Alternatives to the UK smoking ban

Are there realistic alternatives to the UK law? How are other countries' version of it working better or worse? Should the UK change its law or is it adequate?

There are many better alternatives to an invasive and divisive ban, seperate rooms or even buildings, air conditioning and filtration systems. Even a big sign saying "no miserable anti smokers welcome in this pub" or even "smokers stay away from this pub" would be a start but to ban a licensee from running his/her business the way they want to is pathetic. It's a bit like saying "play by our rules or not at all - just pathetic. Adults partaking in a legal and expensive hobby should have a place of hospitality to share with each other and tolerant non smokers also. This law, like the ones who instigated it is petty, childish and destructive. If our politicians cannot use their law making powers more fairly and wisely, they should be removed from that power forever.

Yes, theres a good alternative, and Spain has it.

Pubs less than 100m squared - They can set their own policy
Pubs over that size - They must have a non smoking area inside

This means that smokers can smoke in all pubs. But not everywhere.
It means that non smokers who dont like smoke (lets not fool ourselves into believing the anti bullshit that all non smokers are even bothered) have a choice.

Ladies and gentlemen of the nanny state, compromise means that both sides give up some of their rights. They both have to do it, otherwise its not a compromise.

So when rabid antis talk of compromise, know that what they really mean when they use the word is "I want it my way and fuck you".

Do not be fooled when antis say "compromise". If they used the word with its true meaning they would be stumped. But they dont want that obviously so they use the word hoping that youll be fooled into thinking that they mean it the same way as you do (i say "you" because most people hate this ban).

I wonder who else used to use words with false meanings and propaganda.

The best alternative would be to ban smoking altogether, just make it illegal, it is deadly enough so I think the government should stop pussyfooting around.

Question, how can smokers smoke in all pubs if the smaller pubs can set their own policy? This means that a few pubs would be totally no smoking surely?

leafar wrote:

Yes, theres a good alternative, and Spain has it.

Pubs less than 100m squared - They can set their own policy
Pubs over that size - They must have a non smoking area inside

This means that smokers can smoke in all pubs. But not everywhere.
It means that non smokers who dont like smoke (lets not fool ourselves into believing the anti bullshit that all non smokers are even bothered) have a choice.

Ladies and gentlemen of the nanny state, compromise means that both sides give up some of their rights. They both have to do it, otherwise its not a compromise.

So when rabid antis talk of compromise, know that what they really mean when they use the word is "I want it my way and fuck you".

Do not be fooled when antis say "compromise". If they used the word with its true meaning they would be stumped. But they dont want that obviously so they use the word hoping that youll be fooled into thinking that they mean it the same way as you do (i say "you" because most people hate this ban).

I wonder who else used to use words with false meanings and propaganda.

All posters please note :

This thread is for discussing alternatives to the smoking ban (i.e. alternative ideas for dealing with the issues surrounding smoking within pubs and clubs), not smoking in itself.

Thank you.

Did I go off-topic? My alternative would be making smoking illegal and instead allowing people to become registerted addicts to allow them to be weaned gradually off their nicotine addiction by use of gum or patches, on controlled prescription, like heroin addicts with methadone. Smoking kills more than all the illegal drugs put together, and this is because it is legal and too much accepted and allowed. Making it illegal would not completely stamp it out, but it would go a long way towards that.

Liliachamster :

I take your point, and it's a valid one.

You're most welcome to start a thread on the subject of smoking itself on a relevant section, I just feel that this particular thread is more geared towards smoking and pubs / clubs. If you wish to make your views on smoking itself known, if you want to touch upon that, that's absolutely ok, but I do not want this thread to become solely about smoking. The topic here is smoking in relation to pubs and clubs.

Thank you.

Lilachamster wrote:

Question, how can smokers smoke in all pubs if the smaller pubs can set their own policy? This means that a few pubs would be totally no smoking surely?

Simple they cant smoke everywhere- of course many would be nonsmoking, especially those that serve food and allow children. It works well over there and other countries are adopting that model as well. This model allows for the magic word CHOICE- for the owner, the employees and of course the consumers.

Lilachamster
Lesbian.vegan.nutcase...3 brain damaged kids by their Mother (virgin births)

post Aug 2 2007, 03:51 AM



Posted on an 'abuse survivors forum'

I was ill all the time cos my mum smoked around me, chest infections, coughing all the time, sore throat, it seems no-one understands that this has wrecked my life. Does anyone understand how all that passive smoke can hurt a sensitive child? I still suffer to this day with chest problems, it never goes away , and to add to that I've been treated horribly on another forum just for speaking up about this. I know it would come under neglect (physical/medical) under the definition on your site, not abuse. I know it does not compare to many terrible things people have gone through, but all I ever asked for was some understanding and respect on that other forum. I have a story to tell so why should mine be less valid than anyone else who suffered neglect as opposed to more severe abuse?
I was told most abuse survivors smoke and I was being disrespectful to them. When I asked for a source for this claim about the numbers of survivors that smoke the admin person would not give me a source and instead deleted all my posts. Besides I tried to explain I was not getting at all smokers, only trying to educate those who still might smoke around children why they need to keep it outside, as it is just not worth the health problems it can cause the child, even if child is not showing up as ill now they might get ill later from it. I was ill from it all the time so for my mother there was NO EXCUSE, because she knew damn well how much I was hurting from it and still would not just keep her habit/addiction outside the house.
I cannot get over this and am up all night tonight because of a damn neighbours bbq smoke coming into the house triggering off my breathing problems. I'm wheezy and full of phlegm, it's a horrible feeling. I am so super-sensitive to smoke, not only cigs but some other kinds of smoke too.


