Yes, employees should be protected. It's an employers legal obligation to do so (in the UK anyway).
Consider though, other jobs that involve working with toxic gases. Employees are given PPE and it's their own fault if they don't wear it. The same could easily be done in smoking pubs, if they were allowed.
Figures quoted about the place seem to show that smoking related disease costs our NHS approx 1.5million per year, but the revenue gathered from smokers is approx 8million per year. That's a hell of a hole in the treasury if everyone gave up all of a sudden.
Basically because the British population are actually a pretty nasty, rowdy bunch of thugs. Take their cigarettes off them and you add "angry" into the mix.
I agree with Tristan. The difference pre/post July 1st is much less, for me, about smoking and far more about liberty - freedom to choose. Before the ban, everybody had a choice about whether they wanted to go to a smokey pub for a drink or a meal. Now nobody has that choice. Whether or not you are a smoker, you lost a civil liberty on July 1st.
It would have been far better if the govt had gone the alternative route, and offered tax incentives to people visiting smoke-free bars and pubs. If they'd made beer/wine/spirits at smoke-free establishments tax-free, or tax-reduced, there would have been an incentive for everyone to think, and then make their OWN choice. But that would have resulted in reduced tax revenue for the government, and god forbid they ever allow THAT to happen.
I'm against legislation and in favour of education. No amount of anti-drinking/driving laws in the UK had a sufficient effect. People still did it. What REALLY reduced the problem (and it has been dramatically reduced) was to encourage it to become wholly socially unacceptable. The problem was fixed BY society, WITHIN society.
Its so hard for a non-smoker to feel comfortable in a huge city like Istanbul, with Turkey's centuries old smoking culture still in full swing. Everybody here smokes, and while they're taking steps to create non-smoking areas, really you're never immune, wherever you go. It was such a contrast going back to Melbourne, and realising I'd just seen my first smoker after 2 days of walking around the city. Total cultural contrast. I hardly ever go out at night in Istanbul because the traffic and the smoking combined just isn't healthy. I'm healthier indoors, and that's pretty sad.
edit: but I agree with Tristan/Sam that there should be alternatives for smokers as well.
edit 2: heh- not that education ever worked for smoking, but...
There was no law allowing smokers to smoke in pubs, so why did all pubs allow it? Answer: It was good for trade.
Ireland saw a 20-40% decrease in trade in pubs after the smoking ban.
Personally I dont really give a hoot. I smoke, but I always do it outside as I dont like smoking indoors (I do actually like clean air) and dont particularly go to pubs.
Having said that, I do feel that smoking bans are something of a big brother thing, even though i'm not really effected by it.
My concern now goes to all the families who will be effected by this, those who's businesses will suffer, and ... ah heck i'm just messin' I couldn't care less if a few publicans go bankrupt Really I dont, and i'll keep on not caring for as long as they charge so much money for a Gin + Lemonade.
hehe yeah.. some things, some people will do for no rational reason. Myself included.. I smoke, though I know the dangers. When I got hooked, the connection with lung disease was only a theory.. but it was a well-known theory. When I started, only 40% of doctors in the UK were non-smokers, and that was an advert to promote stopping smoking.. that they made that point. But encouraging the social unacceptability of smoking (just as with drink/driving) did result in a significant change. The majority of Brits, now, don't smoke in adulthood.
I'd like to know, actually.. has there yet been a study to prove that passive smoking actually results in measurable physical damage? Last I heard, they'd been trying to prove it and hadn't succeeded. AFAIK, it's still unproven theory. It's not that I don't believe it happens.. I just want to know if it's been proven yet.
Smoking bans are great for everyone's health, whether they like it or not. Eventually cigarettes themselves need to be banned, but I think that is a long way off yet, as governments make a crap load of money of tobacco taxes.
I keep telling people, even though I'm an anti-smoker, about my dear Gran, who lived to 99 1/2 and basically chain-smoked her way through life from the age of 14. Terrible poster girl for the anti-smoking lobby, my Gran.
But if you'd let the bars or pubs to choose if they want to be smoke-free nobody would do it because the customers that smoke would go to the next one down the road because you could smoke there. Giving lowered tax on alcohol on places that are smoke free would also be mad, they probably would lower their prices which would result on hevier drinking. Or they would start making more profit, but it wouldn't be any use as nobody would come to a smoke-free pubs as their friends are smokers. It's fair for the competition and the employees that nobody can smoke. And really, you can't give bartender a gas mask, they are not comfortable, could put some people off and might make it a bit difficult to serve your customers and talk to them. :P
Which all comes down to the simple matter of liberty. Choice. "It won't work because nobody wants it" just proves that the law is fundamentally flawed in any rendition of a democracy.
Moreover, if justification for the law, alternatively, comes down to "it's better for you", then you're setting out the stall for banning cars, chocolate, motorbikes, windows without bars, electricity, gas supplies.. all of which cause deaths every year.
So you're saying "it'll never happen", right? 30 years ago, EVERYONE would have said the same thing about banning smoking in public places. Smoker or not, 30 years ago it was inconcievable that a western government would assert such draconian measures on its people. It *would* have been a ridiculous suggestion. Now it's law. The truth is that we ARE losing civil liberties, we're losing our rights to choose, and there is absolutely no reason for the current momentum to stop, because we're complicit.
actually, i cant find the science garble literature on this atm but IIRC the cigarette smoke that the smoker inhales contains these antibodies that counteract the effect of some of the cheimicals in the smoke - the 'filtered' exhaled second hand smoke does not contain these antibodies and is just as harmfull if not more harmfull to the non-smoker.
