tackling smokers

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I'm a 5-a-day smoker who stopped smoking in public long before the UK government banned it. I don't think there's a significant health risk to others if they're not exposed to it on a regular basis, but I don't want to scare anybody or make their eyes sore. Personally I try hard to avoid inhaling smoke or fumes from any source apart from my own ciggies, as the effect is synergistic. Even in my own home I go outside to smoke. It's just the nicotine hit I need, not a room full of smoke to breathe in for the next 24 hours.

As for tackling smokers, I got really angry when the gov banned smoking for the inmates of mental institutions - the way they've done it is so totalitarian, can't even smoke in the grounds of the building. It wouldn't have hurt to give them a smoking room or something. I've never been placed in an institution (not yet anyway), but I identify very strongly with the inmates and feel they have a right to the same freedom of choice as anybody else. And if you've just been incarcerated, I imagine the last thing you need is the stress of being forced to kick the habit - nicotine addiction is on a par with heroin addiction in terms of withdrawal symptoms. For me it would be like they'd separated me from a dear friend, and it wouldn't do a thing to foster trust for the very people who were supposedly trying to help me. There's enough trouble between inmates and their keepers as it is.

I've known some people use the "no smoking" fashion as a cloak for rebuking and marginalising others. Tackling a smoker properly is just like tackling anybody doing something mildly annoying - use a bit of respect, accept they have a viewpoint too, work something out that's acceptable to both you and them. Anything else is just bigotry.

I'd like to see more serious research into safe smoking. What about inhaling purified nicotine from a heated vaporiser? Or cleaning up the tobacco trade? The typical British-American cigarette contains all kinds of unnecessary carcinogens including radioactive material. The curing methods have a big effect too. But the current vogue is health fascism - you've "just got to stop."

Unless legally, they are entirely allowed to, in which case no-one has the right to tell them not to. They have the right to ask, but nothing else.

Just move to another part of the restaurant.

I love the smoking ban here in the UK. It means that me and my asthmatic father can go into resturants/pubs etc without having the lung pain... I think you have every right to ask them to not smoke near you but don't get angry otherwise they will just keep on smoking just to annoy you. I have the same problem with other people's music... why are people so mean.

P.S I am mean too mwa ha ha

Just go and fart in their face. See how they like inhaling other people's fumes.

Last edited by Berk on 01 Oct 2008, 10:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

It is up to the owner of the restaurant to decide if he wants to allow smoking or not within his business. If he allows it then he will loose customers who want a non smoking environment, if he bans it then he will loose smoking customers. If you are so concerned about this, then speak with the business owner and tell him that if he doesn't prevent people from smoking then you will be taking your business elsewhere.

I hate cigarette & cigar smoke. It's not just because it's unhealthy for me due to allergies & asthma, but it sets off my sensory issues. This has been an ongoing problem since I was a child. I don't approach anyone to stop smoking (banned in most places here in Cali anyway), I just leave the area. I have been known to give the offenders dirty looks though.

Smoking is banned in all public places in Canada, including bars, It's about time they did this because smokers hav no right to poisen non-smokes. When people want to damage their own health, they should not force other people into it.

Smokers here try in vain to agure for their rights, but if anything, smokers rights should be struck down, if anything they should be premitted to smoke only by themselfs in a isolated area away from everyone else, if they complain, they can always quit....

what pisses me off about smokers the most is they say ' it's too hard to quit' then why did you pick it up in the first place? Not starting saves you the trouble of quitting. My cousin is a hypocrite because she smoked while pregnant on bother her kids and said 'she wants her kids and loves them'

I get so angry when I talk about smokers, they are rude, and I can't believe that they have the nerve to endanger the people around them, they are selfish people who care only about their dirty habbit.

So if smokers are being rude by smoking in public, why can't I be rude in return? When I go to work and see people smoking at the entrance way (Right by the no smoking signs) I give them nasty looks and cover my face to protect myself from their poisen.

