Just visited at the Hospital. Outside the front door in front of several huge No-Smoking signs were loads of scutters smoking!!

I've only ever smoked on special occasions - I never will smoke as a habit but surely it is someone's freedom of choice whether they smoke or not. It's hardly crime of the century smoking outside ignoring a few signs - what harm are they doing..?

I am sure that non smokers don't want to be walking through a load of smoke to get into the building though, I think they are just plain lazy seeing as there is a smoking shelter about 40 metres away from the doors

It was the first nail in the coffin for pubs when smoking was banned.
Nothing better than to stand with a pint in one hand and a ciggie in the other, yeah people get cancer from smoking but it's a persons choice and they shouldn't be chastised just because they fancy a smoke now and then.
My Grandads favourite time of the day was having a ciggie after his tea after he'd just come home from a hard shift at the steelworks! If you'd had tried to take them off him he'd have throttled you.
Up the smokers!!!!

I could never see the smoking ban working but it has been a great success IMO. I've managed to quit my 20 a day 'passive' smoking habit and no longer do my clothes stink like dirty ashtrays after going out for a few pints

What about passive smoking though? That gives people cancer/other horrible things too.

Pubs and other public places are much more enjoyable since the smoking ban if you ask me. Loads of pubs have good heated facilites in the beer gardens so people can still enjoy a tab outside with a pint all year round.

Plus, smoking mings - how would you like it if you went to a pub that stank of farts, I sat next to you and farted all night, so that when you got home your clothes stank of farts, and when you woke up in the morning your pillow stank of farts because it was in your hair?* Smoking in pubs was the same thing.

I smoked for about 10 years and its only when I packed in I realised that it stinks. I would never begrudge anyone enjoying a tab, just don't make other people breathe it or get the smell on them.

*and I mean really bad farts, the type that smell like you've not eaten or drunk anything apart from pickled eggs and Guinness for a fortnight.

Roy Castle Mr M, never smoked one tab and yet his death from cancer was put down to playing the trumpet in clubs/venues full of smoke throughout his life.

It was said to be / it was claimed etc etc.

I think Mr M actually asked about scientific proof rather than claims and supposition.

I'm a non smoker - never will smoke but I am unconvinced by the passive smoking argument. Business owners should set rules on their own premesis rather than have them forced on them. The Roy Castle story is tragic but is based only around a claim he made.

Mr Mutley makes a good point about cars - surely it is just as dangerous to breathe in fumes in a multi story car park...? Maybe all car parks should be open air...?

Fair point and I guess it never stopped me from going into pubs before the ban. That said, if the ban was lifted and you had a choice of smoking pubs and non-smoking pubs, I know which one i'd choose.

I think most people would go to the pubs with the best craic and atmosphere - smoking pubs were never a problem - just another example of citizens losing their rights.....

i used to hate the smell of getting in after a night out n stinking of stale smoke from other people.

The smoking ban in clubs and pubs is brilliant.

It should be banned in cars .A roll up i was smoking flew out my mouth and landed on my groin whilst driving on the seafront last week.

You really are Wilfrid fooking Bramble, aren't you?

That's when you were allowed to choose Mr Chessington. Now the Government has taken that choice away and imposed it's own will on everyone. Democracy eh??

The two biggest mistakes the previous labour government made;
Bringing in 24 hour boozing and banning smoking in pubs.

Nah mate, the first nail in the coffin was the alcohol companies allowing supermarkets to sell booze at prices pubs couldn't compete with.
Plus the booze trips through the tunnel to France. 75% of the pubs and off licences in Kent closed because of that and that was long before the smoking ban.
I used to go out every night of the year except Xmas Day and did so for years. Only for the "last hour" during the week but dinner times as well on a weekend. I couldn't afford that these days. They've priced themselves out.
Breweries stopped people going into pubs ( their own pubs) by selling beer cheaper to supermarkets.
We have a drink at home mostly nowadays, either in the house or sat in the garden in the warm weather. Most of my pub drinking takes place before or after a Pools match, and then its only a couple before and a couple after.
In a twelve month, holidays apart, we go to the pub no more than 12/15 times, if that.
I haven't a problem with people who smoke but pubs and restaurants are much pleasanter without the smell of smoke in my opinion, especially now that families are encouraged to go in these places.
If I had 3 or 4 pints per night AND a packet of fags a day, how much would that cost me, plus the bag of chips to eat on the way home.
I think people are changing their habits. Pubs and clubs full of drinkers, which were mostly men, are long gone, especially during the week.
I remember in Hartlepool every club and quite a few pubs had turns on every night of the week. How many do that now??? That scenario has been dying for years, not just since the smoking ban.