I get out plenty and am sociable especially with other veggies and vegans locally, and not under-confident in general, I just feel this way over my unfitness and don't want to look stupid in public.
I have absolutely no road sense and always feel that cyclists are so vulnerable on the roads. Other than the roads being so unsafe with all those cars, I think cycling is great, just needs to be so much safer. Cycle paths are a great idea but they aren't everywhere.

Emm I suppose the best thing for me would be something that would start gently and something I can try at home rather than something in public group where I would feel embarrassed and self-conscious. I remember always being the one picked last for teams when we did sport at school and being mocked for being rubbish at sport by teachers and other kids, it really put me off going in for anything where other people could scrutinise me.

It's just one of those things I am not comfortable with, puffing and panting and looking daft trying to do anything sporty in public, hence not sure about the gym although would prefer it to cycling. not a fit vegan, more a junk food vegan, and looking for suggestions of how to start very gently getting fit and want to lose weight too. I want to be a better role model especially as I am hoping to become a vegan buddy soon with Vegancampaigns!
Years ago I used to be told I was antisocial for my outright refusal to go into smoky pubs, but why should I make myself ill for the sake of pleasing other people? Screw 'em I say, if they can't have respect.

I'm sure you can find some like-minded vegan friends instead who have more respect for you and for their own bodies! Good luck.
One of the best advertisements for our beliefs and way of life is to have lots of happy healthy vegan families (they don't need to all be big families like 6 kids), and to show that we are just ordinary people who choose a compassionate diet and lifestyle, but this does not stop us living much as other ppl do! We have to come across moderate and not extreme in other ways because veganism in itself is seen as extreme so we have to make a special effort to be otherwise normal, that is the only way we will win over the public!

Believe it or not it was a bunch of animal rights vegans who said I was unsociable, a few years ago.

I'm so much happier since the smoking ban, sorry if it's forced your friends outside and made you feel left out (you could always go outside in a gas mask to make a not so subtle point to them...) but at least better for your health if you do go out to pubs and clubs.

LilacHamster

Joined: 20-March 07
Member No.: 179




I complained to Red Nose Day because they were selling the red noses this year with a piece of white chocolate, thereby excluding vegans. They have not even had the decency to respond to me.

Also there is a lot of pressure to give to RND on the day, even though a lot of us give to other relevant good causes and we don't need to be practically charity mugged on March 16th thanks very much! Bah humbug!

By LilacHamster on Mon 14-Jun-04 18:30:05
I think John Reid was basically very irresponsible to use the words pleasure and smoking in the same sentence, it's addiction to nicotine that makes ppl keep on smoking, not pleasure, and in my opinion calling such a nasty deadly drug addiction a pleasure is so trivialising the whole issue, it makes it out to be a relatively harmless choice when most smokers want to quit but have to struggle to do so. Would he say the same about heroin? I doubt he would dare trivialise that but it's the same really, in fact cigarettes are actually worse as they affect others around the smoker, we are all made to take in the poisons into our bodies involuntarily. No way can inhaling smoke be a pleasure, it's just vile! I think he should be sacked for trivialising a serious drug addiction, regardless of whether it is mostly the working classes who smoke or not. As for me I have a severe chemically sensitivity to cigarette smoke and because it is allowed outside everywhere even in the local kiddies playground in the park where some parents do smoke (they have no shame some people). I can barely cope outside, especially in the shopping street when so many ppl are smoking there, I always come home coughing and wheezing and suffering a headache and sore throat, this is just from the level of second-hand smoke outdoors. This has come about most likely because I had to endure a childhood of being around smoke from my mother and she is still in denial about the level of damage she has done to me. Smoking around kids is quite simply child abuse, I am just one example of living proof of this. There are others, here is someone I heard of recently, even worse affected than I have been: http://www.notperfume.com My sensitivity to smoke got markedly worse in my third pregnancy so I think my youngest child might be at risk of suffering from the same condition even though my mother is of course not allowed to smoke around her grandchildren, and we don't see much of her. When we went on holiday to Blackpool, a very smoky town, I was ill with a sore throat and breathing problems all week and my youngest was very sniffly, more so than she has ever been with an ordinary cold so I am convinced the smoky air affected her too. We did not have colds, I can tell the difference between a cold and a smoke sensitivity reaction, the effect of second-hand smoke is far more acute but shorter lived (just a couple of hours sometimes)!

Lesbian? No, that is not true although I have no issue with lesbians.
Admin, will you please stop people posting irrelevant things from other forums?

