Re: Smoking ban

beamendsltd wrote:

[... ]
I gave up for 2 and a half years. I felt no better, put on weight,
and noticed no difference in the taste of food - and to cap it all
I started suffering from IBS (which went away when I stated again!).

This suggests serious underlying problems, for which smoking is merely a symptomatic treatment, not a cure. The negative effects of smoking are a steep price to pay for such illusory improvements. But it's your life.

But now I see you are an ex-smoker I can see where you are coming from,
it was ok when you did it, but you have decided to stop so everyone else
should too. I do actually understand that, but I'm affraid I don't think it's fair.


Richard


Actually, I don't want to stop you smoking. Just don't smoke in my presence.

It was _not_ ok when I did it. I used to tell my students that smoking was a stupid thing to do. They knew I'd been a smoker, so they always challenged me: "Then you must have been stupid when you smoked, too." I always answered, "Of course I was."

I started smoking as most people do - because I suffered from the delusion that it made me look cool and more mature (remember the sweets that looked like cigarettes?) Within a very short time, I realised just how bad it was for me, but I couldn't stop. And didn't stop, for years. I was smoking 30-40 cigs a day.

When I coughed up bloody phlegm and reached for the cigarettes first thing in the morning, even before taking the early morning leak, I realised something was seriously wrong with me. That's when I tried to quit.

I'm sorry you didn't notice any improvement in the the taste of food when you quit. It can't have had any taste, then. ;-)

As for government intrusion into private lives: there's been talk of putting up video surveillance cameras here, as has been done for years in the UK. People here don't want that intrusion into their privacy. Then there are planning rules about cutting down trees on your own property, for example, which are considered normal in the UK - good grief, you allow that intrusion into your private decisions? What's the world coming to?

So it's really just what you're used to.

There is another argument wrt to smoking: you and we have publicly funded healthcare. Smokers account for the vast majority of early (under 60) heart attacks, and assorted other early-onset ailments, which cost loadsadough. There are a few hard-hearted souls who argue that a smoker should be allowed one heart attack at public expense. The second (if there is one) will be at your expense. I don't agree, but I've heard this argument from those who claim to protect the tax payers from government folly.

.

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