The "Smoking ban"- will you be giving up?

[Gorgeous]

A good 69% of us havent smoked Now thats quite shocking.

I've never smoked and probably never will, why on earth would i want to spend £4+ on something that is detrimental to mine and other peoples health? (grammar?)

The smell does my head in aswell, if they made it smell reasonably nice i wouldnt be overly fussed... but just a whiff of smoke and it makes me want to retch . Even worse the smell/smoke lingers, my housemate smokes (in the house, even though the contract states that we cant smoke inthe house) upstairs in his room and the smell just spreads through the house, which means i have to close my door.

Meh, i just generally hate people smoking cigarettes/cigars/whatever god knows what would happen if a nice girl came upto me and asked me out while she had a fag in her hand

[DavidM]

I smoked about 2 when I was 12 * and it put me off for good

(*and no, they were not priced in "Shillings" at the time you cheeky rascals!)

[schmunk]

p.s. whilst I have smoked a very few times, I have never *smoked* habitually, so I selected 'I have never smoked'.

[Knoxville]

Cheers for posting Knoxxeh- now vote eh? Before you do though, think about you life before you smoked- having met you I know you really enjoy it, but could you live without?

Voted when I posted man, I've considered quitting before, usually when cash starts to tighten up or I get a chest infection/cold/whatever, infact I quit for about 5 days last week as I just wasn't enjoying smoking with the cold I'd got, before I started smoking I was alot more stressed and harder to live with (my parents have said this and they hate smoking) theres holes in several of the walls in my house that have been plastered over because I'd have to hit something to relieve stress in the past. So can I live without? yeah I've proved to myself a few times that I can, but I'm a different person in some respects.

[Knoxville]

A good 69% of us havent smoked Now thats quite shocking.

I've never smoked and probably never will, why on earth would i want to spend £4+ on something that is detrimental to mine and other peoples health? (grammar?)

The smell does my head in aswell, if they made it smell reasonably nice i wouldnt be overly fussed... but just a whiff of smoke and it makes me want to retch . Even worse the smell/smoke lingers, my housemate smokes (in the house, even though the contract states that we cant smoke inthe house) upstairs in his room and the smell just spreads through the house, which means i have to close my door.

Meh, i just generally hate people smoking cigarettes/cigars/whatever god knows what would happen if a nice girl came upto me and asked me out while she had a fag in her hand

its not really that shocking as its just over a third of the population that are smokers and the results more or less show that. The smell does linger admittedly but its nothing that opening a window for ten minutes or good squirt of febreeze won't deal with. As for it smelling bad I agree with you to an extent, stale cigarette smoke is not a nice smell in the slightest but the smell of a good cigar or some nice tobbaco is beautiful imo, its just that not enough people buy them.

[autopilot]

At the time of voting, i was the only person to vote 'not sure'. The thing is, i want to give up, i really do, and social smoking and being around other smokers in pubs etc is a big problem for me. I really hope this will help, but at the end of the day i probably only spend 1-5% of my time in a pubs/clubs. The rest is at home or at work, where i can smoke when and how often i like.

I really don't know yet if it will really help, or just make going to the pub more of a chore. It might even make me go to the pub less and spend more time having drinking sessions at home or freinds houses.

Also, i hate to admit it, but it will come how my smoker friends react to it. Maybe we will all start going to pubs with beer gardens and outdoor area's. Many pubs i know are already gearing up for this and the ones without any outdoor areas are going to suffer.

Overall, while i don't like the nanny state, i think it is a good thing really. I guess time, and how much i really want to give up will tell.

Incidently, this has obviously been a hot topic in pubs. Most non-smokers i have talked to are just "yeah, whatever" about it all. It's actually the smokers who are mainly up for the ban, giving the reason that it might finally help them give up.

[Rave]

Still looks like I'm in a minority of one voting for "yes I'll give up when it becomes too much trouble". In the sober light of day having woken up with a hangover I'm leaning more towards option 3. I'm not going to the pub this weekend, so I might cut out the booze this week and see how I get on.

[ACiD303]

I smoked about 15 on an average day (rises to about 2.5-3 packs for everytime Im out though) for about 6 years before I quit (last october). Probably a bit insensitive due to the problems smoke has caused for the family in recent history, but at the time I didnt really care.

I did actually intend to quit in time for the ban (which is in force this coming sunday), but I ended up giving up for other reasons way before this date. I dont even know why I said id quit for the ban, when Ive been to places which have smoking bans and outside was even colder than here and it didnt stop me.

