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The Khan review on smoking

Is there any suggestion of it being banned from outdoor public spaces? Because that's one of my pet peeves at the moment: people who think it's okay to smoke in crowded public spaces just because it's 'outside'.
 
What an honour! My first ever blocking on Twitter is from baccy rimmer himself :D

Screenshot 2022-06-09 at 12-37-34 Christopher Snowdon 🇺🇦 (@cjsnowdon) on Twitter.png

Seems he didn't like this...

Screenshot 2022-06-09 at 12-34-55 Christopher Snowdon 🇺🇦 on Twitter.png

Yeah I have a shit twitter handle. Old business idea that never got going now I just use it to wind people up every now and then. I am ecstatic that he's my first blocking. He also got rather pissy with me when I fake reviewed one of his books years ago. What a snowflake :D
 
Even the proposals that Mr. Smoky McTobaccomoney from the Cigarette Defense Institute deems the most outlandish have plenty of precedent in the policies of other countries and recommendations from the United Nations.

 
as best as I recall, every flateshare I ever had a private rental in had a non smoking clause in the lease.
in theory I could've gotten some flatmates evicted if I'd grassed on them to the landlords.

Same here. No pets too. I'm all for it. Who wants to rent some cigarette infused flat reeking of animals from the previous tenant. No thanks.
 
This isn't so much about public health, it's more like punitive measures, housing discrimination and even more regressive taxation against smokers for their addiction.
Smokers can become ex-smokers. Even after fifty years of smoking, they can stop.

Not stopping is a conscious decision, not an inability to stop.

I'm absolutely neutral on this issue, to be otherwise after smoking for decades would be both sanctimonious and hypocritical.

I would say this though, you really do not know how much your house reeks, until you go into a smoker's house after stopping smoking.
 
It would be nice to see more positive suggestions such as free access to help with stopping smoking including free NRT (which can often cost almost as much as smoking). But part of it has to be making it really difficult to smoke too.

The government has moved some/all smoking cessation funding from GPs/ health authorities to councils . This is at the same time as cutting funding to councils . Unsurprisingly, the councils spend some of the money to keep their core services going.
 
As someone who enjoys smoking socially these days (used to be chain smoker for about 15 years, started when I was 14) I just think: replace tobacco with alcohol on this equation and it really seems like a terrible and ludricous idea to ban people from smoking in their own homes. Smoking has been a part of our human rituals since I don't know when and it's never going to stop completely. What needs to be stopped is the tobacco industry and all the carcinogenics added to tobacco.

And I'd have to agree also the advertising and glamorisation of it in movies, etc should be tightly controlled.

Someone I know got fined for dropping a fag butt on the floor - and although an £80 fine seemed extreme - I hope they'll never do it again. Pocket ashtrays are cheap and every smoker should have one. Maybe tobacco companies could give them out free and run an education campaign with a tiny portion of the profits they make.
 
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This isn't so much about public health, it's more like punitive measures, housing discrimination and even more regressive taxation against smokers for their addiction.
There is something almost immoral about charging people vast sums in taxes by exploiting their addiction. The money used should be used to provide free nicotine gum and patches for anyone wishing to give up. At the moment these often cost more than the pigging cigarettes. Smokers pay billions upon billions in taxes, far more than their additional burden on health services cost. Free help to give up ought to be the least they should be able to expect.

And it is what they would get if it was all about health, but it isn't really. It is about raising money off the backs of people's addictions.
 
I acknowledge that smoking has terrible health impacts, but where do these efforts lead? Prohibition? We know prohibition doesn't work and that it impacts poorest people the most.
 
as best as I recall, every flateshare I ever had a private rental in had a non smoking clause in the lease.
in theory I could've gotten some flatmates evicted if I'd grassed on them to the landlords.

This is perfectly logical - what landlord wants to guarantee they have to wash/paint every surface and replace all soft furnishings ?

Yes - no landlords
 
I had to move out of a flat a good while ago due to smoke drift from the downstairs tenant (and when this was happening I discovered others before me had had the same problem). My clothes used to smell like a smokers. We got people in to see what could be done structurally to seal the flats, and they said nothing basically.

The tenant below refused to open any windows, the social landlord offered to pay for extractor fans which they refused, they had a fire as well, and when they die their flat will need complete gutting and redecorating at the social housing providers expense.

I don't like the no smoking tenancies in theory, but I can see why they come about. All the other stuff about age limits etc. I'm well onboard with.
 
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There is something almost immoral about charging people vast sums in taxes by exploiting their addiction. The money used should be used to provide free nicotine gum and patches for anyone wishing to give up. At the moment these often cost more than the pigging cigarettes. Smokers pay billions upon billions in taxes, far more than their additional burden on health services cost. Free help to give up ought to be the least they should be able to expect.

And it is what they would get if it was all about health, but it isn't really. It is about raising money off the backs of people's addictions.
So those people are completely helpless are they. One is completely unable to stop smoking?
 
I'm a very occasional smoker.
That's a very rare talent. Giving up smoking took me twenty years and was very difficult. Things that helped me give up finally included it being banned from workplaces and public spaces, constant price rises and the ban on selling packs of ten (every time I started again it was a pack of ten and 'just social smoking').

But the sanctimonious language used by anti smokers makes me want to smoke more. 😁 Hypocritical as well, because alcohol and dozens of other drugs don't kill people/ruin lives? Meh...
The link between alcohol and cancer needs better publicising. But I'd rather share a house with a drinker than a smoker.
 
I'd like it if drinking was made more difficult and less socially acceptable too tbf

Again, although it is something i do infrequently now, I drank a lot back in the day.

I'm in favour of discouragement, but not bans.

(Smoking cost me a lobe from my right lung, and gave me emphysema, which was reduced my walking speed muchly, I still wouldn't vote for a complete ban. ).
 
I'm in favour of discouragement, but not bans.

So you'd roll back the bans in all sorts of places in favour of discouragement, or leave them in place and just have no more bans?

Personally I think banning it slowly as has been happening is the right path, and some of the trickier areas (like social housing and public places) will be the last to go and more contentious of course.

The culture around this can change surprisingly quickly, I remember the fuss about pubs, planes, and trains and how some people portrayed it as an savage attack on personal freedom, but now being able to smoke on planes and in pubs looks a bit fucked up to most sensible people.
 
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