No, I’m not selling used Brussels Sprouts, I’m talking about second hand, third hand, and fourth hand second cigarette smoke.

It’s not just the UK which has banned smoking in enclosed spaces. Ireland started it. Spain is now doing it. And now Bhutan is going to the nth degree in banning it. Soon everyone will be at it. The state is banning a legal product just because they’ve been persuded by people with ulterior motives who simply don’t like smokers. Or anyone who is enjoying themselves as drinkers are next in the firing line.

I suspect given a chance they would like to ban Brussels Sprouts next. For those who like them it’s a pleasure to eat but there are side effects just like second hand smoke, though the smell comes from a different orifice.

The whole point of banning smoking is not to make people healthier. That’s what you might think it is, but it’s not. It’s only a cover. It’s like the whole point of speed cameras is to slow people down, but it isn’t as has been shown recently with the case of Michael Thompson getting a criminal record for indicating to other drives about the presence of a speed trap. The real reason bans are in place is to impose the will of one group over another. It’s a battle for a perceived moral high ground and they will use any method to win even when they are shown that their arguments no scientific basis in fact.

As an example of the lack of science, smoking is banned around playgrounds in certain localities because of the harm that second hand smoke in the atmosphere can cause to young children’s lungs. The fact that these playgrounds are next to roads full of cars emitting noxious fumes from their exhausts is totally ignored as they play up the fact that cigarette smoke from 100m away can cause cancer.

Or when they tire of false science they resort to typical Fabian stateist methods of control. That is the control of your private life even when they aren’t anywhere near – just because they can’t countenance the fact that some people enjoy things that harm them and could potentially affect someone else in a minor way. I wonder when they are going tell base jumpers off (polite words for banning and putting in prison anyone who performs it) because of the number who die from enjoying themselves doing it and who could potentially give someone a heart attack when they see them jumping off a building.

And not forgetting the emotional weapon when they use stories of famous people who have died of lung cancer claiming that they died due to second hand smoke. An example being Roy Castle who self diagnosed his cancer as being due to smoke from when he performed his shows. There has been no proof produced to show this was the case. In actual fact Roy was known to smoke the odd cigar and admitted that he had not smoked a cigarette for 25 years prior to his cancer. Theatrical special effects are just as likely to have caused his cancer as in the past they used highly carcogenic materials to produce effects like fog and dust. His genes are another potential source of his cancer and it might have been nothing to do with cigaratte smoke at all.

So I ask those who don’t like cigarette smoke and complain loudly that they have to suffer by walking through it at entraces to office blocks, do you still go to the now empty and rapidly closing down pubs? Look honestly at your own lifestyle and does any of it interfere with another person’s or is something that someone hates. For instance do you have noisy unruly kids, enjoy loud music, have messy front gardens, enjoy blood sports, etc. In a free and open society everyone has to accept that life is not perfect and centered around themselves. Everyone affects everyone else in some way. If you insist that someone stops a certain activity that you hate be prepared for them to respond and force you to stop doing something you like just for the simple reason that they don’t like your particular vice. Either we have the situation where nothing is allowed because it could potentially upset someone somewhere sometime or we allow everything to happen and just learn to live with it.

Declaration of interst: I don’t smoke, I hate going into smoky pubs and clubs so I don’t or go to other places, but I feel it important to allow people to do what they want to do so long as I can avoid them by choice and they have a choice as to where they can smoke. That’s because I understand that if one group is controlled, it becomes easier to control another group. The ban is not appropriate because it doesn’t give smokers a choice so it’s not fair.

SBML

davidb January 6, 2011 at 22:13

Never had to wash my clothes, ever, after being in a room full of farting
people. Tobacco just stinks. Its horrible. Its got to be one of the worst
smells known to man. Only marginally worse than rotting refuse or cattle guts
at a rendering plant. Much though it goes against my instincts to ban things,
really tobacco needs to be contained in enclosed areas away from the rest of
society.

Gloria Smudd
January 6, 2011 at 22:31

You’re lucky you haven’t spend a night in front of the telly with the
Smudds, davidb. Ssssspppprrraaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhtttts are our top choice for
wintry veg and most flatulising they are too if boiled senseless with the
lid off the pan. Many a day I’ve turfed up at the gentile office whiffing
stongly of both pre- and post-digested, over-boiled cabbagette.

SadButMadLad
January 7, 2011 at 00:01

I agree that the smell is noxious, that’s because like smoke in general
the human nose seems to be highly sensitised to it. But being contained in
enclosed areas is better than being placed outside where the 2nd hand smoke
might land on someone and create 3rd hand smoke. In enclosed areas
ventilation can be used to control the smell and smoke levels so that it
causes minimal disruption to others who are not close by.

The enclosure could be in seperate rooms or areas as decided by the owner
of the property on the basis of what is best for their business. So if they
are a “working mans club” then they might have the whole place as smoking.
If they are a family resturant they might totally ban smoking altogther.
It’s up to the individual to decide not the state and not busy bodies who
hate the smell.

Anonymous Coward
January 6, 2011 at 20:18

I’m not a smoker, and don’t particularly like being in a smoky room, but
enjoyed a nostalgic evening at a pub recently which locked up just after
eleven before handing out the ashtrays. Didn’t much care for the smoke, but
there was a warm glow coming from the knowledge that the man had been put in
his proper place (ie. ignored).

Stilyaqi January 6, 2011 at 16:19

I believe the whole idea of second hand smoke causing cancer is an utter
fallacy. If there were a grain of truth in it, there would be no one left
alive over the the age of 60 or so. We were brought up in smoke-filled rooms,
travelled to school in smoke-filled buses, gazed at the cinema screen through
swirls of smoke, and when we were ill even the doctor’s waiting room doubled
as a smoking room.

