. I don’t smoke – never have! But I defend the right of other people to smoke if that is a risk they wish to take – it’s called freedom of choice and it is a concept that sits uneasily with the BBC left wing intelligentsia . Take it’s enthusiastic reporting this morning of the proposals that government may ban vending machines, packets of ten and all branded logos from the front of packets of cigarettes. Not only that but government may also demand that retailers place cigarettes below the counter or in a locked cabinet. I listened to an interview on Today this morning with a spokesman for Independent retailers who made the fatal error of saying that he thought this “consultation” reeked of the Nanny State. You can imagine the chill from the BBC interviewer that greeted this observation. All his points concerning the impracticability of these draconian proposals were met with studied indifference – it is clear that the BBC fully supports the idea of more bans from the government. Why are there no interviews with Tobacco companies and those who gain employment from such enterprises? Why is there this all prevailing sense of “if it produces smoke, just ban it”? (Unless it’s illegal drugs producing the smoke of course, in which case it IS personal choice in Beebworld) To repeat, I do not advocate that anyone smokes but I do believe in the concept of personal choice. Given the BBC’s demand that we all pay it our money, I suppose choice is a dirty word for the BBC, maybe even dirtier than cigarettes?
SMOKING KILL JOYS
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The BBC and their leftist friends truly believe that they know best; that all would be well if the proles just did as they were told – “it’s for their own good, why can they not see it”. Intelligent argument will not persuade someone with this mindset, it is a closed mind incapable of changing unless presented with absolutely incontrovertible facts. Thus “man made global warming” will be believed in and promoted until we are all freezing in a new mini ice-age, the fact that Al-Quaeda can be negotiated with will be believed right up until the exploding of the first dirty bomb (killing many thousands) in London, the fact that Iran has only peaceful nuclear ambitions will be promoted right up until the moment that a nuclear strike on Israel succeeds, the rightness of the EU and its not being a threat to democracy and the independence of the UK will be believed after the banning of EU-sceptic political parties and the imprisoning of those guilty of thought crimes and probably right up until the first forced labour camps open, the rightness of the Palestinians and the sheer evil of the Israelis will be promoted… sorry I can’t see what would make the BBC stop believing that …
Since non-smokers have been bullied by smoking thugs for decades, being subjected to their poisonous fumes in pubs and shops and all over the place and their right to clean air completely ignored, I really can’t be exercised now that the shoe is on the other foot.
Even the Tories are at it. What’s wrong with having a few beers on the tube on the way home from work? Nanny Boris knows best.
Oh well, so long as we are banning things, how about starting with the most malign and malignant influence on our kulture over the past 20 years.
RAP MUSIK…
The most violent, hate-filled, sexist, racist, misogynist, and plain degenerate yoof kulture ever. Crap we have to listen to daily as it pollutes the sounhd waves, and is played at maximum volume in pimped up cars by people you hope will die soon by wrapping themselves around a massive oak tree.
Leftists are all about the “collective.” Yet all they are ever interested in banning are individual rights. I mean, you smoke, you kill yourself.
The so-called “passive smoking” health claims have been shown to be pretty bogus. And by the way, I’ve NEVER smoked, ever. Don’t like smoke as it affects my throat.. but guess what I didn’t go places where people smoked. It’s called individual responsibility.
But RAP MUSIK promotes vilesneess, and ugliness everywhere.
So let the BBC start by banning RAP musik. Playing, promoting, and talking about it.
Jack Bauer,
Hear, hear. I gave up smoking years ago, but I object more to having this alleged music inflicted on me than cigarette smoke in public places.
But I don’t think too many BBC hacks will actively support this discrimination against cigarette sellers. After all, they need tobacco to mix in with their marijuana.
More dumb crap from dumb Troll. Ever been assaulted by drunk yobs on the tube? No, I didn’t think so, wanker.
“The so-called “passive smoking” health claims have been shown to be pretty bogus”
Drivel.
And in any event, forcing other people to breathe your foul fumes is against their personal liberty. Your right to swing your fist ends some distance from my nose. That’s why the right of Muslims to practise their ‘religion’ ends when their ‘religion’ tells them they should murder me as an infidel.
As the French say, “Your liberty ends where mine begins.”