Lesbian...withdrawn

I only surmised this was a fact as it was impossible to imagine that such a bitter twisted individual could ever find a man that would be stupid enough to have you.
I suspect that your Mother abused you with her cigarettes as you as you were such an obnoxious child and she probably hated you.
I feel sorry for your mentally unstable children and you are an abuser yourself to have brought these poor kids into a world where vermin like you dwell and spout your hatred.
You state that you are unfit. With your views of life you deserve to be, and you will probably remain unfit and sick for the rest of your miserable existence.
Obviously the shrink that you consulted wasn't very qualified as he would have told you a few truths.
Your Mother hated you intensely and because of that fact you associate smokers as being abusers and are filled with hatred for them. You are a vegan because you have such a low esteem that you know that you are not worthy enough to enjoy proper food.
You poor soul.

For the attention of s.sleuth :

The topic of this thread is : alternatives to the smoking ban.

Sometimes it's necessary to touch on subjects which are not quite on topic in order to make a point. However, your posts are clearly completely off topic, as well as being antagonistic. Please keep to the topic and try to keep any personal issues with lilachamster under control, so that the thread can go in the right direction.

Thank you.



For the attention of lilachamster :

Having skimmed through s.sleuth's posts, may I suggest (if you want to, of course) that you post something about yourself in the My Story section, and if anybody submits posts that are deliberately intended to serve no purpose other than to antagonise you, I will delete them and give a warning to anybody who does so.

Thank you.

I see no point in writing further about myself and would prefer sleuth's hateful posts now to be deleted please

Lilachamster :

In any discussion or thread, it is necessary to touch upon things which are off topic, in order to make a point. However if a poster or posters stray far from the topic I will remind them to stay on topic, in order to avoid the thread losing its direction.

If a post or part of a post is clearly intended to offend, I will warn that poster. If they continue and ignore warnings I will ban that poster, in order to avoid chaos.

As for quoting from other forums or websites, I see nothing wrong with that in itself.

I have warned s.sleuth for being offensive, and I have reminded him or her to stay on topic.

I will not censor every single post which offends, or is off topic, but I will remove posters who continuously cause chaos.

Thank you.

What I am mostly objecting to is the personal insults, calling me a bitter twisted individual and worse than that. On many forums such insults would be removed, and I do not think as moderator you are doing a very good job if you will not remove the especially offensive posting.

I will not bother to answer to most of this drivel about me and my children, not worth my time and effort really. Sleuth does not know me and is only assuming these things about me and my family.

I do want to answer about my veganism though.

Being vegan is not because I am not worth proper food, vegan food
is proper food. I am vegan in order to cause less suffering in the world to animals. I fail to understand why I am being attacked for my respect for life and veganism as it is rather off-topic.

The cut and pasting job is all rather pointless and out of context.

My apologies admin for going off topic. I shall only say that lilachamster just rubbed me up the wrong way and she and her type are the main reason that we are having to have these discussions.
We should all have a choice.
Surely pubs can be licensed to reflect the proprietor's wishes as to what the smoking 'rules' are in their establishment.
Most areas have more than one pub and if a licencee prefers a smoking establishment then they should be licensed thus. This would give smokers and non-smokers the 'right' to go there.
Whereas should the publican chose to run a non-smoking establishment then once again smokers and no-smokers are free to go there under those rules.
If there are no non-smoking establishments in an area that would only prove that there was not a call for such, as landlords are there for profit and not as a social service.
This is one reason that these vegan restaurants are empty as the vegans as with non smokers just are too tight fisted to spend more than a couple of pound.
A few pints a night, a T-bone steak and a few cigarettes type customers are the ones the landlords want back. These people do not want to go anywhere that tree hugging vegan non-smoking half a bitter people go to as they are so boring.
This whole thing should remain the choice of the proprietor and not a government law.

THERE IS ONLY ONE ALTERNATIVE

IN SIMPLE TERMS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THE
SIMPLE CONCEPTS OF FREEDOM , LIBERTY AND HUMAN RIGHTS


JUNE 3Oth 2007 23 59 PM


IF SMOKEFREE PUBS "ARE" SO POPULAR WHERE WERE THEY THEN


AS FOR THE ANTI SMOKER'S PSEUDO SCIENCE

THEY ARE

NON GRADUS ANUS RODENTUM

SALUTI THE OSTROGOTH (NICENIC VERSION)

I'd like to revive this discussion. Any thoughts?

Yes the alternative is ban it properly, the govt should quit pussyfooting around and just make tobacco illegal.

Tobacco growing land should then be used for food or trees, as there are so many starving people in the world, and more trees are good.

How can any smokers claim the right to smoke when such inefficient use of land is one of the reasons the world is in such a mess?

Time to ban it not only because it is deadly, but also because of the environmental impact of tobacco.

Look at the littering problems. Most smokers throw down their butts on the ground, very rare I see one use a bin.

http://old.ash.org.uk/html/factsheets/html/fact22.html

This is about alternatives to a blanket smoking ban, rather than about banning tobacco use.

How is it not an alternative? Seems like a lot less confusing one to me, since a lot of people are confused or unsure of what is and is not allowed currently.

Again this is about alternatives to a blanket ban. Please stay on topic.

Thank you.