Public smoking bans for or against?

not far off

 

Thats a ridiculous statement.

If I may be so bold, I think what DomfjBrown is suggesting is that one of the arguments put forward for the banning of smoking in public, is the involuntary polution to which non-smokers are subjected. This is assumed or suspected to have negative long term health affects.

However, a number of the people who have put forward this argument are car owners/drivers. Their vehicle creates significantly more pollution than a cigarette smoker.

Hence the suggestion of hypocrisy. With which, I for one, am in full agreement.

I would find it difficult to argue with a ban in confined public spaces e.g. restaurants, pubs etc. but a complete ban in public is hypocrisy.

Whats the greater contributing factor in the rise of asthma in children? Passive smoking or air pollution caused by cars and industry?

 

Well here comes also economic concerns in the discussion. While mobility stimulates the economy, smoking (in general) has really very little impact.
If everybody would stop driving I will suppose mostly everybody would be unemployed. Smoking in Switzerland causes over 11 billion swiss francs damage which only 3 billion is covered by the several tobacco taxes. In Germany the have banned smoking in the railway stations and trains. That has saved the railway company a lot of money. Also (and this is interesting) it seems that the overall mood in the stations in much more relaxed and peaceful. The Swiss railways also came to the same results with their experiments in two stations and now they are seriously thinking to ban smoking in the stations and trains but the cigarette-lobby is in Switzerland still very powerful.

With this I'm not blaming the smokers for the bad mood in the stations neither I'm justifying the smokers or anyone else who uses unnecessarily their car but just that banning something that doesn't have impact in the economy is easier than banning something that could cause big economic problems. To be precice though, they are lot of political and medical pressure to do something against the increase of the industrial and motor harmful emissions: have you heard about the Kyoto-convention?

I believe there is getting more and more pressure against everything which is harmful. We only realize that what hits us the most and the rest we forget. Is this hypocrisy or self defence or what else?

Personally I don't mind if anyone smokes or does anything else as long as I don't have to breathe or take that stuff and as long as there behaviour doesn't become an example for others (especially children). I don't care if the smokers believe that it is not harmful and that eventually they get cancer as long as they die in peace without making others pay for their costs (good example was my mother!).

But anyway it seems that smoking and passive smoking isn't dangerous because the Zerogain's experts say so and are convinced about it. Down with all those politicians and medical experts who are against something which is not harmful at all. Down with them!

 

Being a hypocrite has nothing to do with this arguement,thats all i meant,its an irrelevant point.We are talking about public health,hypocrsy is unimportant.My pov across various subjects is of no consequence as to whether smoking should be banned.If its dangerous,its dangerous,you can't argue it isn't because the arguement is inconsistent with other health issues.Which may be the case,but that doesn't make passive smoking any safer.

 

When you're talking about public health issues caused by passive smoking indoors, then I have no issue with your statements.

As soon as you try to use the same arguments in the open air, then I'm of the opinion that general air pollution is a greater risk to public health.

 

I agree.I will vote for the next party who want to ban air

 

I see. I think that is old new. See this link http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li...ews.html?in_article_id=124168&in_page_id=1797

This seem to be the declaration. http://monographs.iarc.fr/htdocs/monographs/vol83/02-involuntary.html

However, here is some good news. http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/cont...DEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=1,2,3,4

 

Conclusive proof at last. God save the Daily Mail.

 

Exactly my point. Since you'll not be able to ban driving (there should be an inner-city charge for ALL SUV/schoolparents IMHO, let alone a huge whack on lone-person commuter traffic, in situations where it can be avoided), I can't see why smoking in certain designated places/outside should be a problem.

How many people here are disgusted by the smell of a cigarette, yet will drive to the paper shop when they could walk? A LOT of inner-city traffic is avoidable, but selfish people (yes, it's not just smokers who are selfish) still insist on clogging up roads with unneccessary traffic.

...and they wander why schoolkids are turning into fat, asthmatic blimps...

 

Yeah, I agree with that. Believe it or not mate, there is some people who live near me who drive their kids to school, when in fact it would quite literally be quicker to walk, than get their car out of the garage, get in, start it, drive there and drive back.

Not only does it mean that these kids will probably turn into lazy, fat bastards, but also because they never leave the sanctuary of our street without getting in a car, I suspect they will never be very streetwise either.

 

Round my way they drive to the recycling for something to do at the weekend.

Fresh air smells funny enough without fag smoke, what I don't get are people want to legalize cannabis eh.

Just ban smoking period

"A smoker" And stupid

Stuart