Last night, English MPs voted in favour of a ban on smoking in all enclosed spaces. Which is fabulous. When it comes into effect next summer it will be great: No more smokey clothes after you've been to the pub. We can safely eat out at restaurants without fear of being seated next to a chain smoker. No more smoke in your face when you go into the clubhouse for a drink after football. No more whingy smokers saying 'if they don't like the smoke why don't they go outside'. Who knows, maybe no more smokers lighting in the tunnels in the train stations (have you ever tried to evade smoke from someone walking in front of you in a narrow enclosed space?).
England are lagging behind a few notable countries, including all their neighbours. They even gave the Welsh assembly special powers last year, so that they could have a total smoking ban.
Part of the debate in England was the 'all enclosed spaces' bit. Originally they wanted to exempt private clubs and bingo parlours. The uproar by the smoking lobby (Forest) is fantastic:
"This is a double whammy and an unnecessary and illiberal piece of legislation that denies freedom of choice... politicians have no right to force people to quit." (Director of Forest, in The Herald, 15th Feb) (It is tough for those people who never leave the pub, but look on the bright side, now they too can talk about the weather)
But he told the BBC (15/2) that they have "lost the battle but not necessarily the war". Because people will continue to smoke?
And one of my favourites, in a New Scientist article (17/5/04) reporting an epidemilogical study that found second hard smoke at work kills one person per week in the UK, "Once again we are presented with estimates, calculations and 'likely risk'. Where is the hard evidence that passive smoking is killing people?". (In case you are interested, second hand smoke increases your risk of heart disease by 24%, and the risk of lung disease by 23%. Estimates and calculations sure, but the damn ethics people won't let me force people to inhale smoke, so we have to rely on bar workers etc).
With all the hot air about how businesses are going to suffer because grannies won't play bingo anymore, human rights, blah blah blah, the New Scientist article was the only one that mentioned that many other countries have implemented smoking bans without the economy collapsing (and without forcing people to quit).
Had my little rant. Back to my smoke free workplace.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
No comment. m
That's great news. It was so strange walking into a cafe in London to be surrounded by smoke. Hard to believe how far ahead Australia actually is in this regard. Germany is really behind, I can't see them bringing in a total smoking ban anytime soon. It is still common-place for people to smoke at their desks in office buildings here. Admittedly, the windows actually open here, so it's not quite so bad.
But I'm not so sure about a total indoor smoking ban. People should still have the right to kill themselves if they wish. I think Australia has the right idea with relegating smokers to one small area of the pub. It's ironic that you can still smoke somewhere indoors in Australia but the weather is mostly nice enough for you to go outside, whereas in England you won't be able to smoke anywhere indoors and you can't go outdoors or your cigarette will go all soggy :-)
I think it will start to seem much easier just to quit!!
Moving to Germany has definitely not helped Steve's smoking at all, although I am a very good girl.
You're 'a very good girl' - that's not what I heard, smokey von smokey.
I think a total ban is good. NHS is paying £1.5 billion a year to treat diseases caused by smoking, and it is only ~25% of the population smoking. If Italy can bring in a ban surely Germany can do it. (And did you see - Bhutan has banned the sale of tobacco products).
I am a good girl!! I have really quit this time. I haven't had a single puff for about 4 weeks and I'm sticking to it. Anyway, I've never been that bad, i.e. only on weekends. But I really mean it now, cos it generally makes me feel like shit, so why am I doing it!?
That's great news for Bhutan. It's my favourite country (although I haven't been there), mostly because they value happiness more than prosperity, e.g. rather than GDP, they measure GNH - gross national happiness!
If only Germany could be more like that :-)
(Although they're all a bit TOO happy this week as it's carneval...they are strange people...even in Ikea there were customers wearing pirate costumes etc...)
Post a Comment