One week today for me off the smokes, the real test will come on Friday when i go out.

If there was any credibility in the passive smoking theory then there would not be many people over the age of 50 alive today. In the forties and fifties when I grew up almost everyone smoked. There were 4 adults in my house when I was a kid and all smoked about 40 a day. There were 8 kids in my family and none of them have had any problem with their lungs. Houses in those days were always full of smoke, either from ciggies or coal fires.

does this mean I have to stop eating smoky bacon then?

It is also CLAIMED that Roy Castle used to be a semi-regular cigar smoker....

Personally I would just stand all smokers up against a wall and shoot them. That would end any arguments about passive smoking as well.

hth

Nah - The only people who deserve that are Boro fans......

Surely people can't actually believe that passive smoking isn't bad for you?!

TPP i think the point people were making is the fact that walking in inner city London is probably worse than sat next to a smoker.

Smoking kills "How Thick you must be" if you cant understand that.

So does drinking and anything in excess.

Just as well I don't have the power then, I would have to line my younger sister and mother in law up, but it would need to be done!

Seriously though, I lost my oldest sister to cancer 8 years ago, caused by her smoking since an early age, and if cigarettes hadn't existed she would probably still be with us. I once smoked 5 woodbines I had bought, as I walked from the Headland to a night match, when I was about 11. Didn't do it again, which explains my present good health.

Away mutley, your a sensible lad, dont be silly.

Smoking kills, causes cancer etc etc

passive smoking is alright for yer though?

Does passive smoking kill though ? No one is disputing that it might not be very nice to breathe in smoke from the cigs of others but it is nothing like taking a draw from a cig is it...? Roy Castle talked about the passive smoking theory but like has been said people have said non smokers have hardly been dropping down dead in similar claimed circumstances have they..? Plus there is probably more evidence that RC smoked cigars as there is that people are massively effected from passive smoking.

Ok..... a 2005 in depth study by the british medical journal concluded that eleven thousand people a YEAR are killed by passive smoking in the UK.

A worldwide survey conducted by the international agency for research on cancer in 2004 found passive smoking is carcinogenic to humans."

A series of studies from the USA from 1986–2003], the UK in 1998, Australia in 1997 and internationally in 2004 have consistently shown a significant increase in the risk of lung cancer of people exposed to passive smoke.

The California Environmental Protection Agency concluded in 2005 that passive smoking increases the risk of breast cancer in younger, primarily premenopausal women by 70%.......I could go on. And on.

You might also find some surveys which conclude that passive smoking is harmless, you'll probably find that these surveys are sponsored by tobacco companies.....which might just influence their conclusions.

Here's some more "bollocks" from the anti-smoking brigade. Some little tin pot team of crackpots called the world health organisation carried some half arsed survey in only 192 countries last year.....and guess what the dopey half witted scientists found. Passive smoking kills an estimated 600,000 people a year, children are particularly put at a higher risk due to the dangers of contracting sudden infant death syndrome,asthma and pneumonia.

And those bastard politicians have stopped us smoking in public places, just cos we might give people a fatal disease. Talk about stamping on our precious civil liberties, it's like 1984.

I would sort of agree with Yossarian except when he mentions politicians.

It must take years and years of practice to gain that level oh hypocricy practised by them.

They all agree that smoking is bad etc etc........yet wont just ban it.......no sir, they get way too much in tax for them ever to really believe that smoking is bad.

I am also led to believe that you can smoke in the bars at houses of Parliment and a pint in there is about £2.50.

I agree with you when you don't agree with me about politicians.

11 billion quid they took from taxation on cigarettes last year, they're not going to let go of that too easily.

The new display law comes into play this week I think, Asda have been doing it for over a week, the shutters are up and no fags on display, not sure if applies to small shops though

Whilst its not a scientific study, my Gran's brother died of lung cancer in his fifties, despite never having smoked. He did work in a betting shop all his life though, which was an incredibly smoky environment.

I can't believe some people think that passive smoking does no harm to anyone.

It's not just the smoke that people have breathed out either, there is also the smoke from a tab burning away between drags, of which there is probably more.

Best thing they done was banning smoking in pubs.

I don't wanna be stinking of smoke just because someone has a dirty habit.

If ya wanna do it, get outside and do it

I have a set of Peavey Monitors that we used to use up until about 1999.Kept them as a back-up... They STILL stink of smoke, 13 years after they were last used at a gig.

And don't stand in the doorways while you're doing it!!