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In a fit of breathtaking hypocrisy**1 I'm all in favour of the smoking ban. No half measures: if it's being banned it should be banned in public buildings altogether.**2
In a two threads in one kind of way, let me tell you why this makes me a total hypocrite. For the obvious reasons, really. I was a smoker for over a decade. Smoking informed my every gesture - there was never an emphatic point to be made that couldn't be enhanced with a pointed stubbing. There was never a pregnant pause that couldn't be owned with a well-paced inhalation, exhalation or sexy cloud of smog.
But now, I've given up and it's health and rationalism all the way, I realise that any misgivings I may have had about bans in the past were down to self interest and inconvenience.
**1 Friday lite thread question: Tell us about your ideological U-turns and confess your fits of hypocrisy. When have you changed your mind out of pure self interest? It's an amnesty....
And now for the politics. I'll set out my stall, such as it is, for thinking that the government should just get the hell on with it and ban smoking in public places.
It's bad for you. It's bad for people around you. There is some evidence that making it more difficult for people to smoke encourages them to stop smoking. _* . This can only be a good thing.
The meat of the argument around this issue seems to be around personal freedoms versus the nanny state. Personally, I say that the personal freedom to smoke thereby causing yourself harm is outweighed by the right of others not to be harmed by someone else's personal freedom. The argument gruffly put forward by the likes of this pub landlord _* ( Real audio link) that no one's twisting your arm to go into a smoky pub is disingenuous in the extreme. If it's your job, I'd say that the need to pay your bills is pretty effectively twisting your arm. Even if it's just the only place you can safely spend that two hour late-night wait for a train without fear of getting mugged, then I'd say that's twisting your arm.
The sideshow about "smoking carriages" and serving food is even dafter to my mind. I can only see it creating some sort of health apartheid. Already healthy and smoke free? Good - then come to this lovely clean environment and have a nice hot dinner. Smoker - please compound any damage you're doing to your health by subsisting on crisps and pork scratchings. So...
**2 Friday thread serious: TMO, what's your take on the smoking ban? Is it government's role to legislate about what's good for us and should they go ahead and implement a blanket ban? If not, why not?Posts: 915
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The idealist's vision is of an elected government which introduces laws which are for the good of us all but which many people simply wouldn't bother with if they weren't law. Things like compulsory car insurance, recycling, building houses properly, the London congestion charge - that sort of thing.
It saddens me that this kind of "social" law isn't more commonplace in this country. In fact, it's kind of thinly spread across all countries in the world. Meanwhile, we get the heavy handed "anti-terrorism legislation" instead.
Imagine if it was made law for supermarkets to stop using plastic packaging for everything, or for everyone to install solar panels and "brown water" systems over the next twenty years say (i.e. as roofing work was carried out, or new bathrooms fitted). How much better life would be, although a bit of a pain to start with. But it must have been a complete pain to live in the big cities when the ginormous Victorian sewers and railway systems were being installed.
Same goes for things like pedestrianisation of town centres. All the shopkeepers moan that no one will come to their shops any more, but the pedestrian areas are fucking clogged full every weekend, and without any traffic to dodge.
I reckon it's the same with smoking. I doubt many smokers really want to be smokers, any more than enthusiastic eaters actually want to be lard arses. But it's difficult to give up so it becomes an issue of personal freedom. If the social opportunities to smoke are reduced to a windy corner outside work with that fat geezer from accounts then smoking becomes a really sad activity instead of the pleasure it is when sitting in a cosy pub on a cold night.
I've heard that the smoking ban has caused no problems at all in Ireland, though I'm sure there are some who are still upset, and I reckon it would cause no problems here either. It would just become normal not to smoke. This current bill or whatever it is that's going through sounds completely pointless to me. Half-arsed is the saying I believe.
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Unofficially, I smoke when pissed. I smoke the occasional joint. I smoke a waterpipe (proper Turkish Nargile, mind you - this is not a bong reference).
The latter two I only ever do in the privacy of my own boudoir, or at parties in other folks houses. The ban will not affect me here.
With the first one, however, the ban will affect me. But in a good way. I "socially smoke" when pissed. This is a bad thing. I don't actually like cigarettes that much, and to be honest I'll be glad if I'm not allowed to smoke in pubs as it will cut down my average fag intake from "a few" a week to "almost none".
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I'm all for the smoking ban - smoke all you want in your own home or at friends' houses, but when you put me and my daughter at risk (in restaurants, when huddled immediately outside the entrance to a shop or other building, at the playground - yes, some twats were actually smoking while helping their daughter down the slide) I have to champion a ban.
I suppose smokers would say we don't have to go to the restaurant or shop or playground (geesh), but I think that's a bit ridiculous.
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I don't know. Smokers used to be really cool and hard, glamorous and grown-up; now they seem to have only two settings - bolshy ("Don't you know I fund the NHS with my cigarette habit? Bloody nanny state again - it's a conspiracy you know") or victimy ("O I want to give up but I just can't help it when I'm out socially, but I don't want to be segregated because - *SOB* - it's so horrible and stinky and smoky in those rooms and everyone around you is so obviously riddled with cancer it puts you right off your fag"), both of which are a total bore.
Play the game, smokers! If you're going to befoul the air around you, at least do so with a bit of devil-may-care insouciance.
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