psychiatric wards, where people have been sectioned under the MHA. They have no option of leaving (unlike normal hospital) so it's not like they can nip out to the car park for a quick fag. It's like prison, except the people there often haven't done anything wrong. So given their incarceration for their own good more often than that of society's, don't you think it's a little unfair that there aren't dedicated smoking facilities, to allow a little pleasure in what must be an otherwise dreadful existence?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit - If you are arguing that politicians are hypocrites, I agree. That's politics. If you arguing that this law will be badly implemented and hard to administer, I agree as well, I think laws should be clear and 'natural' as it were and follow a common sense rule of thumb. However, if you are arguing that the dangers of smoking and the principle of this law are wrong then I do disagree. I think the principle of protecting people especially young people from second hand smoke is a good one, I don't know whether this is going about it the right way though.

    The principle of reducing traffic is also a good one, but that's politics. If we want to talk about optimal social policy that is a different debate. Alcohol, for example, is relatively easily accessible despite having links even at moderate consumption to alzheimers and other neurological disorders. That's left untouched except for the extra duty, whilst many 'safer' drugs are legislated against heavily. That is the very definition of hypocrisy. That doesn't change the fact that smoking is bad for you, and talking about the effects passive smoking has on children is a positive thing to think about. Also I would have fully expected you to sue the bus company had you developed Asthma or another related illness because of their diesel engines. They have a social responsibility to minimise their environmental and health impact and if they have caused you suffering they are at fault - not you. Why sit and bear it whilst some rich CEO sits in his office enjoying the extra profit he gained from not implementing the proper measures to ensure the public weren't ill affected by his bus depots?

    Thunderstruck - I am well aware of the positive effects of smoking. On another community I am a member of there are certain members who have been trying different drugs to improve themselves. Suffice to say, effects are noticeable from cigarettes, but widely (and a lot of the members of this community are PhDs etc.) seen as not worth the risk as you can get the same benefit from other things that won't ultimately kill you and that aren't as dangerously addictive. But it's your prerogative to enjoy cigarettes as a free citizen and I wouldn't want to take that away from you or any other smoker - but we are talking about the passive effects here on other people and even if you contest the issues aren't as bad as widely claimed, even the most sympathetic study out there said there were negative effects. So surely we should as a society afford some amount of consideration to these passive effects - which we have, thanks to some legislation like stopping smoking in the workplace.

    Where should the line be drawn? Well that's up to politicians, but most people would be of the consensus that smoking in a car with kids is a bad idea. Is a law against it the right measure? Most probably not. But that doesn't mean it should be ignored especially if the welfare and health of children is at stake which on the balance of evidence it overwhelmingly is. I don't see how exploring ways to protect the health of kids is in anyway an attack on the freedoms and rights of smokers.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Rights? Where in the non-existent table of rights does it say that your 'right' to not be exposed to other people's smoke comes ahead of my 'right' to smoke?

    Rights are a human construct, and a very relative one at that.

    You seem to think that we get some sort of sick pleasure from 'forcing' other people to inhale our smoke. We don't. See argument re: cars below.

    No, it's been going for some time. Ever since James I wrote 'A Counterblaste [sic] to Tobacco' it's been happening. It really kicked off with the Nazis, hence the justification in calling those who wish to ban this exquisite activity Nazis.

    I don't think it should be legal for people to expose me to exhaust fumes which aggrevate my lungs as well as causing immesurable harm to the world for us, our children and so on. However, it is, so I live with it. There are lots of things I'd ban if I could, but I get on with it because we live in a supposedly tolerant and moderate society which learns to compromise and accept that some people do things which piss us off.

    I wasn't talking about normal hospitals, I was talking about psychiatric wards, where people have been sectioned under the MHA. They have no option of leaving (unlike normal hospital) so it's not like they can nip out to the car park for a quick fag. It's like prison, except the people there often haven't done anything wrong. So given their incarceration for their own good more often than that of society's, don't you think it's a little unfair that there aren't dedicated smoking facilities, to allow a little pleasure in what must be an otherwise dreadful existence?