In other words, you’re free to do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t impinge on my freedom.
Fellow Conservatives, it is the cause of Conservatism to resist concentrations of power, private or public, which enforce conformity and inflict despotism.
It is the cause of Conservatism to ensure that power remains in the hands of the people.
It is further the cause of Conservatism to restore a clear understanding of the tyranny of man over man in the world at large.
It is our cause to dispel the foggy thinking which avoids hard decisions in the illusion that a world of conflict will somehow mysteriously resolve itself into a world of harmony, if we just don’t rock the boat or irritate the forces of aggression — and this is hogwash.
It is further the cause of Conservatism to remind ourselves, and the world, that only the strong can remain free, that only the strong can keep the peace.
I detest smoking and am glad I no longer have to endure other people’s smoke at work and on trains.
That people think they should be able to drink alcohol on the Tube is astounding.
I have no problem with measures for discouraging children from a filthy and unhealthy habit that consumes a fair amount of the health budget.
If we had choice no one would be forced to
a, breathe in cigarette smoke
b, go outside for a cigarette
Smokers and non-smokers could coexist peacefully.
Some ex-smokers are just too smug and hope they’ll never start smoking again if all smoking and related stuff is out of sight. Their arrogance stems from their insecurity.
Hettie, if you check I think you’ll find your points a and b contradict each other.
But I take your point that some ex-smokers can be a real pain.
Nearly Oxfordian:
You have always had the freedom to leave any establishment in which people are smoking. Non smokers were always free to do this.
It is none of your or anyone else’s business who smokes in a privately owned establishment, just like it is none of anyone’s business who smokes in my privately owned home. If non-smokers were so bothered by second hand smoke over the years, they should have exercised their volition and stayed away. If they had, then they would have created a market for non-smoking establishments.
If such a market existed and non-smoking establishments were opened, then since the majority of us are non-smokers, it wouldn’t be long before they were the “norm” and smoking establishments were the minority. No nanny state required.
But if non-smokers were prepared to risk their own health in smoking establishments, I fail to see what business this is of the state. Oh that’s right – Britain has socialized medicine paid for by taxes. If people are choosing to get sick of their own volition, it’s a taxpayer issue too, right? What an abominable tangle of self-irresponsibility!
jason: the health of employees (bar and restaurant staff) is a legitimate concern, and insurance companies could legitimately decline to offer cover to people needlessly being exposed to a health risk. So there is a public interest here. (Remember that non-smoker Roy Castle died of lung cancer which he atributed to passive smoking in clubs.)
Ireland led the way on this and publicans haven’t suffered at all, as far as I can see.
Yes, it is a restriction on personal liberty, but I’m not a civil libertarian, otherwise I would advocate the legalisation of all drugs (and devil take the hindmost).
“Fellow Conservatives”
Not sure who you are addressing this to. You are not saying, I hope, or assuming, that one is automatically a Conservative (with a capital C, no less) by virtue of detesting the BBC.
Jason, you are talking nonsense. You are advocating the tyranny of the majority, but don’t quite have the guts to say so.
Oh that’s right – Britain has socialized medicine paid for by taxes. If people are choosing to get sick of their own volition, it’s a taxpayer issue too, right? What an abominable tangle of self-irresponsibility!
What confused thinking you exhibits. Are you British? If not, then this is none of your business. If you are, then I assure you that it IS a taxpayer issue, and I object to paying for the stupid self-indulgence of ignorant yobs.
Nearly Oxfordian | 31.05.08 – 3:31 pm |
I assure you that it IS a taxpayer issue, and I object to paying for the stupid self-indulgence of ignorant yobs.
This is a fair point, but think where that could lead. It could quite easily become a slippery slope, down which everyone would fall under even more draconian behavorial legislation.
Just think of it: Don’t want to pay for fatties when they have all those extraordinary needs when it comes to health care? Ban the crap food they eat, legislate behavior that prevents obesity. For everyone, not just those who are obese now.
Don’t want to pay for all those extra health care problems of alcoholics? Ditto.
It’s not possible to make a more intelligent arrangement under a nationalized system. It’s not even possible to do so in the current US system, either, unfortunately.
