General Chat

im sorry but the thread is about smoking not drinking, so it was my opinion on smoking :-D altho i was jesting,

Geeshus,,,
Soo many drugs addicts on rehab programs OR kicking in your door to steal everything you own.....and you do not agree with programmes...
I am 46yo and been working all my life....I doubt your taxes paid for anyting I did or do...
I think I paid my own taxes thanks...

Stray....then do it for alcohol too....
Never seen anyone killed by drive smoking but seen many thousands killed by drive drinking...

Kellie

If people are stupid enough to do it, let them , we have a surplus population in the world let the idiots off first....

lolol I feel really antagonistic today, can you tell ;-)

Looking at it another way though, I drink more cups of coffee a day than most people smoke cigarettes...if it were banned entirely on health grounds I would just have to find an alternative 'panacea to all ills' wouldn't I :-D

Re drivers who smoke, it was in the news recently though I didn't read it all, that many accidents are caused by eating at the wheel... to me that is the same as smoking ( and phones) , ie you are not paying complete attention to your driving or other people on the road.

I do agree that it's the nanny state and will not work,

But i think as i suspect all smokers will agree that smoking is bad for use smokers but thats our choice,

However, as a parent i also think that we should at least try to dissuade our children from smoking,

I have never smoked in the house or in front of my children,

My dad smoked 60 a day but never in front of use or mum

Mum never smoked but because of her working in the working men's clubs she ended up with copd and that killed her, ( it's not nice to watch )

Dad who gave up smoking in 1970 is still with us

Roy

I certainly didn´t start smoking because I liked the pretty box the cigarettes came in.
When I was young, virtually everybody smoked, virtually anywhere & everywhere.
I do try to be considerate & would never smoke in another person´s presence if I knew they objected, but I don´t feel that anyone has the right to tell me I can´t, particularly the Government.
Hiding cigarettes & putting them in plain packaging won´t help.
In the days when condoms were sold in plain packages, people didn´t stop having sex.

Won't make the slightest bit of difference to me....I don't buy them from the shops ;-)

I agree with Eldrick....nanny state in action.....wish they'd but out (pardon the pun) and leave people to make their own choices...Not being able to see the box wouldn't have stopped me smoking when i first started and I can't see it doing anything except make it look even more attractive as an act of rebellion for a youngster looking to kick up a bit x

Kellie, hear in the UK drink driving is against the law with severe penalties

But even drink drivers and drug addicts are offered plenty of help for their addiction whilst smokers are given a very limited amount of help to kick their addiction

Only last year i had a letter from the local authority with a list of (handy) help line numbers for problems that affect people today,

The list had

2 numbers for people with drink problems,

1 number for police and anti social behavior problems

1 number for citizens advice centre

and 24 numbers for drug related problems

Roy

to be honest i dont smoke the box
so wont make any diffrence to me x

Its a classic addicts argument to point at other antisocial behaviours and practices and use them to justify their own addiction. I know, been there. You look at alcohol, for instance, and say that more people die from liver problems than lung cancer and convince yourself that its then OK to carry on.

Drinking and driving is already illegal in the UK, with heavy penalties, so its hard to draw a parallel there.

Perhaps the government should do what put me off smoking. Everytime my father ran out of fags, usually when I was watching something good on the tv,or happily playing with my friends, I had to walk up to the shop and fetch just ten woodies.

Even as a child I would have loved to have stuck them where the sun don't shine but that option wasn't available at the time when 'getting a good clout didn't do me any harm' was the more usual way of getting a point across.

Whilst it was illegal to serve a child under 16 that didn't stop my father making others flout the law until mysteriously when I got to about 15 my mother started buying them in and selling to my father as and when. In later years I realised that my mother must have been spoken to and that was why there was a change of tactics.

Many children will be addicted before they even start smoking hence the governments warning not to smoke near children, particularly in a closed environment. As little as ten years ago I was at my friends house doing some work for her and she decided to light up. The smoke made me go light headed, just the same as having the first quick puff as a teenager. My system does not like smoke.

When I caught my son, as you do, with his first lot of ciggies, I didn't go balistic. I simply said that our families were prone to heart condition brought on by smoking. My father in law had a coronary in his 40's, my father in his 40's, both died in their 50's and went on to explain that might sound very old to a fourteen year old. Six month later his auntie, a smoker, died at 48 leaving a family of 5, the youngest was just 12. At that point I told my son 'I rest my case'.-jl

HIya Roy,,,
It depends where you live...
USA has great success with certain drugs that are not permissible in Australia yet...
So we sit here with the methadone.....which is just a free boost to a junkies day.

