Question time
Saturday, December 8, 2007 
A journalist writing an article about the impact of the smoking ban has sent us the following questions. I'd be interested in your response:
1. How would you say smokers have reacted to the smoking ban? Do you feel that people have been encouraged to give up?
2. In the small town where I live in a number of pubs and clubs have spent a lot of money converting their establishments to provide outdoor smoking areas. Many of these include outdoor heating which, it could be suggested, might have an environmental impact. What would your comment on this be?
3. Interviews I have conducted for my article so far have suggested that smoking has become more of a social activity since the ban. Going outside for a cigarette has become part of a night out for people. What would your comment on this be? Do you think smoking has become more socially acceptable since the ban?
4. Some smokers I have spoken to have suggested that going for a cigarette has become a way to meet new people. Approaching someone to ask for a lighter etc can be a great way to strike up a conversation. What would your comment on ‘smirting’ (smoking and flirting) be?
5. It could be suggested that non-smokers are encouraged to join their friends for a cigarette outside rather than be left alone in the pub/club. Do you think non-smokers will be encouraged to take up smoking as a social activity?
Reader Comments (22)
1. NO. I believe it has made people more defiant.
2. Definately not environmently friendly. Thousands of tons of CO2s from heaters. No CO2s when smoking inside.
3. In summer yes, but in winter I'm not sure.
4 and 5. More likely to be the case with youngersters.
1. No - not at all.
2. Try having a cigarette and coffee underneath an awning on an average winter day - let alone with a gale blowing. Ditto at an evening function with no facilities at all. It is absolutely freezing out there.
3. Maybe in fair weather, yes. Not a lot of that at the moment.
4. I haven't yet smirted but it's possible.
5. Non-smokers taking it up as a social activity? Well it could be one way to reverse the legislation if they are! That would be interesting.
Heaters and environment: go back to properly run smoking areas and no problem!
Who is the journalist?
Rather than asking questions that are irrelavant because of the different answers in differing locations, maybe he/she should do a little research concerning the scadalous lies the ban is based on, or is that too much work.
It's much easier to ask inane questions than to actually do any worthwhile investigative journalism that could blow this crusade wide open, and really educate the public.
I'm not holding my breath.
1. I like many people have shelved any casual, passing half thoughts about giving up until the ban has been amended.
2. There maybe more CO2 in the air, but has anyone done any figures on CO2 as a how may burners you need compared to a car?. I think a lot less, methinks.I think it is a sigh of he times how desperate the anti smoking lobby is getting.
3. Falls into 2 areas for me. The health fascists and anti smokers have a stick to beat us with. The majority of us, and with non smokers, stick 2 fingers up to nanny/bully state with pride.
4. Certainly the best conversation starter I have had."How are you getting on with the smoking ban".
5. I have met people who have started smoking again since the ban. It seems a hat, coat and a cigarette outside has become a new masonic lodge which people want to join.
Zitori hit the nail on the head,
I watched a programme on TV this morning where yet another 'expert' was bleating on about how the 'average person' (whatever the hell that is), will drink twenty-four pints of lager, ninety seven gin & tonics and forty nine sherries over Xmas. At no point did anyone on the programme challenge any part of these ridiculous assertions.
Until something is done to strangle the trade in bogus statistics and stop the neo-voodoo that is epidemiology, all our freedoms remain under constant threat.
PS, the statistics quoted above were derived by the time honoured epidemiological method of pulling them out of my ar*e...
1. In the main smokers have reacted well and with good humour. I am not sure there has been any encouragement to give up. I feel more that smokers have just been resettled outside.
2. The impact is likely to be negligible.
3. I think it has become less socially acceptable since the ban but smokers probably feel more solidarity about their habit.
4. It has always happened.
5. Some suggest that has happened. I can’t say I have ever been tempted to smoke since the ban.
I have found that since the ban we have met alot more people while standing outside the pub having a fag even non smokers are coming outside because their friends are out there. The landlords/landladys look bored behind the bar unless of course they are stood outside the pub as well. ps since the ban the smells you get in the pubs can be ugh!