The best thing is that I had a drag about a month ago (well, ok, it's not the best thing!) when I was a tad trashed and I didnt even enjoy it. So Im still quite hopeful that I have actually quit, but there is a mate who's quit several times in the past, on 2 occasions more than 2 years before going back to them, so I'll just see.

Oh yeah, and quitting just for the sake of less of a hangover is worth quitting in itself imo

[Stubzz]

Another never have and never will smoke here

[iranu]

Could we have another catagory/option added to the poll please? Something along the lines of

I do not smoke but will take up smoking as soon as the ban comes in because I don't want to be ruled by a bunch of totalitarian ******s and I'm protesting by starting to smoke.

[Matt1eD]

p.s. whilst I have smoked a very few times, I have never *smoked* habitually, so I selected 'I have never smoked'.

Ditto, however nothing beats a cigar and good coffee. Having said that I'd never do that around people who don't like smoke, I fully appreciate some hate the smelll. The thing I don't like is the clothes smell. tbh I've never had this headrush most people mention. I don't really get an effect from it, but it's a pleasure, and one I treat in moderation.

Knoxxeh you remind me of a Mark Twain quote "It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times."

[Moby-Dick]

I stopped smoking in January , and dont miss it at all.

one of the things that catalyed things was spending a week in dublin in november, I realised I coudl get through a night out at the pub without smoking ( which up untill that had been the biggest hurdle to giving up )

I think it will help people who thought they wanted to stop but woudl find the neo-pavlovian reaction of sitting in a pub with a beer and a fag a hard habit to break.

Rave , have you read the Allen Carr book ? I started reading it after I'd more or less stopped , woudl be interested to hear form someon who is still smoking when starting to read it ( welcome to borrow mine )

[Elmo]

we've just had the smoking ban introduced here, and it's made SO much difference to a pub/club experience! It's a bit strange at first, especially driving through town and there being groups of people standing outside every establishment puffing away, but after a while you realise you can breath clearly. It's great. AND you dont have to come home and have a shower/wash your hair/change out of your clothes.

I went out last night, went to the pub, had a few, then went on to the club round the corner. Usually after a night out my asthma plays up and i've got a chesty cough in the morning, but miraculously, today i dont. I can wear the same jeans i had on last night and i dont have to wash my hair cos the smell of it is making me feel ill.

I honestly dont have a problem with people smoking, but more the fact that i didnt have a choice as to whether i was to breathe your smoke or not. I keep hearling complaints about violation of freedom of choice or some crap like that, and all i can say is its complete twaddle. Basically, you CHOOSE to smoke, so you CHOOSE to stand outside. I CHOOSE not to smoke, so i CHOOSE to stay inside and i CHOOSE not to breathe your smoke. Simple.

A lot of my friends have used the ban as an excuse to quit, and i can see how they would find it slightly easier doing this, since when they're out having a drink, they arent tempted by seeing other people smoking or smelling someone elses cigarette. The fact that they have to get up and leave the pub/club in order to have a ciggy puts them off too. In fact, my friend last night only had 3 ciggies in the space of the whole night when she might have had most of a 10 pack before the ban. But i think you have to WANT to give up, the ban will only aid this.

[Skii]

I'm considering starting again, as per Iranu's post.

[Elmo]

are you really that immature? i mean, seriously? ok, so you think it's turning into a nanny state, whatever. But can you not see that it's for the health of non smokers that they're doing it? They arent really getting anything out of it, the less smokers there are, the less fags they sell, the less tax they get. They might make it up in booze, but i doubt it. For god's sake, grow up and think of someone else other than yourselves for once. jeezo.

[Rave]

Well, I started this thread a week ago on Monday night, when I was really enjoying my beers and smokes. The next day I woke up with a bit of a hangover and thought about it a bit. I actually gave up properly in January 2004 and didn't smoke for over a year- it was basically only boredom that started me off again. So....I'm giving up again. I haven't had a smoke for 10 days now.

If all that cigs did was cost you money and make you smell I'd smoke them all the time. Since in fact they impair your health and give you serious hangovers I'm inclined to give them up again, albeit unwillingly. I am, and I suspect I always will be, a very heavy drinker. In my experience as a 26 year old, nothing feels better when you're properly pissed than sparking up a full strength Camel and enjoying the headrush. However, I'm drunk right now, but I'll wake up tomorrow without much of a hangover because I haven't smoked.

I don't wanna live forever.....but if I can train myself to get out of it on booze without having to smoke I think I'm going to have more fun in New Labour's Brave New World. The truth is I'd like to see how snorting coke and taking E suit my going out mindset- but I suspect the government won't ever trust me to make up my own mind about those drugs. They've never taken them, but they still know what's good for us all.