Total Smoking Ban in the UK

Megatron wrote:

That is true , however they stopping us from having a choice of where we should use a Legal Product .

This is the point i'm trying to get across ( badly it would seem )

Once they do it once , they can do it as many times as they want.

Only in a certain capacity though. In actuality, the precedent has been set a long time ago, in terms of banning things. This is a workplace law, not a substance law, despite the hoo-ha and the praise from the anti-smoking lobby.

Unlike laws which govern banned substances (such as cocaine), this particular law doesn't restrict your freedom to choose to smoke. What it does is add law to the existing conditions of employment, guaranteeing certain rights to employees as regards the condition of their workplace. Another similar law insists that the workplace be maintained at a comfortable temperature (~18 degrees iirc). This particular one can be signed away by contract, but would you say that this is stamping on the freedom of those employees (from the Middle East for example) who are more comfortable in a warmer environment?

It really only sets a precedent as you suggest, if the proposed ban can be justified as a health benefit for employees. Indeed, it is true that it restricts your choice of where you may partake in this activity, but then that's quite fundamental to society. You've never been allowed to do what you want, where you want. You can't drive on a footpath. You can't drink in public. You can't drag race on a public road. You can't hold a sporting event in a private park (without permission), etc etc.

Like in the Republic of Ireland, smoking is not being banned in England, as many people like to portray it. You can still smoke as much as you want here, but not in certain places, so it hasn't been banned and smoking won't be banned in the England either. There are lots of lies around the smoking ban. They say smokers are being forced to go outside or not allowed in pubs. That is not true. A smoker can spend all day in the pub, but just not smoke there.

They say smokers are forced to go outside to smoke, which is not true either. Before or since the ban started, I have never seen anyone going up to anyone in a pub and say "You, get a packet of cigarettes, take one out and go outside and smoke it." Have you ever seen that happen? I doubt it. So no one is forcing them to go outside. It is purely their own choice. To say any different is pure fiction.

They say it is discriminating against smokers which is also not true. Nobody is allowed to smoke in the pubs, so it applies to everyone. How can something that applies to everyone be called discriminatory? Whether you want to smoke or not is irrelevant, the law still applies to you. You may never want to rob a bank or murder someone, but it is still illegal for you to do so. The law applies to you just as much as it does to the professional criminal. The smoking ban applies just as much to non-smokers as it does to smokers, so no one is being discriminated against, or do you think that criminals should be allowed to murder people or rob banks if they want to?

They say places are not being provided for smokers. That also is not true. They can smoke outside. There is moving air there and they will get all sorts of different weathers, so they have a fully air-conditioned, all-weather smoking area. What more could they want?

They say it is not fair to send people outside in the cold and rain. As I said already, no one is forcing them to go outside, it is their own choice. Also, if they are not worried about lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases, a bit of pneumonia certainly isn't going to concern them. It would be a bit ironic if smokers complained about having to go outside on health grounds, now wouldn't it?

Don't forget too, that the law is being brought in primarily to help those that have to work in the previously smokey environments. As a bonus the customers benefit too.

The law is not there to victimise smokers or launch some vendetta on them, as some people like to portray it. It is not there as a bigotted or intolerant measure aimed at smokers. It was not put in place because people smoke, but because of the hazards that environmental tobacco smoke has. It is designed to completely remove the smoke, not the smokers. Smokers are as welcome in pubs and other enclosed workplaces as they ever were. It is a health measure aimed at tackling the smoke, not the smokers. Smokers may be inconvenienced by it, but the common good, from which they too will benefit, comes first. That is the way things are in most societies. So it is not intolerant or bigotted.

So when you look at it, it is a very fair, non-discriminatory, healthy, free to choose law and everyone benefits from it. You can't say that about many laws. Now, stick that in your pipe and smoke it, but please go outside first.

We get to hear poor publicans cry about the end of the pub as we know it, and old guys saying "Im 80 and ive been smoking all my life, aint done me any harm.", again.

Excellent news. I was/am going over to England a good bit with work and football and was starting to really get annoyed having to go to pubs after a game as my eyes couldn't take it or my lungs.

Now I can enjoy a pint or 2.