Leave us alone ! (Should smoking be banned in public places?)

Member Name: alirigby

Product:	Should smoking be banned in public places?
Date:	17/05/02 (112 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: toleration, equality, freedom of choice

Disadvantages: preaching non-smokers

“Smoking contributes £19,000 a minute to the Exchequer, so if we didn't smoke, then everybody's income tax would go up 8p in the pound. So I think if I'm seen smoking in the street, people should come up to me and say thank you very much for smoking, for keeping my tax bill down."

This apt quote from Jeremy Clarkson will start me on my rant, err, opinion!


To The Non Smokers Who Moan At Me (and others like me), the answer to this topic is NO – Smoking should not be banned in public places, and this is why…

I am a smoker; I’m not proud of it, I don’t think I’m clever (in fact I know I’m very stupid), but I accept and admit that I’m addicted to cigarettes. I do want to give up, but I’m going to this in my own time and I’m not committed to it just yet. In fact most smokers you speak to will want to give up, we don’t incessantly spark up and spend thousands of pounds because we think we’re fashionable or hip or want to annoy you, we do it because we are addicted.

What I really, really despise (in fact this will be going into Room 101 at some point) are self-righteous, preaching non-smokers, who moan and whinge on and on at me about something which really doesn’t affect them; those who are 'ex-smokers' tend to be the worst type. I don’t drink – I never get drunk and forget what I did, slobber over people and/or behave recklessly and I don’t moan on about people who do. Neither do I smoke in places where I am requested not to do so, around children or where I feel it may be bothering people – I’m entitled to my own ‘bit’ of air and I will do what I like with it, thank you very much.
It is also interesting to see that, in 1998, the World Health Organisation admitted that ‘the risk of non-smokers developing lung cancer via passive smoking is not ‘statistically signifi
cant’’, further diminishing the main argument for an all-out ban on smoking in public places.
I accept that no one has the right to endanger the health of another person (if there is any real risk from passive smoking, which now thought less that before), but equally no one has the right to tell me what I can and can’t do to my own body.

On several occasions strangers have approached me in public places and asked me to stop smoking; on the first occasion I was sitting in a smoking section of a restaurant when a lady (also in this section) asked me to ‘put it out’, I politely told her that I would not ‘put it out’ and would she like to sit in the correct section? On the second occasion I was standing on a station platform, again I refused, there have been other times – I will never smoke when I’m not supposed to and I’m sure as hell going to stick to the right to smoke in the few places I still can.
What is needed is tolerance, acceptance and equality; we can all get along peacefully so long as the boat isn’t rocked anymore, we all need personal freedom. I don’t want to be able to smoke everywhere, but I want the choice to be able to smoke in public places and I’m prepared to go to a scummy little area to do so.

Of course the government don’t want us to quit, even though New Labour wishes every day was No Smoking Day; imagine the tax hikes if we all stopped at once. There is only limited assistance available on the NHS to smokers who want to give up; my GP showed no interest at all when I asked about different ways and told me to ring a helpline (the most boring phone lines in the universe – makes you reach for the fags)! Anyway considering we have a huge elderly population, it wouldn’t be a good thing if everyone lived to be very old aged.

In fact the more the government, my family and non-smokers in general pressure me to give up,
the more stressed I feel and the more I smoke so please just leave us alone! I am happy with the current situation as it is, if smoking is legal then it has to be allowed in public places – you can be certain that if it’s outlawed I’ll hide away and do it!

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