If the smoking/health care problem was left to intelligent thinkers instead of tort lawyers and government dopes with screwed up priorities, we wouldn’t be in this mess. They could just as easily have forced the tobacco companies to cover all health-related costs of their customers. If they can prove that smoking causes cancer, etc., enough so that they can win all those enormous cash settlements, they can prove it enough to make it so that buying a pack of cigarettes every day gets you an insurance plan, paid for by the company who makes them.
That would be even cheaper to do than the settlements they have ended up paying, and will continue to pay. And the tobacco companies still feel they got off easy as things are now. Of course, the state governments who sue tobacco companies do so to get cash to cover their screwed up pension funds, sometimes to bad effect. The problem is that the goal in all of this is one of punishment, not to resolve the health care problem itself. All these lawsuits do nothing to help that. So instead nanny resorts to behavioral modification by legislation.
I think Jason may have a point as well, though, and it’s something that would work in the US as well as the UK. If – before the smoking ban was passed – some chain of bars or restaurants made a big marketing deal out of being smoke-free, family-friendly (it’s for the children!), it might just have a chance to succeed. If it did, a trend would form, and there would be a real choice for the individual. Smokers could go to their own places, or mixed ones, and everyone else could go to smoke-free places. It’s not such an outlandish concept, as there were lots of places – in the US, at least – that had already been doing that quietly on their own for years. It’s just that nobody made a big deal about it, and the nannies won.
The health of the restaurant and bar employees is also a legitimate concern, but there are lots of nice fancy machines these days to suck out all that smoke. They would be mandatory in smoking establishments, of course, perhaps earning a break on insurance premiums or something.
Of course, I’m just barking in the dark here, and none of that could actually happen. It’s sheer fantasy to think that any sort of individual responsibility will be left alone by the nanny state. You’ve already lost the war in the UK, and we’re just about to lose the last battle over here as well. Even though smoking is a legitimate health concern which affects everyone’s wallet, either directly or indirectly, it’s merely a convenient plot vehicle for those who want to control us all.
Nearly Oxfordian:
“Fellow Conservatives”
I was teasing to see if someone picked up from who I lifted the timeless “conservative” clarion call — with a few minor tweaks for another country in the Anglosphere!
I too would assume most of us who are against tax payer TV are conservative.
But you never know, there may be joined up thinking elsewhere, but one’s experience with the lefty drones does not make that likely.
If we are going to start making people pay more for the health consequences of their own actions, let’s start with AIDs.
Jack Bauer | Homepage | 31.05.08 – 4:30 pm |
If we are going to start making people pay more for the health consequences of their own actions, let’s start with AIDs.
No, let’s start by banning the NHS and refunding the tax!
As long as the Chancellor takes my taxes I reserve the right to eat, drink and shoot up as much as I f@cking well please.
I’ve paid my stamp – gimme the health care!
Just imagine the furore if a private health insurance company refused to pay out because a person smoked whilst happily paying their premiums!
Stop trying to find excuses for people who pollute everything around them with their stinky old fags. So what if their arrogance stems from their insecurity? What’s so admirable about being addicted to something that is expensive, toxic, a burden on NHS, makes you ugly smelly and hoarse.
Brilliant that they can’t light up in restaurants. Not that I often eat out. But I like to know that I could. Does this mean I am an arrogant conservative?
You don’t need to ban crap food, just tax it or something, and don’t shove it down our throats metaphorically by advertising it all the time. Smoke at home, kill yourself, give your kids bronchitis if you must, but don’t come and do it near me. Please.
I heard somewhere that the ban has reduced the number of smokers, if true, how bad can that be? Come on you apologists, join me. I am an antismokist or a Smokaphobic, and proud. Good old USA! It’s great there!
If you don’t like fag smoke in your face don’t go to Denmark. They smoke all the time, everywhere. Even beautiful Danish girls have fags hanging out of their mouths. Apart from that and the unpronouncable language it’s a great country to visit.
A lot of Danish words translate to rude English ones hence some bizarre signs. A large sign saying Bad Fart only means Place for Bathing. Since signage is not the subject of this thread I’ll sign off. Give up. You know it makes sense.
Prod — that’s my underlying point. The NHS is already letting certain people die by refusing treatment for patients who don’t meet their criteria.
