Smoking etiquette

I tend to say smoking in peoples faces for no reason is dickish.

Smoking in their face because they are a dick, or they are your mate and they are ok with you having a laugh is ok.

Smoking in a reasonably busy area and blowing their smoke into the sky is perfect behaviour, and everyone should applaud their actions.

"Oh my god! Someone smoking in an open space and I don't like it! It's too much to ask of me to simply walk around them or hold my breath for five seconds while I go past. Hang them!"

What I find outstanding is the sheer arrogance to believe that it is your air to pollute. You don't own the air, it isn't yours. It must be kept clean for everyone, rather than run the risk of causing discomfort and suffering to others as to facilitate a completely unnecessary and harmful act.

And maybe this conversation would be more constructive if people didn't exaggerate my opinion to the ludicrous as to make fun of something that I wasn't even saying. That's discussion born of the school of Jeremy Clarkson.

When did I say I want to 'hang' someone for smoking?

When did I say I found smoking 'offensive'?

When did I say that I want to make smoking illegal 'full stop'?

I didn't and you all know it. The fact that you have had to go to such stupendous lengths to try and undermine my opinion shows that you have a complete deficit of reason to your side of the argument.

What I find outstanding is the sheer arrogance to believe that everyone wants clean air. I'm a city boy, I'm used to air you can chew. You don't own the air, it isn't yours. You have no right to tell other people not to do something just because you don't like it. If you want cleaner air, just take a couple of paces away from the smoker.

I don't even smoke. I just don't like fascism and state bullying.

We're rightly not allowed to look down on gays any more, so we needed to find a new target to treat as sub-human.

I dislike smoking and don't see what people get from it, but I know many smokers, and I know that as long as they aren't blocking a path then they are fine, I think people should be allowed to smoke outside whereever they want except in places like queue lines or doorways where there is no way to avoid smoking.

Meat Pie said:

What I find outstanding is the sheer arrogance to believe that it is your air to pollute. You don't own the air, it isn't yours. It must be kept clean for everyone, rather than run the risk of causing discomfort and suffering to others as to facilitate a completely unnecessary and harmful act.

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Life is short, I choose to enjoy it as much as possible whilst showing my fellow human beings a reasonable amount of courtesy whenever possible. That’s it. My philosophy on life. You don't need anything deeper than that.

I do find the notion that you wish to condemn someone for enjoying a cigarette in an open space pretty OTT. Where would you like it stop? I find the smell of fish offensive. I declare that no one should be allowed to eat fish and chips near me. If I enter the lift at work and someone has been in there recently whilst wearing strong perfume my eyes sting. I simply must write a strongly worded email to the head of office!

When someone at 6th form comes back up after going outside for a fag and they smell of smoke, do I complain, no I get on with my work.

Annoys me that people complain smokers are ruining the planet, the smokers aren't ruining it, the anti-smokers are ruining it.

Can we get back to etiquette of smoking. As i did not start this thread argue over who is right, smoker or non smoker but people thoughts about how smoker can be sensitive to the non smoker and visa versa.

Quite right, Delta.
Well here's an example of how I try to be considerate. If walking down the street with a fag in hand, and I see a child coming towards me, I pass the cigarette to the hand furthest from the child and give them as wide a berth as possible. After all, the hand of a standing adult can be face height to a small child.

I generally try to keep far away from children anyway, but even more so when I'm smoking. I've often had kids hanging around outside newsagents ask me to buy them fags (or even booze), and I always refuse. At Thorpe, I've frequently had kids, some shockingly young, run up to me and ask for a fag, and I tell them to get stuffed. Even as someone who enjoys smoking, I would never encourage anyone, least of all a child, to take it up.

Blaze, if you believe that the protecting the liberty of others and of the ecology not to be harmed by tainted air is 'fascism' then you are very politically naive. In fact, I dare say it is offensive to those who have suffered at the hand of genuine fascism to even contemplate putting the two anywhere near the same category.

Being a smoker isn't a race or a sexuality. Those are uncontrollable characteristics that harm no-body. Smoking is a very controllable act that selfishly treats your immediate air-space around you as the dumping ground for your harmful smoke. To smoke in public is conscious decision treat your own wishes as more important than the health of others.

And Diogo... Come on now, you are saying that humans have an unequivocal right to taint the air with harmful substances? Well in that case I'll walk around with radioactive uranium in my pocket, and you will presumably have no problem with it at all, even if it harms my immediate environment or anyone that walks through said immediate environment. It's selfish behavior that's akin to a child whose only concern is that they really wanna do it.

You've no right to rob everyone else their access to untainted air, something which is a collective commons which no individual has the right to alter.

Novas - Do you ever contribute anything of worth, or do you just make it your mission to express drivel in every topic of this forum? You open with utterly useless questions which have the only purpose of trying to make you look smart and funny, (something which it ends up doing the opposite of) and to denigrate me with some pathetic attempt at character defamation.

I simply don't understand how anyone reasonable could ridiculously assert that not liking the smell of fish is anything near the same as expelling harmful gasses that are not good for either the unwilling recipient of second-hand smoke, or the immediate environment.

Quite the oposite, Meat. All the reasonable people are saying that smoking outside is not an issue. It's about as polluting as pissing in the ocean. Your insistence that smoking outside is still a problem is what is ridiculous.

Protecting the liberty of others is exactly what you're not doing. You've got it backwards. By the full definition, fine, it's not fascism. But it is still state bullying of one group of people the deem unworthy, and that's still wrong. Equality and tolerance doesn't stop at groups you don't like.

You're right, it's not a race or sexuality, but so what? Does that mean the state can punish people who do other things they don't like, hobbies, interests, whatever? Maybe the future PM has motion sickness, so raises tax on theme park tickets and says we're only allowed to visit once a year, and we have to write in advance and all thee parks have to be moved well away from society?