Michael January 6, 2011 at 20:06

…And you try and tell the young people of today that ….. they won’t
believe you.

Scan January 6, 2011 at 14:45

Re: Messy Gardens

As daft as the idea might sound, in many private housing estates in the US
you can can be evicted from your house for:

Not cutting your grass short enough
Not keeping in green
enough
Planting the wrong type of grass

The basis is that your front lawn directly affects house prices locally and
in the house contracts there are specific clauses covering this and many other
similarly insane standards.

In fact there’s an whole episode of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit (Season 7
Episode 8: Lawns) with exactly this in point.

Gildas the Monk
January 6, 2011 at 13:02

It’s good to see Anna’s blog is back to its eclectic, charming and funny
best!

Caedmon’s
Cat January 6, 2011 at 12:39

I’ve already highlighted the dangers of passive drinking:
http://caedmonscat.blogspot.com/2010/11/great-passive-danger.html
Those
nobles who tell us such things and introduce the bans are so much superior in
knowledge and wisdom to the Great Unwashed. Who are we serfs and cats to
question their authority, their intelligence or their motives?

Majic January 6, 2011 at 12:36

Well said! I’m going off to enjoy a full packet of Marlboro reds on the
strength of the key points raised here.

It’s a cliché I know however, and I will say it; we started down a slippery
slope. Today the alienation of the humble smoker what will it be tomorrow and
how far will they go before people actually realise that things are getting
out of hand.

And don’t get me started on the damn speed cameras.

Richard Manns
January 6, 2011 at 12:14

There is quite a bit of evidence that 2nd-hand smoke is carcinogenic, and I
don’t feel you can question 2nd-hand smoke whilst simultaneously blaming
artificial fog. This is hypocritical. Further, if you haven’t smoked for
decades, then your odds of cancer fall to that of a non-smoker, so Roy
Castle’s history of active smoking is pretty irrelevant. Here’s the relevant
WHO link: http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol83/volume83.pdf

Further, smoking differs greatly from drinking in that you have no choice.
You will breathe it if it’s in that room, and “No Smoking” areas don’t have
the desired effect; the risk is no different. I don’t have to drink your
single malt just because you’re drinking it a yard away, although I’d probably
like to.

Secondly, car fumes are in no way as carcinogenic as cigarette smoke.
Cigarettes are designed to burn very badly, so that the nicotine and benzenes
remain, as well as carbon monoxide, etc. Cars must burn efficiently to get the
most out of their fuel, and so the levels of carcinogens are far lower. The
heat and oxygen supply of a 21st-century engine is far better than the end of
a fag, and they get better and better every year, e.g. catalytic
converters.

In the end, we’ve exchanged one form of no choice with another; it would be
nice to have “smoking clubs” or something, to introduce choice, but don’t
pretend that the freedom was lost. Nor do I agree that smoking would be banned
as a logical consequence; there’s little incentive to do so.

Declaration: I have never smoked, but I support the right of smokers to do
so in their own homes, etc, to their heart’s content, and agree with the chap
who warned about the speed camera.

Ed P January 6, 2011 at 13:59

The dangers of 2nd hand smoke “evidence” is not robust & often from
unscientific studies.
Good pubs had smoke particulate filters to manage
their airflow & keep their non-smoking areas completely free of smoke
residues, even with recycled air.
Diesel particulates are both
carcinogenic and “nano” sized, so they lodge in the smallest spaces within
the lungs. These are much more hazardous to children at school near a road
than (a parent) smoking outside.
I too am a non-smoker; but prefer facts,
not hearsay. Mainly I object to the heavy, proscribing, controlling hand of
the state.

SadButMadLad
January 6, 2011 at 17:16

Actually most of the evidence for 2nd hand smoke is bunkum. That’s not to
say that if you breathed in cigarette smoke continuously you’d wouldn’t be
affected but the damage caused is minor. It causes some damage to the lungs,
but not enough to start lung cancer and tumours. If there was any damage
from cigarette smoke especially outdoor around playgrounds then BBQs and
bonfires would be banned. The amount of smoke off a cigarette is small even
though the smell can be quite strong – but then witness that you can smell a
single BBQ from miles away. That’s because the human nose is sensitive to
it.

As for choice, yes non-smokers do have a choice. I don’t have to go into
a smokey pub. In fact I have sometimes avoided them and gone to pubs which
had good ventilation. The fact is if there was enough demand from
non-smokers where smoking wasn’t permitted then market conditions would mean
that such premises would be set up. Especially if the law allowed premise
owners to decide for themselves on the basis of who their clientle was.

Anna
Raccoon January 6, 2011 at 11:45

You will be glad to learn that The Raccoon Arms remains a strictly
chain-smoking establishment.
I do like the idea of Lenko’s smoke-easy
though, might drop in there for a change now and again.

lenko
January 6, 2011 at 17:27

You are always welcome as a guest of the management, Anna. Likewise,
charabanc parties of bloggers high and low are heartily welcomed.

The only rule of Lenko’s Exclusive Smokateria is that those guests who do
not wish to smoke must go outside to not do it.

lenko January 6, 2011 at 11:22

A great post which reminds me of my plan to introduce a nation-wide chain
of Smoke-Easies, once they have taken the final step and banned smoking in our
own homes.

Staffed by glamorous hostesses, customers will be able to puff away at a
secret address, whilst watching dancing girls (possibly wearing gas-masks).
Bootleg cigarettes of all types will be available, except for herbal ones. And
there will be armed bouncers, to see off the Feds.

Stand by for further announcements.