Smoking Ban

[IBM]

Bar staff should stop crying and get a new job if they had a problem, i refuse to agree with that argument. Dont like it dont work there, simple.

And i read oin the paper an average of 3 pubs a week went out of business in scotland since the ban, slowed now..

Il try and find a quote, it really hit hard

Smokers have been complaining for years about non-smokers making a fuss about smoking in public....and now it's your turn. So suck it up, it's not going to change.

We've got a guy who smokes outside our shop, off to the side. Now given that we're seated a good 30 foot away, enough smoke reaches us for us to comment about the stink. Now think about all the emmissions you can't see, the majority of which are toxic, then condense it into a small restaurant or pub. I don't want to be breathing that. And as for bar staff stopping crying and get a new job, some people are in the unfortunate position of having to take whatever work they can, and they don't have the luxury of taking time out and finding a place of employment with a good health policy.

So I'll have to say that the only one who should stop crying is you, you don't like it, move to a country who doesn't have such a ban. Simple.

And I sympathise for pubs that have gone out of business, but if they rely upon smokers to keep them afloat, then I liken them to opium houses in the 1800s who went out of business when they banned that narcotic. Times are a changing.

[Knoxville]

And I sympathise for pubs that have gone out of business, but if they rely upon smokers to keep them afloat, then I liken them to opium houses in the 1800s who went out of business when they banned that narcotic. Times are a changing.

Yeah, times changed for the better when they shut down the opium dens didn't they....

[Kumagoro]

No doubt like every other work place since the ban, there is a lot of talk about it where I work.
The general consensus among smokers was that they have cut down an awful lot and instead of
having 12 cigs while at work they had only 3. So quite a bit of money saved.

[Proplus]

Statistically, the Japanese are one of the heaviest smoking nations in this world, yet statistically they also have one the best record of health and life expectancy......

[arbitor]

Smokers have been complaining for years about non-smokers making a fuss about smoking in public....and now it's your turn. So suck it up, it's not going to change.

We've got a guy who smokes outside our shop, off to the side. Now given that we're seated a good 30 foot away, enough smoke reaches us for us to comment about the stink. Now think about all the emmissions you can't see, the majority of which are toxic, then condense it into a small restaurant or pub. I don't want to be breathing that. And as for bar staff stopping crying and get a new job, some people are in the unfortunate position of having to take whatever work they can, and they don't have the luxury of taking time out and finding a place of employment with a good health policy.

So I'll have to say that the only one who should stop crying is you, you don't like it, move to a country who doesn't have such a ban. Simple.

And I sympathise for pubs that have gone out of business, but if they rely upon smokers to keep them afloat, then I liken them to opium houses in the 1800s who went out of business when they banned that narcotic. Times are a changing.

I dont care

I can smoke at work, the pubs i go to have nice beer gardens that are covered, it doesnt bother me if i want to smoke i can

[Kezzer]

Statistically, the Japanese are one of the heaviest smoking nations in this world, yet statistically they also have one the best record of health and life expectancy......

Statistically, statistics are usually wrong.

Oh the infinite regression!

[Proplus]

Statistically, statistics are usually wrong.

Oh the infinite regression!

But you believe the statistics that governments (namely ours and the US) pump out about the 'harms' of smoking. Notice how government funded surveys on the 'harms' of smoking that does not have results showing smoking is bad, they conveniently sweep it under the carpet.

[JPreston]

Well if John Smeaton wasn't allowed to be having a smoke out the front of his workplace, events would have turned out much worse

[Kezzer]

But you believe the statistics that governments (namely ours and the US) pump out about the 'harms' of smoking. Notice how government funded surveys on the 'harms' of smoking that does not have results showing smoking is bad, they conveniently sweep it under the carpet.

Hold on, how on earth did you get to assuming that I believed in such statistics? I was pointing out that statistics are a load of crap most of the time, and you reply with that?

You've got a screw loose

[Ommid]

i found all the new designated smoking areas quite funny !

and you see people huddling up in them, all they are are shelters over a parking space outside a supermarket.

[Saracen]

But you believe the statistics that governments (namely ours and the US) pump out about the 'harms' of smoking. Notice how government funded surveys on the 'harms' of smoking that does not have results showing smoking is bad, they conveniently sweep it under the carpet.

Whilst it is certainly the case that governments like to use statistics to prove their point, especially if it justifies their actions, you can't justifiably just dismiss all statistics because of that. And when those statistics aren't coming from government, but from one medical authority, domestic and international, after another, it would be plain pig-headed stubbornness to pretend they're all wrong. Talk to just about any medical authority, or for that matter, attend an autopsy and just look at lung tissue from a smoker and a non-smoker.

When you get one report after another, by independent bodies and medical organisations, saying exactly the same thing decade after decade, surely even the most obtuse have to admit eventually that they may have a point. The evidence for links between smoking AND passive smoking with cancer, cardiovascular disease etc., are now so overwhelming, and repeated by country after country after country, that respected international bodies like the World Health Organisation use words and phrases like "definite" and "no question" to describe the link between smoking and a whole raft of nasty medical conditions, including primarily cancer and heart problems, but all sorts of other things too.