And if addiction is a mental health issue, then it's not exactly a 'selfish choice' is it? You wouldn't treat addicts of illegal substances (and most people even extend this to alcohol) with such disdain, so why smokers? And what if they smoke because they suffer ulcerative colitis? Or to help cope with stress?

You're comparing smoking to walking round with uranium. now who's being silly?

Untainted air? In a city? It's not difficult to avoid it, and you're not exactly going to develop tumours by catching a brief whiff of smoke as you walk past 20 feet away.

As for fish, smell is subjective. Some people like the smell and taste of smoke. Some people hate the smell of fish so much it makes them ill. What if it makes me throw up? That smell is harming me against my will.

And novas has it spot on. Chill out, or you'll end up having a heart attack before any of the smokers here do.

Christ, after all this I really do need to start. Anyone got a light?

I think everyone's getting a bit carried away in here!

I use the underground which is filthy, I drive a car to work which is polluting the air, when I go abroad I'm sat on a plane which is polluting the air. Where do you stop?

I think it's a bit bold to say smoking in public is selfish. I'm someone who can't stand smoking and would never do it myself, but I accept that people like it and have it has a hobby, though there's a fair percentage of people I've come across that do it due to addiction but that's a whole other discussion.

Sorry Meat Pie but providing a smoker stands a few feet out of the way in which people are walking and are blowing the smoke skyward, I don't see the problem with it being in public.

MP:

My silly analogies perfectly demonstrated my problem with the idea that smoking should be banned because a certain person or group of people do not like it, I did not make any case either way regarding the environmental argument. But now we're on it, please educate me. How does smoking harm the environment?

I would assume that as tobacco comes from a plant the overall carbon output is neutral. The tabacco plant until harvested is good for the environment?

The butts are a problem, but no more than crisp wrappers or any other form of litter.

The chemical output from smoking is harmful. I don't doubt that for a second, however the quantities that your talking about in a rural area on a still day are so fractionally small and immeasurable that I cannot understand what your outrage is actually based on.

For the record I'd also like to say that I am not pro smoking.

I think some recent advancements like the tough regulation on tobacco advertising and the ban on smoking in enclosed places are fantastic advances for public health. I'm less keen on the constant tax hikes, but mainly because I don't like the way politicians push the tax as being 'for the good of public health' when it's just a blatant cash grab.

As a final point my father has lung disease caused by many years of smoking. I have seen the damage it can do first hand. I am not defending smoking and never will, but I will argue for peoples rights to do whatever the hell they want with their lives so long as it does not impact on anyone else, and smoking, outdoors, in a designated or isolated space, is exactly that.

Regarding the personal attacks, yes, I tend to try and be light hearted in my posts. I can do serious as well but as this thread is proving it’s often a lot of time / effort for nothing. I will say that most people on here have been immensely friendly and welcoming to me. Yes, some of my earlier posts were on the line and on the odd occasion where genuine offense was unintentionally caused I have always apologised, however I learnt from it and at the moment I feel very comfortable with my posing style.

I may come across as quite sarcastic and bitter, but the truth is that I am an exceptionally chirpy human being, and I cannot understand your constant state of moral outrage and seriousness.

*Passes Blaze a stick of white joy*

Another piece of good smoking etiquette, always help out a friend in need who has run out. The favour will be returned when you need it most.

The smell of fish does indeed make me dry heave. Give me a smoker over a fishmonger any day!

Meat Pie said:

"Waaaah waaah waah... I'm SO persecuted because others don't want to suffer the consequences of my own selfish behaviour... Waaaahhh waaahhh waaaah."

Come off it Diogo, it's below you to play such an argument.

As for you pointing at Car fumes - I agree with you! We need to get people to stop using their cars for short-distance travel when they can take a healthier bicycle ride or walk, which is not only good for themselves, but it's good for the climate due to reduced carbon emissions, and as you pointed out, good for air quality. Also where possible, long-distance travel should be replaced with train journeys or other less immediately polluting methods of transport. Or better yet, we can replace our horrid polluting car system with eco-friendly alternatives such as electric cars that don't emit any fumes.

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In many cases electric cars have a more detrimental effect on the environment than petrol or diesel cars. Gas and coal make up the majority of the power generation in the UK and the rest of the world this is used to generate the electricity to charge the cars, the extraction of toxic minerals and then disposal of said minerals and toxins requires more power and more efforts that again can be detrimental to the environment.

I can't remember exactly which University conducted the research (me thinks it was somewhere in Norway) but at the moment electric cars provide no environmental benefit at all but I catch the bus anyway.

Until we use more renewable energy sources or more nuclear power then we won't see the true benefits of the electric car and until that day I'll continue to smoke.

In reply to the OP, being a smoker of many years than:-

i smoke freely at home and in the car, beer gardens and pub smoking areas. However at home and in the car if I have guests then i do make an effort to limit my smoking. I like to think of it as like "if you want a lift then you accept that i may smoke, but i will make an effort to keep it to a minimum."

I don't like to smoke in crowded places like town centres but will seek out a quiet niche if possible.

Themeparks are in designated areas unless its open policy, but never in queuelines.

another post brought up litter. if there is no receptacle i break off the filter and stash those for later disposal. the tobacco remnant and paper are biodegradeable.

Excuse any grammar errors please, hard to type on a phone with a ciggie in my hand

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The only problem I have with people who smoke in public is the god awful stink. I have to cover my nose & mouth as I walk past or I feel physically sick. Also my dad has asthma, so when someone smokes near him in a queue or a close space like that. We politely point out that we don't really want to breath in your smoke. Put it out please. Smoking in your back garden ect. I am fine with.