    I think my right not to be exposed to smoke does come before a smoker's right to smoke around me, because I don't think anyone has the right to inflict that kind of damage on another person. Plenty of people have become ill from passive smoking, I've never heard of anyone become ill because they have to wait a few minutes to smoke. As I've never smoked myself I'll believe you when you say it's enjoyable, but so are many other things you probably manage to keep for an appropriate time. In one of your posts you said that an advantage of smoking was the ability to get away from certain sistuations, so clearly not exposing people to passive smoke isn't doing you any harm. I know smokers don't enjoy exposing people to passive smoke, but the fact is that they do and so they have to take some responsibility. Pollution and fumes caused by traffic does need to be dealt with, I agree that it's a problem but I don't think finding other problems is an excuse not to act.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Since when did smokers force us non-smokers to breathe in their smoke?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Melian wrote: »
    Since when did smokers force us non-smokers to breathe in their smoke?

    They don't - but in certain circumstances it happens. If you a child in the back seat of a car you have no choice. If you are an employee in a bar you have no choice... and so on really.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think my right not to be exposed to smoke does come before a smoker's right to smoke around me, because I don't think anyone has the right to inflict that kind of damage on another person.

    See answer above. Rights, to all intents and purposes, are completely meaningless. There is no priority of rights, so saying that one comes before another is complete bullshit. I don't have a right to smoke, just as you don't have a right not to be exposed to smoke. Rights are relative and, as far as I'm concerned, rather meaningless.

    I do however, have a democratic and legal prerogative as a responsible, law-abiding and tax-paying adult, enshrined in law.
    Plenty of people have become ill from passive smoking

    Source? You can't just throw something like that out there without anything to back it up.
    I've never heard of anyone become ill because they have to wait a few minutes to smoke. As I've never smoked myself I'll believe you when you say it's enjoyable

    Why do you think people do it then? If it wasn't fun, we wouldn't smoke! It really is as simple as that!
    In one of your posts you said that an advantage of smoking was the ability to get away from certain sistuations, so clearly not exposing people to passive smoke isn't doing you any harm.

    But occasionally it's unavoidable. Good job that the dangers of passive smoking are completely exagerrated.
    I know smokers don't enjoy exposing people to passive smoke, but the fact is that they do and so they have to take some responsibility. Pollution and fumes caused by traffic does need to be dealt with, I agree that it's a problem but I don't think finding other problems is an excuse not to act.

    No, but it's a question of priorities. What do you honestly think is the bigger issue - exhaust fumes, burning a fuck-off big hole in the ozone layer, affecting the climate of the planet for us and for future generations, or going after the smokers, the modern day lepers of society?

    I mean, since we're already complete social pariahs, why not kick us further when we're down?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru

    1) Why do they continue to try to legislate common sense? I mean, it takes a staggeringly low intellect to smoke in your car when there are children present.
    Would you smoke around your kids?

    5) Presumably the people who want this pushed through are quite happy to sit in traffic jams for hours huffing exhaust fumes.
    :confused:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    See answer above. Rights, to all intents and purposes, are completely meaningless. There is no priority of rights, so saying that one comes before another is complete bullshit. I don't have a right to smoke, just as you don't have a right not to be exposed to smoke. Rights are relative and, as far as I'm concerned, rather meaningless.

    I do however, have a democratic and legal prerogative as a responsible, law-abiding and tax-paying adult, enshrined in law.

    Source? You can't just throw something like that out there without anything to back it up.

    Why do you think people do it then? If it wasn't fun, we wouldn't smoke! It really is as simple as that!

    But occasionally it's unavoidable. Good job that the dangers of passive smoking are completely exagerrated.

    No, but it's a question of priorities. What do you honestly think is the bigger issue - exhaust fumes, burning a fuck-off big hole in the ozone layer, affecting the climate of the planet for us and for future generations, or going after the smokers, the modern day lepers of society?

    I mean, since we're already complete social pariahs, why not kick us further when we're down?

    I'll admit I'd rather not spend time with a lot of people who smoke, even if they've never smoked around me. Not because I think all smokers are evil or because I have anything against smoking itself, but because their right/need/desire to smoke comes before all basics of human interaction and consideration, and your "rights don't matter arguement" proves my point. Yes, rights are a social construction, but so is every aspect of society, including smoking. Unless you reject every social construction you have no argument for rejecting this one. The idea of rights is that one person can't hurt another. Smoking will hurt you, not smoking won't.
    Me and my sister both had breathing problems as children when our parents smoked. When they stopped smoking it got better very quickly. When their friends started to smoke around us the problems started again. I don't want people to smoke around me because it makes me ill, and many smokers I know think that's fair. This isn't just related to smoking, I have a friend who has problems with her sinuses so I don't wear certain perfumes when I'm with her, I have another who has a nut allergy so I'm careful about any food I eat around them. These are extreme examples but it's basic consideration. If you know doing something around someone will make them ill don't do it around them. If smokers are being treated unfairly in society it's not because of smoking, it's because many don't consider other people and now other people have stopped being considerate towards them. Not smoking for a few minutes out of consideration for other's won't harm or damage smokers in any way.
    I know pollution is a problem, and eventually that will be dealt with in the same way as smoking because there will be no other option. It doesn't mean that smoking around children is ok, becuase it isn't and I've never heard anyone give a convincing reason why it ever could be.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Joder, where to start with this...
    I'll admit I'd rather not spend time with a lot of people who smoke, even if they've never smoked around me. Not because I think all smokers are evil or because I have anything against smoking itself, but because their right/need/desire to smoke comes before all basics of human interaction and consideration, and your "rights don't matter arguement" proves my point.