I've never heard of people killed in a "person was smoking" car crash....
Seen thousands where someone was killed by drunk drivers.....

Maybe stamp out drunk drivers

Kellie

i think they should just bring a blanket ban in, now iv packed in :-D

Hmm, Im ambivalent about that. I dont see, in all honesty, why my tax should go towards weaning anyone off any addiction.

I see addictions as personal choices, conscious decisions to go down a particular route. To then expect the state to help you out once you realise that you've taken the wrong decision is open to debate.

Freedom to do things has a downside, in that you have to face up to the consequences and deal with them. Isit fair to expect other people to donate towards that? Im not sure it is but I could be persuaded, possibly.

I got on the tablets to stop smoking....(the tablets who make some ppl freak out and have nightmares etc) and nohing...
Gave up coffee and beer as well....slept like a baby and was working out most days....

Should we look at side effects??? and take them serious???

Should they refine them so thre are fewer side effects????

Kellie

I also think that if government was serious about stopping people smoking they should do more to help just as they do with drug addiction

Roy

Scozzie, Smoking will also block your arteries, give you blood disease and copd not to mention cancer although they do make a point about cancer yet you are more likely to die from one of the other diseases before cancer gets you

Roy

Theres nowt worse than an ex smoker! lol

I agree, education not bans is what works. But the message has to be clear and not subjective to the teacher. As far as sex education goes, we are so hung up, gullible, embarrased and naive about it that any teaching is going to be ineffective because the message is not reinforced outside of the classroom.

Same with smoking - if there was a way to reduce peer pressure that would help immensely. It has to be made unfashioable and uncool to smoke. At the moment, its cool beause its a rebel thing, Sending it underground will just make it worse.

As far as older smokers who should know better go (lol) I dont see anything wrong with having to stand outside if it means not inflicting smoke upon me. After all, its the smokers decision to smoke, Im not forcing it upon them and neither is anyone else. I never thought I would say this, but the more antisocial it becomes, the better for everyone. But if you really want to do it, go for it. By all means, smoke your head off! Stick needles in your bum, sniff glue, snort coke, do whatever you want. ut take the consequences. Just dont include me in the deal!

I know smoking is bad for me, but I'm an addict. No amount of nagging is going to make me stop. I will when I want to.

I take the ciggies out of the packet and put them in a box that doesn't fall open........ so I don't end up with a handbag full of broken ciggies and shreds of tobacco, I don't look at the warning or photographs (as we have in Australia) on the packets.

I don't smoke in my house. I don't smoke in anyone else's house.

But I get annoyed that governments provide rooms for drug addicts to "shoot up"........while we smokers have to stand in the street (in restricted areas) because WE are breaking the law if we smoke inside!

I like a drink now and then...... but I don't see warnings on the labels saying I'll die of liver failure.

I like a hamburger now and again...... but I don't see warnings there either....... this product is full of fat, it will clog your arteries and you may have a heart attack.

Phew! I feel better after that little rant. I'll get off my soapbox now.......... and go outside for a ciggie

:-D

Eldrick, Taxation is probably the only reason that their is not a total ban on smoking thats why i posted the figure from last year, and nothing to do with justifying smoking.

I have tried over the years to stop smoking but failed i no plenty who have successfully stopped smoking,

I have tried patches, acupuncture, hypnotherapy and hypnosis also the tablets from the doctor, the best i ever did was when i tried to go cold Turkey but gave in after 10 months of hell

As for education i think thats the way forward but if as it appears to be that education is not working then surely their is something wrong with how or what is being taught?

Yes youngsters will rebel against being told what to do but i would hope that as with most things that our young rebel over it would be just a case of them trying smoking out of curiosity? and then stopping before the addiction kicks in


Roy

As tax revenue seems to be the reason why people smoke, I wonder how many people would be prepared to smoke tax free ciggys if the NHS didnt cover treatment for people who smoked....?

Personally speaking, I would rather ban fast food outlets than smoking, but above all I would rather not ban anything and let people make up their own minds what they do with their bodies.

Just pondering, thats all. :-D :-D