Government to consider banning smoking in pub gardens etc..
- Thread starter JonRGV250
- Start date
Soldato
I'm ok if the ban on smoking in pub gardens is enforced. I'll just pop out back of the pub where we (staff) smoke in between pints. Unless they ban workers smoking on breaks too-which will really affect pubs/restaurants as I can say whole heartedly that 90% of pub/kitchen/restaurant workers smoke, or do drugs.
Suspended
I was accosted by a cloud of scooterists riding past to a rally today. Their slogan on their posters said "smell the two stroke", and right they were.
We have lost many pongs over the years with two stroke and leaded petrol, gas holders, burning stubble, coal fires, horses and general body odour. We forget how things were until we get an instance of memory jogging.
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Soldato
- Joined
- 21 Jan 2010
- Posts
- 3,680
Given that tobacco taxes raise more than is spent on NHS treatment of smoking related disease, are you therefore in favour of a reduction in tobacco taxes?
Does smoking cost as much as it makes for the Treasury? - Full Fact
Do taxes on cigarettes bring in enough revenue to cover what smoking costs the government? It's complicated.
fullfact.org
As to impact on health of second hand smoke in outdoor spaces- I'm not sure that's well understood. If anyone knows, I'm all ears.
Caporegime
You’re never going to win when you try to take away the freedoms people have enjoyed for years.
Why can’t they just have smoking and non smoking areas in a beer garden, why does everything have to cater for one group of people over another?
Man of Honour
i) The toxins are airborne. The idea that an arbitrary line in the air will stop them is nonsense.
ii) Employees will be forced to work in the contaminated area.
iii) Employees will be forced to clean up the toxic waste left in the contaminated area.
Appropriate COSHH rules will not be followed. The employees will not even be given adequate PPE. The employees probably won't be given any PPE at all. Some of those employees will die horrible deaths because of catering to people who choose to take a drug in the way that does the most harm to other people.
When a "group" is defined by their actions, it's OK to cater to one group of people over another. For example, we cater for people who don't burgle houses over people who do burgle houses. We should also cater for people who don't knowingly and deliberate choose a drug delivery method that harms others over people who do knowingly and deliberately choose a drug delivery method that harms others.
In the past, people had the freedom to beat their apprentices. Was that a good idea? Was taking away that freedom (some) people had enjoyed for years such a bad thing? It's less harmful than smoking. It wasn't legal to beat an apprentice to death.
I think that the extreme legal exemptions and protections given to smoking should be removed and smoking treated as what it is - assault with a chemical weapon in which some of the victims will die. Jail is the right place for people who choose to do that, choose to do it repeatedly and with full knowledge of the harm they're doing.
There are other ways to take the same drug, ways that don't involve harming other people. People who choose to smoke are simply choosing to harm other people, without even the flimsy excuse of drug addiction.
Years ago, a person or people smashed their way into my home and stole some of my stuff. Maybe they were drug addicts. If so, does their drug addiction excuse their actions in your mind? Should they enjoy the freedom to break into my home and steal my stuff? If not, why not?
I have far more sympathy for them than I do for smokers. The person or people who broke into my home and stole some of my stuff didn't deliberately harm me. There is no possibility that I will die because of them. So they are much less malicious (or sociopathic) than smokers and do much less harm than smokers.
Associate
It's all just about control, nothing to do with health. "They" are slowly stripping us of everything and we're just allowing it.
Man of Honour
Care to try to support your assertion? Given the fact that we're talking about deliberately choosing to take a drug in a way that causes the most possible harm to other people and generates a large amount of toxic waste. When there are several ways to take the same drug that are harmless to other people.
Caporegime
Yes. Honestly, try it.
Man of Honour
I can't. I haven't been awarded the rank of master.
Caporegime
Sorry, but that just reads like a sensationalist, exaggerated and ridiculous ramble
Man of Honour
Thank you for so promptly acknowledging that you have no counter-argument.
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In a rare case I agree with Angilion.
Most beer gardens are far too small to have an effective separation, and the stink of smoke just carries so far. And you would need a way for non0smokers to enter/exit, go to restroom etc without going close to smokers.
And while maybe slightly OTT use of toxic, smoke is toxic and there would be issues of employees still being subjected to toxic and carcinogenic chemicals.
Why can't smokers just smoke in their own home, with windows closed? Why the ambivalence in ruining other people experience?
Caporegime
It’s too ridiculous to even bother arguing with. Once you start going off on one about assault with a chemical weapon and burgling drug addicts, the shark was well and truly jumped.
What an absolute load of drivel.
My good god, did you even read that before posting it?
I kinda get what you're saying, but to word it like you have is just utterly laughable and completely ridiculous.
Man of Honour
It's a deliberate and knowing use of an airborne mixture of hundreds of harmful chemicals to harm other people. How is that not assault with a chemical weapon?
The usual excuse used is drug addiction (despite the issue obviously not being drug use but the choice of drug delivery method). So the comparison with other harm done by other drug addicts is valid.
If you have a counter-argument, you're welcome to put it forward.
It's plain and simple. The fact that you agree with the harm done to others is a separate thing. If you have any counter-argument to the 3 very clearly expressed points you quoted, you're welcome to put it forward.
Commissario
It's not drivel though.
If this was in almost any other work environment, with people being exposed a known hazardous airborne toxin then the H&S regs wouldn't care about it being "outside" they'd are about how often you were exposed to it, how many people were exposed to it, the levels of it, the life time risks and the known effect, and then likely take the cautious route for the worst case scenario (you being exposed to a whole bunch of smokers every few minutes). The end result would likely be the staff being required to wear properly fitted P2 or P3 masks due to the lifetime risk of exposure.
People have commented on the utter stupidity of the old "non smoking" sections being next to the smoking ones, usually with no extra ventilation...Roy Castle is remembered very well in part for being a prime example of the risk that people that had to work around smokers took, often at the time without knowing or without having a choice.
It was the way the argument was presented and words used that imo are (as previously said) sensationalist, and frankly way way OTT, and daft.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but no one is saying that smoking is good for you or others around you, and after 30+ years of 20 odd a day, trust me I know the harm it does.
Maybe it's just me, but making a valid point needn't come accross as such fire and brimstone, there are better ways to do it.
It could be argued that some have had enough of that over the last few years.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but no one is saying that smoking is good for you or others around you, and after 30+ years of 20 odd a day, trust me I know the harm it does.
Maybe it's just me, but making a valid point needn't come accross as such fire and brimstone, there are better ways to do it.
It could be argued that some have had enough of that over the last few years.
Associate
Then they should either ban it or shut up about it.
Man of Honour
The words I used were factual and deliberately neutral considering the context. No "fire and brimstone". Despite the number of innocent people killed by this sociopathic drug use.
And you still haven't even attempted a counter-argument to anything.