It’s just rationing — except these people have paid all their life into a system they had no real option or alternative.
For instance, people who smoke already pay a disproportionate level of “tax” into the NHS thans to the £4 a pack of fags. They’ve paid their dues.
But it’s all very BBC-PC.
Imagine the outcry if, instead of a heart patient being refused treatment because he couldn’t give up fags for six months, it was an AIDs patient who refused to give up high risk behavior … like casual sex on with strangers behind the bushes on Hampstead Heath?
Some of the zealots here might do well to pause and enquire “what health budget?” were smoking to be banned.
Smokers (and I am not one) are not a ‘drain on the NHS’ they help fund the bloody thing and contribute even further by dying so young and so quickly.
In passing, I notice this latest piece of health fascism comes from Dawn Primarolo, one of the stupidest people in an exceedingly dull government.
When she was Paymaster General she won the title ‘Dim Dawn’ for her utter incomprehension.
Some things don’t change.
The BBC and their leftist ilk would not balk even at depriving white mice of the right to press a big button that shoots electric joy into the pleasure centres of their brains!!! While I would not personally wish to waste away in a cage, obtaining orgasmic pleasure bursts from such behaviour, I will defend TO THE DEATH the rights of mice as sentient beings with free will to do so!!!!
Sue | 31.05.08 – 5:01 pm |
I once woke up in a train sleeping compartment, in Sweden, surrounded by Finnish beauties – all smoking Meerschaums.
Didn’t put me off tho’.
“contribute even further by dying so young and so quickly”
And you call Primarolo stupid?
It is a fact, N.O. I realise it may be inconvenient, but that hardly alters it.
If you insist on having a Ponzi scheme like National Insurance and the NHS, you have to take these things into account.
Nearly Oxfordian:
Tish and pish! Does that confirm my nationality for you? I’m an Englishman living abroad, yes, but I’m still English. None of my business? Let’s leave the moderators of this forum to decide.
Advocating the tyranny of the majority? If that’s what you mean by advocating “the free market” then yes. But really, think about the ridiculousness of using the word “tyranny” here. Were you ever physically coerced into entering an establishment at which people smoked? Of course you weren’t. You were, and are, and individual with individual choice. Do you have the right to demand that property owners run their establishments a certain way just to please you? Of course you don’t. If the existence of smoking establishments was the “tyranny of the majority”, then surely the act of using the state to ban them by law is a case of the “tyranny of the minority”?
The fact is, it should be up to property owners whether or not they allow smoking on their premises. This is such a basic point I find it incredible that I’m having to make it. Property rights are the cornerstone of civilization.
If you really think that it is your God given right to have non-smoking establishments then why don’t YOU finance, build and run one? Or perhaps a whole chain?
And you missed the point I made about the NHS. The fact that it is a taxpayer issue is the problem in the first place. There should be no socialized medicine, period. Health care, like everything else, should be consumer driven and based on the principle of self responsibility. If it were, then people would have no choice but to take the reins of their own health instead of having the “whatever happens to me, they’ll fix it for free” attitude. I consider the NHS to be nearly as much of an abomination as the BBC.
For the record I’m a non-smoker who hates second hand smoke. I always stayed out of nasty, stinky, smoky pubs and clubs in which it was a problem. Did that bother me? Not in the slightest. I never have believed that it was my human right to expect establishments to accommodate my wishes.
If you don’t like fag smoke in your face don’t go to Denmark.
Or Spain, where cigarettes cost a quarter of what they cost in the UK and cigars are popular too. Ask somebody in a bar or restaurant in Spain not to blow smoke in your direction and you’ll be told to go perform anal sex on yourself.
Some months ago I flew back to Spain from a few days in the UK to find two police officers in the airport merrily puffing away right beneath a “No Smoking” sign!
Good way to help you give up smoking:
*Ascertain the approximate length of the smoked section of an average cigarette
*Multiply that length by the approximate number of cigarettes you’ve smoked in your lifetime
*Imagine that is one long cigarette snaking from your mouth out of your doorway and along the street, past the supermarket and the pub and over the bridge to the railway station, or wherever it ends up, where the end will be lit and you’ll be obliged to drag on it till it’s finished
*Make a list of the pros and cons of smoking.
