Smoking Banned For Those Born After 2000

[Audaces Fortuna Juvat]

Not really the ban as such - there is a set distance you should be from the entrance of a building before you can smoke - it's the fact it's not well enforced.

I was working for the council in Aberdeen when the ban came in and they started recruiting smoking officers to go around telling people "you can't smoke that there" and hand out fines, no real authority at all. At 18k a year (roughly) there weren't an awful lot of applicants. Who's going to risk getting their face smacked off a drunk person on a Saturday night for telling them to put their fag out for that sort of pay? I think it got readvertised at a higher wage but didn't do an awful lot better.

In fairness, people in the main did just accept the ban (even if they don't think to walk away from the fucking door of the pub they're in). People don't light up in pubs out of defiance like some expected to happen.

I wish someone would enforce it, especially at supermarkets.

I'm as near as dammit a non smoker, I have maybe 3 cigars a year and have never been a ciggie smoker. While we all know that smoking is bad, so is excess alcohol, eating to much sugar and a poor diet in general, I'm not keen on banning generations from smoking, its very big brother. I hate running the gauntlet of smoke that's been mentioned as well but its not enough for me to want to ban it.

I can't help but think this is doctors (who have more than their fair share of smug, God complex feckers in their number) trying to get us to live longer to help their stats, once they ban tabs it will be booze, or sweets or whatever. I'm sure it will ease the burden on the NHS and make their lives easer but they should be advising not dictating what it is that we do. A fair number of them have problems with drink and/or booze themselves and really do go down the Hypocritic route, do as I say, not as I do.

In summary, they should be there to advise, its the ego of some of these guys that push them to try and push through legislation, its the thin edge of the wedge, we'll all be getting up and doing calisthenics before going to work and no peeve to relax us when we finish.

When I worked in the NHS I was shocked at the number of doctor's and nurses who drank and smoked. Still, their choice.

My nephew worked for a Japanese company at Mallusk, just outside Belfast, and they did aerobics at the start of a shift. He left after quite a short period of employment.

[welshbairn]

Yes it is but thanks for your input.

It isn't. Smokers save the NHS a fortune by dying younger and freeing up beds.

[Audaces Fortuna Juvat]

It isn't. Smokers save the NHS a fortune by dying younger and freeing up beds.

See - they're not completely selfish.

[forever_blue]

Agreed the revenue generated in tax from fags is dwarfed by the cost to the NHS that and it's pure minging.

would hate to hear your opinion on banning booze would be then or kfc and mcdonalds

[Hedgecutter]

It still surprises me that the government's stance is that tobacco is fine but cannabis is an absolute no-no. Is that down to an idea that something causing lung-cancer itself is fine but additional potential fertility and depression problems isn't?

[Bobby Skidmarks]

Nah. Not keen on such laws. Smoking is clearly a ridiculous and stupid habit and for some reason is one of the two drug addictions that are considered 'acceptable' (think about vaping and the like; you're just getting a hit of your drug of choice; it's pure drug taking and not much different from someone taking heroin every day or whatever), but people should have the choice to be morons.

Smokers should just be confined to little spaces out of sight and made aware just how dirty and disgusting their drug addiction is. Maybe that will deter more folk from doing it.

All this is pish by the way. Addiction is addiction, making them ashamed of it is not the way forward, in fact it's pretty idiotic.

Smoking should be gradually phased out with support from the NHS, as the government has squeezed as much tax out of smokers over the years. Selling them should be reduced to specific tobacconists, similar to what they have in France and make them less readily available.

[Richey Edwards]

I used to smoke 20-30 cigarettes a day and stopping is the single best thing I've done for myself. However, if people want to smoke then let them feel free.

I am a healthcare professional in a private hospital and about 90% of the nursing staff are smokers.

[strichener]

Yes it is but thanks for your input.

Cost to the NHS (According to ASH) is £2.7bln. Tax revenue from tobacco > £12bln. So in all fairness your original statement is just wrong, the NHS cost is far less than the tax revenue.

A 2010 study put the total cost of smoking at £13.74 bln but included items such as £4.1bln in lost productivity from early death and did include any savings from early death such as State pension, long term care, reduced un-employment benefits etc. So a rather biased study by all accounts.

[Hedgecutter]

I am a healthcare professional in a private hospital and about 90% of the nursing staff are smokers.