Then it would be just as it was before. Every pub/club would want to allow smoking, because it's good for business.
So I don't know how you'd get around that, maybe there's an argument that it's not necessary to, but in effect it was impossible for a non-smoker to go to a pub/club without second hand smoke being forced on them, and now it isn't. Surely not a bad thing. The actual right to smoke is unaffected, well no more so than allowing it in these places affected the non-smoker's right to not inhale second hand smoke.
The government usually seems happy to let the private sector sort its problems out - in important areas like health and education anyway. I'm surprised they decided not to let market forces dictate where smoking occurs.
....really though guy's there is'nt so much of a difference. Landlords just section a small area of the floor, put windows and air-con in and whalla! its the same as before cept now you got a load of huffing puffing people in a box and the rest outside ......when all the pub/club owners build the smoking rooms there wont be much of a difference to buisness apart from extra buisness from the non-smoker who now can enjoy a nicotine-free lunch.
Well, it takes power from the smokers to choose where people inhale their smoke. Before, people who didn't like the smoke for their reasons didn't have the liberty to breath cleaner air, the smokers had the power. Non smokers could only stay or move, and that is like bullying.
That is stretching it because they are not the same as smoking. Sure they cause deaths every year, but you got to think what some of those give in trade. Cars and motorbikes move people, chocolate has health effects (:P), well windows are static objects and you couldn't ban everything that moves (or doesn't) because you had to ban the whole universe. Electricity makes you computer and LFS go and gas has it's pros too. I can't think what good cigarettes have to offer?
What never happens? Banning everything? Well, if you think the world 30 years ago it was very different. Swedish scientist were convinced we were heading towards a new ice-age and smoking was hardly thought as harmful. Thought of second hand smoking would have been ridiculous. So why would anyone had agreed on a ban of a non-harmful pastime?
But as you are talking about if this had been possible 30 years ago. It hadn't happen for the reason I just stated, but what would've stopped that? The people? I don't think so.
If you look back it does seem that people have more liberties that they used to, this might not be the case in your nanny state where the direction does really seem worrying. It does look it's going to that way over here too. You can't sell alcohol in stores before 9 at the morning, because it should control the consumption of the worst users? It seems that we go by the rules of the dummest minority. No minority should never rule and I think, in way, that the smoking ban is somewhat move to the right.
Just as banning smoking from public places can be regarded as bullying. Non-smokers always DID have a choice about inhaling smoke. Liberty to breathe clean air is a totally moot point, frankly. Walking down a busy street, you'll inhale far more noxious fumes that affect a lot more in your body than just your lungs, than you will by eating a meal in a pub with a smoking area. And you have far more control over whether you go to that pub at all than you have over the route you need to take to walk to it.
I don't think it's a stretch at all. Once the precedent has been set (as it has now) what's to stop motorbikes being banned? Only a minority of people use them anyway, and they make a mess of your car's paintwork AND cost the health system lots of money. They're often driven by idiots (not looking at you Dan ) and they look like a pretty good candidate for the next mandatory ban, to me!
The world will be very different again in 30 years. I think you've confirmed my point.. and introduced a new one. Yes, we're about to get our asses taxed yet again, based on a seriously under-demonstrated theory about our carbon footprint impacting global warming. Don't be surprised if this is proved to be utter bollox, just as the Swedish scientists have "apparently" been. Who knows? Nobody. Who's getting taxed regardless? MEEE!!
It definitely isn't the case in the UK that people have more liberties. Some things are socially acceptable that weren't before (divorce, remarriage) while others aren't (drinking/driving, riding motorbikes) and those things are effectively ebb/flow, but in the UK, civil liberties are being diminished in a linear fashion.
Think of it like this...big rich Tobacco company has a meeting...
Our sticks of death are not selling very well, people just don't like them.
Well how about we make them addictive, so even if they don't like them they can't stop smoking them.
Great idea, but how do we market a product like that?
Just lie about it, say its healthy and cool.
Ah I see, who should we sell these death sticks to?
The poor, nobody likes them, they are too stupid to know any better, and theres lots of them to make us rich.
Fantastic, what should we call them though?
How about...cigarettes?
Excellent. Anybody want to come shoot some endangered animals at my new mansion?
For me its got nothing to do with the health affects, its that rich people deliberately made a product thats aimed at the poor addictive. Smoking is a way of keeping the poor poor and the rich rich. I'm glad its being banned, Cocain and Heroin are illegal and they are just as addictive and kill less people.
Oh and saying motorbikes are dangerous would be correct, but not for the reasons you suggest. Since 80% of motorcycle accidents envolve a car, not many are killed by falling off due to dangerous riding. S.M.I.D.S.Y
Could not agree more... It's exactly the same as when they bought in the crash helmet law years ago, although I am a firm believer in wearing a lid, I _HATE_ some jumped up little prat* of a jobsworth government idiot telling me that I _HAVE_ to wear one, and I wouldn't force anybody else to wear one either!
Same with smoking, I can fully respect the rights of others, but it's about time somebody apart from myself stood up for _MY_ bloody* rights!
I am currently having a battle with Oxford City Council for slapping 'No Smoking' stickers all over the 'shelter' at the bus station...according to their OWN BLOODY* GUIDELINES it does _NOT_ constitute an "enclosed public space", therefore the smoking ban should not affect it at all....
Bloody* little fascist pigs!..
(Guess you could say i was a little bit narked about it! )
* I would have used a stronger word, but don't want to get banned for swearing!
