30 January 2006

Benefits of a smoking ban

Jim Lawlor writes: I would like to add to all the benefits we are going to have when the smoking ban is law. We'll have the BENEFIT of meeting new groups of smokers gathered outside pubs. Hospital patients will have the BENEFIT of fresh air when forced outside hospital grounds for a quick smoke. You will have the BENEFIT of a smoke in prison if you're jailed for smoking in a pub. Workers will have the BENEFIT of unemployment money when pubs close. Children will have the BENEFIT of spending more time with parents who have deserted the pub and so face more passive smoking at home. Lastly, if we do what the PC brigade tell us, we'll all have the BENEFIT of living longer, or maybe it will just feel longer.

6 Comments:

At 31/1/06 01:11, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh, I don't think we will live any longer because of a smoking ban. Even if everybody gives up smoking we won't live much longer either. In the US citizens are being forced to quit smoking by the droves, yet there has never been so much lung cancer as today. Seems to me like smoking protects against lung cancer.

 
At 31/1/06 10:20, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Who would want to live longer if we could not longer smoke - I suffer enough from stress as it is.

In fact, when my first husband was dying of cancer we were told that excessive stress and physical or mental trauma were often what triggered the cancer in the first place; just as much, if not more so than smoking!!

By the way, he died of lung cancer and yes, I still smoke and will continue to do so, even if I do have to 'go underground' to do it. I see not point in living longer and being miserable, I would rather live a shorter and happier life.

 
At 16/2/06 10:46, Anonymous Anonymous said...

hmmm...just how many town and city pubs have room ouside for a heated and roofed over area for smokers? not quite as much space available here as in NZ, I fear.

 
At 16/2/06 11:53, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Children will have the BENEFIT of spending more time with parents who have deserted the pub and so face more passive smoking at home."

Are you really suggesting that smokers go to the pub just so that they don't have to smoke in front of their children? What about the idea that they will either still go to the pub, or that perhaps a parent actually spending time with their child could be a good thing.
If the parents care at all about their children's health then they will not smoke in areas that their children are present. If they don't care about their children's health then they will smoke in front of their children regardless of whether they can smoke at the pub or not.

 
At 17/2/06 16:24, Anonymous Anonymous said...

To Stewart.

You are either so laid back you are horizontal or you are not a parent.

I smoke because it helps to keep me calm and sane. If I did not smoke I would probably have done my child more harm, especially if I could not escape from time to time.

If you believe that just by not smoking infront of them you are protecting them, then why are you in agreement with the government's total ban?

If separate areas were used for smokers and the smokers were asked to return their own glasses to the bar, the area need not be cleaned until the next day, therefore, no problem for the cleaner, who of course would be a non smoker, they all are! Not.

 
At 18/2/06 01:48, Blogger vincent1 said...

Hello Jim, just like to comment on this bit in your article. Hospital patients will have the BENEFIT of fresh air when forced outside hospital grounds for a quick smoke.
Not any more, addenbrookes is not allowing anyone to smoke onsite, not even in their cars in the carpark, which they pay a stupid amount for a ticket. So much for passive smoking when there is only yourself in it. This coming from a hospital with a very high MRSA problem.

 

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