1. No ban like this is going to encourage smokers to give up.
2. Negligble impact, unless you buy into the whole global warming issue.
3. Definitely more sociable. Us "lepers" tend to stick together definatly.
4. It ddefinitely opens opportunities to smirt.
5. This will not encourage non-smokers to take up the habit - we all have a mind of our own.
I have become more defiant since the ban. It is the first issue ever that I have felt strongly enough about to spend time researching and writing letters and emails; and also the first time I have seriously thought of breaking the the law as an act of protest. I may have eventually given up smoking without the ban, as many people do on reaching their 50s; but I have now become quite obsessed with getting it amended. I refuse to stand outside a pub to smoke and have not been in a pub or cafe since the smoking ban started.
1. (a) It's opened a lot of people's eyes to the lunacy/authoritarianism of this government. (b)Not really.
2. Surely more environmentally friendly to have a large log fire, with people 'allowed' to smoke indoors next to it ?
3. Not sure - I think it has 'formalised' many people's attitudes.
4. Would never cross my mind ... :O)
5. Not really.
1. No
2. Wish some of the pubs and clubs could here in Shetland – even those that provided a bus shelter for smokers had to remove them and or take out the panels
3. Depends on the weather- yes there is a lot of social contact outside – but householders living nearby pubs are complaining about the noise. Some publicans are even saying that folk are staying at home – and unless I have to go out in a bad weather night I would probably stay at home and invite friends around.
4. Yes – you can have some interesting conversations with strangers – mind you I am married so no flirting!
5. I have met a lot of non-smokers outside having a laugh and a joke. They are there on their own accord!
The 'Norman' who wrote five posts above this is not me. Perhaps he is a 'Pseudo Norman'. It would seem to me to be propaganda to say that smokers 'have reacted well'. I have sent several notes to this site in which I have tried to point out the potential tyranny buried in health campaigning. I can only wonder whether 'Pseudo Norman' is out to create mischief. Perhaps my comments have touched a nerve somewhere. If he really is also called 'Norman' and his views are genuine he should call himself 'NormanA' or something.
1) Badly, we haven't been given a choice have we ?, The legislation was based on junk science, promoted by lobby groups funded with taxpayers money i.e. ASH who have received £ 1.4 m of taxpayers money since 1999 and who now in Scotland have 27 employees, and we are told that it is banned in all public spaces, in order to promote an even playing field. Nothing said about Pubs and hotel owners being allowed
to run their own business and let people decide.If you want a smoke free pub let the market decide not the Nanny State. Dictate to people that they cannot smoke and they will rebel, so no it has the opposite effect, if people want to give up,it'll be through eduation not coercion.
2) Environmental impact, no doubt you are referring to space heaters here, Compare that to the noxious gases emitted by cars and Oh. the place where I work emits their toxic waste at night, so no one really notices, apart from the Government departments who monitor these emissions.
3)The legislation is similar to prohibition, and when something, no matter what, is prohibited it creates it's own excitement, and when taxed to extremes it becomes a game as to who can beat the 'system', and we now have organised crime vying for its place in the new lucrative drugs market. A market which successive Governments have made massive profits.
4)Great stuff , I agree 'smirting' a great way to meet people who are at least tolerant and that tells you a lot about who you're talking with whether they smoke or not
5)Absolutely not, ex-smokers may be tempted yes, but It's ludicrous to suggest that non-smokers will take up smoking in order to be accepted into the company by smokers.
These sound like trick questions to me and I think whatever answers are given will be used as ammunition to get smoking banned outside as well.
Heard it all before, all these questions have been asked here in ireland years ago after the smoking ban came in in 2004 and to be honest its a bore to hear the same old waffle being thrashed out. I understand that english people are trying to find their way thru the new smoking ban regime so let me enlighten you about it.
Smoking areas, terraces with heaters, smirting is all new and exciting and a great laugh for the first year, alas when the novelty dies off you will probably find the voilence that we have experienced outside pubs will increase also under aged kids can obtain alcohol easier as they are not under the eye of the barman anymore and cigarette smoking has now been replaced by a drug epidemic involving many deaths.
The smoking ban will impact hardest on older people whose lifestyle will be drastically changed there is no novelty for sitting outside a pub for them, for instance you will not see the 'auld fellas' of rural ireland holding up the bar anymore and lock-ins are not really their thing, furthermore very few of the traditional country pubs are open during the day since the ban apart from over the thousand pubs that have closed down. Off licences are thriving so we cant congratulate ourselves in having reduced alcohol consumption either, in fact it is the revers going by the hospital admissions, it has also led to an increase in domestic violence as more people are drinking at home.