    1) Again, there is no grand table of rights, considerations and desires saying that one ranks above another. Ok?
    2) You've totally missed the point. My argument was not that 'rights don't matter'; my argument was that rights are relative, and as such, cannot be classified in order of entitlement. What you might consider a basic right might be rather trivial to me and vice versa.
    Yes, rights are a social construction, but so is every aspect of society, including smoking. Unless you reject every social construction you have no argument for rejecting this one. The idea of rights is that one person can't hurt another. Smoking will hurt you, not smoking won't.

    Apart from staving off Alzheimer's and generally keeping me in a stress-free state...

    Smoking is not a social construction. It is something tangible - you can see it, feel it; in short, there is no doubting its existence. The same cannot be said of rights which are, at best, an opinion; an opinion of what people are supposedly entitled to in life.
    I know pollution is a problem, and eventually that will be dealt with in the same way as smoking because there will be no other option.

    By persecuting motorists? By clobbering oil companies? I'll believe that when I see it...
    It doesn't mean that smoking around children is ok, becuase it isn't and I've never heard anyone give a convincing reason why it ever could be.

    You think that's what I think???

    Here's a summary of my opinion:

    1) I do not, for one minute, think that smoking in the car with your kids in the back is ok. No siree. Your anecdotal evidence above seems to corroborate this.

    2) Passive smoking, at least as it's communicated to us, is a myth. That's not to say that it doesn't do some bad things, it probably does, but it's not half as bad as some quarters would have us believe.

    3) What annoys me is the worrying trend of trying to legislate common sense. There have been literally thousands of new laws passed since Labour came to power 12 years or so ago which all the time seem to erode our civil liberties and invade every single aspect of our lives.

    4) How will this be policed? It won't be is the short answer. Another half-baked scheme, the result of about twenty seconds worth of thought that, if it ever gets off the ground, will be a total non-starter.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I'll admit I'd rather not spend time with a lot of people who smoke...because their right/need/desire to smoke comes before all basics of human interaction and consideration

    There's one person who loses from that attitiude, and that's you.

    If anyone doubts that the persecution of smokers is reaching sinister levels, take a look at this:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8105585.stm

    :eek2:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote: »
    There's one person who loses from that attitiude, and that's you.

    If anyone doubts that the persecution of smokers is reaching sinister levels, take a look at this:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8105585.stm

    :eek2:

    Oh dear. But they're sitting on some pretty groundbreaking research if they really have shown that. I assume people from Liverpool watch films more than the average then, and that would account for the higher rates of smoking? Or is it more to do with socio-economic factors and the likes of the Liverpool PCT not doing their job properly?

    And presumably drinking would be next, especially thing like The Hangover, which seem to portray (based purely on the trailer) excessive drinking as a something funny?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Oh dear. But they're sitting on some pretty groundbreaking research if they really have shown that. I assume people from Liverpool watch films more than the average then, and that would account for the higher rates of smoking? Or is it more to do with socio-economic factors and the likes of the Liverpool PCT not doing their job properly?

    And presumably drinking would be next, especially thing like The Hangover, which seem to portray (based purely on the trailer) excessive drinking as a something funny?

    Because, God forbid, that films should represent real life...

    Does anyone who gets smoking-related illnesses blame films for encouraging it or the government for not banning it?

    We all remember the famous incident of Isambard Brunel...

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/pandora/brunels-40aday-habit-stubbed-out-by-university-408369.html

    As usual, The Daily Mash has got it spot on several times:

    http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts-%26-entertainment/manhunt-2-released-after-smoking-scenes-cut-20080317797/
    http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/health/smokers-banned-from-looking-at-cigarettes-while-smoking-20080325818/
    http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/health/smokers-urge-gates-to-produce-software-that-actually-fucking-works-200807241120/
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