Cons:
Expensive
Hazardous to your health and the health of others
Annoying and distasteful to others
Bad breath
Smelly clothes
Craving in smoke-free places
Serious craving and initial withdrawal frenzy on intercontinental flights
Loss of friends while climbing up the wall during unsuccessful attempts to give up
Loss of face when succumbing and starting again
Stained teeth and fingers
Bottom of birdcage mouth in the morning
Unkissable
Time and energy wasting when hunting for a vending machine at one in the morning
Danger of accidents when hunting for a pack in the car and lighting up
Smelly car
Constant hunt for rare ashtrays
Littering
Pros:
Temporary relief through feeding existing nicotine addiction
Feelgood bonding behaviour with other smokers
Compatible with alcohol and parties
Something to do with the hands for the nervous types
Smoke sometimes makes attractive patterns in the air
Can blow smoke rings
Keeps bees away on picnics
*Carry this list around with you and read it at least three times a day and picture yourself drawing on your lengthy cigarette at the same time.
This method might not work but it will save money on expensive courses, unchewable nicotine gum and patches.
Good way to help you give up smoking:
One just needs to be really convinced.
I’d got to the point where I was waking up half way through the night gasping for breath. I realised I either had to give up smoking or give up breathing. I was convinced. I finished the pack I was smoking and haven’t bought another since. Within a week I was breathing better and my sense of smell has improved enormously, I can smell a cigarette on the street at a 100 yards now and it disgusts me.
My wife gave up at the same time using the Alan Carr book.
“This method might not work but it will save money on expensive courses, unchewable nicotine gum and patches”
My ex has given up smoking by using gum. Mind you, it may well be addictive, but still no tar.
On the other hand, my father used to be a fairly heavy smoker. For 40 years or so, I believe. One day my mother told him: Give up or else. The next day he stopped, and never smoked again till he died, 30 years later, other than a cigar to celebrate his birthday, that of my mother and the births of grandchildren.
PS. Without using any patches, gum, clinics, courses or self-help books.
A sign on a pub or restaurant door-`This is a smoking permitted establishment`should be all that`s required to ensure freedom of choice,whether you smoke or not.
Contrast that with the lousy air quality produced by heavy traffic the choices? Breathe,don`t breath,move house.
I trust the non and born again non-smokers are beetling around in electric buggies and pedalling their bicycles so as not to pollute the air i have to breathe.
banjo has a point. I think I’d rather sit in a smoky bar than at a bustop with traffic belching fumes at me, if I only had a choice between the two.
NO – yes, cold turkey is the best way. I know, I did it often.
Bio – So how long have you been free of the noxious weed? Been three and a half years for me.
Exactly 2 years for me Bryan, I wanted to smoke a cigar in celebration but I resisted 😉
Banjo’s suggeastion is more or less what has been put into law here in Spain for bars – it’s left up to the bar owners and their regular clientèle to decide whether smoking is allowed or not. Some bars declared themselves smoke free only to find their clients deserted them so have now allowed smoking. Actually most bars allow smoking.
Restaurants below a certain size (in floor area) may not allow smoking, above that size they must provide a separate and screened-off area with independent ventilation or air-conditioning for smokers.
I believe that banqueting halls used for wedding and the like are allowed to have smoking in all areas.
There is some talk of tightening up the laws to come into line with EU regs.
Giving up smoking is all about getting into the right frame of mind. I did it about 15 years ago and have never smoked since.
The way I looked at it was like this. Smoking was an “action” that gave me a “buzz”. It was the “thing that I did”. So all I did was to replace “smoking” as the thing that I did with “not smoking”. It sounds dumb but you have to get the “not smoking” buzz going. From that day on, the feeling and novelty of not smoking was something I made myself addicted to.
Giving up a chemical addiction also produces a slightly uneasy physical feeling which is not unlike a mild ongoing orgasm that doesn’t end. Heroin addicts going cold turkey report a much stronger version of this feeling. It drives some people crazy – I learned to enjoy it.
Have a bowl of organic apples and carrots next to you. Enjoy them as you would a cigarette. Remember, this is the “new thing that you do”.