The WHO report I mentioned in a previous post was based on a review by 29 experts from 12 countries of 50 independent research studies, and the same conclusions have been reached all over the world.

[finlay666]

clicky

Original report which a lot of this smoking stuff was based on was a pile of bull, faked figures and cherry picked data

[Stringent]

Statistics can be used any way, you just change the sample people, phrase the questions differently to get a different response. If anyone has seen "Yes Prime Minister" there was an example of this when it came to conscription.

It is common sense that smoking is not good for you. I pity the fool who smokes. I feel sorry for those who are addicted to it. Can't they just remove the nicotine? That would stop addiction!

The government will never ban smoking or drinking. They are both such a revenue generator for them. They will continue to hike the taxes up on your pint and ciggies, and you will still moan but by them, because you need them. Nice viscous circle. They make money out of your addictions.

The majority of cases in hospitals are drunk related. I have a friend who works in ICU who can vouch for this. Drugs also.

I am happy for the ban. Hopefully it will encourage people to smoke less.

[snedger]

went into a pub at about 7pm yesterday to have a glass of wine there, rather then be with 50+ foreign students on a train station platform and I definitely noticed how twitchy and grumpy the bar staff and customers were. Might have been localness, but looked more like the overtly aggressive behaviour of recovering nicotine addicts. Pub smelt horrible: stale; dank and fetid.

[Saracen]

clicky

Original report which a lot of this smoking stuff was based on was a pile of bull, faked figures and cherry picked data

Let's see.

On the one hand, you've got a couple of TV personalities claiming they can show how ONE report was faked. On the other, you have 29 experts from 12 countries using 50 independent reports to draw conclusions published under the auspices of the World Health Organisation. So naturally, we're supposed to believe the TV mouthpieces and dismiss 29 experts and 50 reports from WHO?

Statistics can be used any way, you just change the sample people, phrase the questions differently to get a different response. If anyone has seen "Yes Prime Minister" there was an example of this when it came to conscription.

It would certainly be naive to take any old statistics at face value, and if you're referring to surveys (which, I'd point out, are not the same thing at all as a scientific evaluation of factual data) then yes, the phraseology of questions is critical.

But, a marketing survey asking for views and opinions is very different from long-term, large-scale statistical studies of, for example, the backgrounds and smoking habits of those that died from cancer, cardiovascular disease, etc. In one, you can prejudice results by asking loaded questions, but in the other, you're analysing results and facts, not asking questions. You certainly still have to be careful how you design the analysis, but if you look at a large enough sample, then you can conclude that the analysis is accurate enough to be representative, within a given level of probability.

Suppose you look at the cancer deaths in five hospitals over a three year period, and relate those results to patient's histories. Suppose you then find that for certain types of cancer, 80% of sufferers have been long-term smokers. Then suppose a different team do a similar study but using their own methodology, and use different hospitals over a different time period, and reach similar results. And then suppose that 27 more teams do similar studies, in 11 over countries, and again reach similar results. Do when then just ignore the conclusions because the studies were statistically done?

When organisations like WHO, or the BMJ use words like "definite" and "without question" to describe the inferences drawn from statistical surveys, then in my view, you can only draw one of two conclusions :-

1) The whole thing is faked up to the gills, and those organisations are out to deceive us deliberately.

2) The evidence is so overwhelming as to induce otherwise coy and reserved bodies to conclude something is proven beyond any reasonable doubt.

We can all reach our own opinions, and I'm certainly not one to take many things at face value (in fact, I'm usually accused of being overly cynical), but when such overwhelmingly consistent data tallies so appropriately with my own experiences and with anecdotal evidence from friends and family, I'm forced to conclude that 1) is just paranoia, or perhaps an ostrich complex, and that at least in this case, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, start hunting for the orange sauce.

[finlay666]

On the one hand, you've got a couple of TV personalities claiming they can show how ONE report was faked. On the other, you have 29 experts from 12 countries using 50 independent reports to draw conclusions published under the auspices of the World Health Organisation. So naturally, we're supposed to believe the TV mouthpieces and dismiss 29 experts and 50 reports from WHO?

I'll take it you havent seen the show....

There are senior medical officials from the US in the show that state that there

Dr Elizabeth Weilan (sp?) President of american council of science and health said that the evidence is extremely scanty on the connection between 2nd hand smoke and disease

The federal court lambasted the original survey (on which MANY following surveys have been partially based on) for:
Procedural failure
Cherry picking data

Yes the WHO press release did say it can cause cancer, the survey however had a very different conclusion

Our results indicate no association between childhood exposure to ETS and lung cancer risk.
We did find weak evidence of a dose-response relationship between risk of lung cancer and exposure to spousal and workplace ETS.
There was no detectable risk after cessation of exposure

(ETS being the term for 2nd hand smoke)

The WHO study is mostly inconclusive of any proof

The ALA, AHA, ACA, US PHS all state it is a killer, although they all base that on the original (and discredited) EPA survey
http://www.heartland.org/archives/en...ep98/smoke.htm <- That is the news report for the original survey incase you were interested

A LOT of evidence that people bring forward is either flawed or inconclusive

thats my though