Of note, this thread reminds me of Bernard Dolan's spoken word poem, "The Cigarette Incident".

Mmmm, tackling smokers . . . sexy. They're welcome to smoke near me.

If you don't like smoke, you should go to a place where people aren't allowed to smoke, or eat outside, or get take-out. You have no right to tell people what to do if they're not doing anything illegal. And I would rarely tell anyone what to do if they were doing something illegal.

I say just do what you need to do while leaving other people alone, let them do what they want / need to do as well. There is always a way to strike a balance.

And there are poisons everywhere!

I agree - no reason to smoke in public. When I smoked, I did so at home or outside where no one was around. I quit because I have chronic bronchitis and smoke aggravates it. I just think there are more things to worry about out there than just the occasional waft of cigarette smoke. People text-messaging while driving - it's not necessary (and in my view, stupid) but people do it anyway. Meanwhile, people are being killed daily on the road and, most recently, in a massive train wreck in CA where the engineer was texting and missed the track switch. Alcohol is another "acceptable' bad habit. I can't stand the smell of alcohol and I intensely dislike being around people who've been drinking. In order to avoid them, I simply don't go to those places where they'll be. IMHO, drinking booze is just as bad for you as smoking, so banning cigarettes in a bar is ludicrous. If you hate smoke, don't go to bars. It's like saying lethal injection is much 'safer' for the condemned than the electric chair. Either way, you're dead.

Smokers don't kill people while driving home after leaving a bar, drinkers do. I can say the same about alcohol - don't drink in public, and if one is going to get drunk or even just 'tipsy,' do so at home.

people should not have to dodge smokers, people have the right to go where they want to be free from smoke. smoking is a selfish habbit, when you start it, you gave up your right to smoke around others because your second-had smoke is harmful. people can smoke if they want to, I could care less, but that should not be allowed to smoke around anyone.

People shouldn't have to dodge drunk drivers on the road, or dodge swinging fists between two drunks in a bar, either. I agree that restaurants should be smoke-free - people are eating - so if they have a drink there, it's not a big deal unless it gets out of hand. As much as I agree with the anti-smoking movement, people have to look at all of the facts, not just the ones that suite their cause. Bars are places for people to go drink so that they're not standing out on the street in public doing so. Alcohol trashes the liver and kidneys, while smoking ravages the lungs. Smokers and drinkers were currently corraled together in one place - a bar - until the smokers were kicked out. Now the only place they have to smoke is on the street, where you can still see them.

Point is, poison is poison, whether you smoke or drink it. Why is one more acceptable than the other? Back when I smoked, I thought anyone who was sitting in a bar, drinking malt whiskey and swaggering over to me and telling me to put out my cigarette was laughable. At least cigarettes, as bad as they are, don't impair people's judgment. Alcohol does. If one's going to be outlawed, so should the other. Fair is fair.

I didn't mention a word on drinking, I am talking about smoking. Drinking is a different topic.

People who smoke is doing so by choice, and thus should smoke in a isolated area where the smoke cannot harm others. If I where to sit next to someone who has a bottle of beer, the alcohol is not spread to me, it can only effect me if the person is drunk and decides to pick on me (I would then leave) and if the person goes for a drive, it effects everyone, which is why laws against drinking and driving exist.

How very fascist of you to force your personal views upon every one else by using government coercion. And since when is a bar a public area. That bar is a private business, and it is up to the owner of said business to decide what he allows on his own private property, just like you do in your own home. If you don't like it then your not welcome to enter.

I didn't. I just feel that way about smokers. The main reason that the government banned smoking in bars is to protect workers, not all bar workers smoke, naturally customers who don't like it won't go in, however if every bar has smoking in it, it means that non-smokers won't be able to go in without inhaling second-hand smoke.

I am not a bar person anyway so I could care less, but I still think that non-smokers should not have to worry about where they go.

I may come as sounding bitter, but smokers in my area 'really' are the way I describe them.