When you’re out and about on the street, enjoy the feeling of superiority you get from looking down at smokers with derision. Say to yourself, “look at those idiots, I can’t believe I used to do that”. Be as smug as you like.
And above all, you have to take pride in yourself for not smoking. Have so much pride in yourself that you know giving in and having a smoke would devastate you.
I hated the idea of sticking chemical patches to myself or chewing gum. Cold turkey all the way!
“I trust the non and born again non-smokers are beetling around in electric buggies and pedalling their bicycles so as not to pollute the air i have to breathe”
You can mock all you like, in true beeboid style, but yes, some of us do just that.
Life expectancy: Spain, 79.9, UK, 78.5.
Giving up a chemical addiction also produces a slightly uneasy physical feeling which is not unlike a mild ongoing orgasm that doesn’t end.
I missed that part! I’m tempted to start smoking again so I can then stop and enjoy the “ongoing orgasm that doesn’t end”.
Life expectancy: Spain, 79.9, UK, 78.5.
But Spaniards also eat better (Mediterranean diet full of fruit and veg and olive oil), get more exercise and sleep in the afternoon.
There is the hypocrisy of those who said smokers kept them out of pubs and clubs,strangely after the ban they didn’t turn up.Now many pubs are going out of business.
Nearly Oxfordian:
You can mock all you like, in true beeboid style, but yes, some of us do just that.
Nearly Oxfordian
Bully for you,
Has `beeboid` become become an insult to those who views do not mirror your own,regardless of their opinions of bbc?
Mocking? My gentle jibe wasn`t intended to offend your sensibilities,you seem a little uptight maybe a little angry ,light up relax.
I gave up smoking often. What I always got was a craving so powerful I would have practically killed for a cigarette. (Instead of killing I succumbed and smoked.)
Peter,
couldn`t agree more.
The hordes of non-smokers who cited smoking as the reason for staying away from pubs,are noteable only by their absence.
Two of my locals have closed and the ones that remain are trying to make up the shortfall by staying open as long as they can,ensuring that the area now has noisy passing drunks until well past 3am.
Querying a few aquaintances who still won`t use the local give the reason,
“I don`t want to go home smelling of
cleaning products and toilet blocks!”.
I could`ve smacked `em.
Cocaine should be our drug of choice, isn’t that right Beeboids?
“Has `beeboid` become become an insult to those who views do not mirror your own,regardless of their opinions of bbc?”
Not at all. It’s a term for those who resort to sarcasm when everybody else’s views do not mirror their own (because how can their views not be embraced by everyone?), which is what you did and which is an endemic condition on planet BBC.
You seem to be the one in need of lightening up. Or lighting up, maybe. The lack of smoking seems to be stressing you out.
Hardly sarcasm,Nearly Oxfordian.
Unlike your reference to my `true beeboid style`,and as to being `stressed out`i put it to you that i don`t appear half as angry as you do. But then most don`t.
I understand how you must feel after being `bullied for years by smokers`,
was it after these events that you developed your authoritarian streak and had a humour bypass?
Sue:
“What’s so admirable about being addicted to something that is expensive, toxic, a burden on NHS, makes you ugly smelly and hoarse.”
A burden on the NHS? Apart from the taxes/NI one pay through their entire life, what about the £10billions generated from tax on cigarettes that goes on the NHS?
“Brilliant that they can’t light up in restaurants. Not that I often eat out. But I like to know that I could. Does this mean I am an arrogant conservative?”
You are extremelly arrogant.
You expect restaurants owners to keep their place smoke free for you just because you like to know that you could. ME ME ME.
I guess you are one of those people that cited smoking as a reason for not going to pubs but since the ban have not set foot in one and are not
not bothered by the facts that many have and are losing their business.
And like all the anti-smoke fascists, I guess you don’t care about the air pollution you inflict on others with your car.
If people want to smoke, let them smoke. If people want to have a tipple on the Tube, let them have a tipple on the Tube. Why is there always a constituency on both the left and the right who espouse authoritarianism and the the right of the state to interfere with the individual? With the likes of Nanny Brown and Nanny Johnson, we’ll hardly be able to do anything without the state giving us the all clear.
Oh, and what words create the impression that the report is ‘enthusiastic’ of the ban?