Oooft. Ironically, did a large chunk of those start taking it up after they joined the NHS do you think? (i.e. after being around smokers constantly). I only ask as my brother had never smoked until he started working at the dockyards. Within a few months he was one of these folk leaving the pub to light up constantly (along with getting the essential tattoo).

[welshbairn]

There's been numerous studies by the likes of ash and the bma etc, if you look at cost of treating disease caused by smoking add in passive smoking, then there's the fact smoking also causes sick days and minor illnesses which cost the economy further.

Show me the evidence of anybody with a disease caused by passive smoking.

[Richey Edwards]

Oooft. Ironically, did a large chunk of those start taking it up after they joined the NHS do you think? (i.e. after being around smokers constantly). I only ask as my brother had never smoked until he started working at the dockyards. Within a few months he was one of these folk leaving the pub to light up constantly (along with getting the essential tattoo).

We don't work for the NHS but yes quite a few started smoking after starting the job.

I'd stopped for two years before starting my job, only recently stopped again. Staff need to take the patients outside every 90 minutes for the patient smoke times and that's purgatory if you are a non-smoker.

Edited June 24, 2014 by Richey Edwards

[chomp my root]

That makes zero difference. A pointless argument. They choose to do so, and they know the consequences. It's their job to tell people of the consequences of such poor decisions; they don't have to be role models.

Also in my experience the vast majority of doctors I've come in to contact with don't have this 'god complex' or are ego driven as you state.

Fair enough, you may disagree but if you were down the gym and the instructor was a right fat fecker you wouldn't be too convinced by them. I've met some really good doctors, I've also met some pretty crap ones, its the same for any walk of life and with both I've found what I consider to be a disproportionate number of what I consider God complex types. Maybe I've been unlucky but I doubt it, again, just my opinion.

Well, there's some nonsense. I'm glad we got this out the way early in the thread.

Which bits do you disagree with Mrs M ?

[welshbairn]

Cost to the NHS (According to ASH) is £2.7bln. Tax revenue from tobacco > £12bln. So in all fairness your original statement is just wrong, the NHS cost is far less than the tax revenue.

A 2010 study put the total cost of smoking at £13.74 bln but included items such as £4.1bln in lost productivity from early death and did include any savings from early death such as State pension, long term care, reduced un-employment benefits etc. So a rather biased study by all accounts.

The cost of treating dementia is estimated at £23 billion a year. The assumption seems to be that if you don't die from a smoking related disease you'll live a independent, productive, disease free life until popping your clogs quietly in your sleep.

[Newbornbairn]

Never trust a Doctor. If we were all healthy, they wouldn't have a job would they?

[Hedgecutter]

Show me the evidence of anybody with a disease caused by passive smoking.

Has there not been a thread near-dedicated to that particular argument already this year?

[Ludo*1]

The best doctor I ever had was struck off the register for basically handing methadone out to drug addicts when he wasn't entitled to do so or something like that. Can't judge a book by its cover. Dr Charles Miller was a fine doctor, and here's such an example: Link.

Every doctor I've seen since seems to follow a paint by numbers catalogue of questions rather than actually looking into your symptoms. I don't care how they look tbh, as long as they look after me in the correct manner. PS. I'm not a drug addict or addicted to methadone!

Edited June 24, 2014 by Ludo *1

[welshbairn]

Roy castle. My partner a doctor also knows of a district nurse who died of lung cancer having to visit patients despite not smoking/drinking etc herself.

The only person to claim Roy Castle's illness was caused by passive smoking was Roy Castle. No doctor backed this up. Because 2 things are true is no evidence that one factor caused the other. The WHO spent 7 years trying to find a statistically significant link between passive smoking and lung cancer, and failed. You have to be pretty unlucky, but non smokers do sometimes get lung cancer all on their own.

[Believe The Hype]

Roy castle. My partner a doctor also knows of a district nurse who died of lung cancer having to visit patients despite not smoking/drinking etc herself.

passive drinking ? that's a new one!

[ICTJohnboy]

The only person to claim Roy Castle's illness was caused by passive smoking was Roy Castle. No doctor backed this up. Because 2 things are true is no evidence that one factor caused the other. The WHO spent 7 years trying to find a statistically significant link between passive smoking and lung cancer, and failed. You have to be pretty unlucky, but non smokers do sometimes get lung cancer all on their own.

I didn't know Daltrey and Co were into that kind of stuff.

[Jimmy85]

Pete was into all kind of shit tbf.