Not a pretty picture for our tourist industry either except for the party weekenders and stag parties which have helped to keep our tourist figures up and of course our immigrant tourists.
So, people of england, keep up the good fight because the more entrenched this ban gets the harder it will be to have it repealed, the brainwashing has got so entrenched here in ireland that many people are now smoking outside their own homes!!
Good luck to you.
PS If a person is caught smoking in a pub the bar owner will be charged a fine of 3000euro while at the same time a person can hoover up coke from a toilet cistern in the same pub while a blind eye is turned.
Jonathan said: "I have become more defiant since the ban. It is the first issue ever that I have felt strongly enough about to spend time researching and writing letters and emails; and also the first time I have seriously thought of breaking the the law as an act of protest. I may have eventually given up smoking without the ban, as many people do on reaching their 50s; but I have now become quite obsessed with getting it amended. I refuse to stand outside a pub to smoke and have not been in a pub or cafe since the smoking ban started."
I am with you Jonathan. I was 50 this year, thankfully before the ban, so I was able to have a smoke with my meal on my birthday! Unfortunately, too many people are suffering from apathy and just 'going with the flow as this is the way it will be now!' I find this immensley frustrating and it makes me even more angry than the all the liars in ASH and the like, because wrong as they are, they are at least passionate. All smokers should be passionate about their lifestyle too and had we all stood together then just maybe we could have made a difference, but so long as the majority of smokers still go to the pubs and clubs, etc and go outside, like good little people, then we have no chance.
Like you, I now prefer to stay at home where I can smoke as much as I like, when I like and can also drink what I like and watch what I like or else read a book or play computer games. It also saves a lot of money!
Somehow, and hopefully this winter will be the kick up the backside that is needed, we have to get these far too tolerant smokers shifted up a gear and out of the apathy gear!
I have no sympathy for publicans/licensees, as they were warned before the ban was voted in that it would not stop with smoking, that drink would follow closely behind. Now they are bleating because they are losing trade and all the non/anti smokers have not turned up to replace the smokers that have stayed at home. Well, if they go out of business it is their own fault. We really needed the might of the Lincesed Trade behind us before the ban was enforced. Now it is too late, certainly for many.
1.Smokers cannot really react as our voices are drowned on purpose. A while ago before the ban I started sending letters to newspapers reacting against their support for such a fascist proposal. My letters either were never published, or in one or two occasions were published with negative comments !
The printed media along with the BBC and the audiovisual press, created an atmosphere of health-bullying, whereby whoever disagrees with what they want to push is marginalized. So much for democracy, tolerance, and acceptance of the different !
On the second part of the question, why people need to be encouraged to stop smoking ? We have had more than enough of this propaganda anyway.
It’s a pleasure and we are adults, why should we be told what to like and what not to like ?
2.The environmental impact of the heaters is less than negligible. This is an attempt to ban heaters so as to make pleasure more uncomfortable than they have already done.
I believe that it is all orchestrated. Since the fascists of ASH employ permanent staff, it is clear that they will be trying to continue. We have to somehow organise ourselves and fight back.
3.I don’t think it is a question of social acceptance but a question of being more obvious. Normally smokers and non-smokers would mix harmoniously. Now, the health fascists are trying to marginalize smokers to make them stick out, hoping that the non-smokers will exercise social pressure, or peer pressure on them to make them stop smoking and conform to the so-called norms. However, it causes more solidarity.
Since the smoking ban I tend to avoid non-smokers and try to socialise with smokers. They are normally far more open minded !
4.It is certainly a new way to meet people. I haven’t had smirting so far as I haven’t been to bars since the ban. I believe, however, that it would be very normal to happen.
5.I now about former smokers who started smoking again, and although I’m not aware of non-smokers taking up the habit, I have seen on a number of cases non-smokers standing outside with their smoking friends because this is where all the fun is !
1.Very well: NO
2.Excellent that establishments are catering for their customers' needs.
3. Smoking has always been a social pastime. Smokers wil adapt to even the most vicious attempts to hinder their enjoyment of tobacco.There is great sympathy for smokers at present.
4.Excellent to read that young people are meeting in this way.
5.At least non-smokers have a choice whether or not to 'go outside', and if they choose to stick by their friends, I find that excellent too. I think it would be a good thing if more people took up smoking.
One question not asked. is the increase in spiking drinks. The Manchester Confidential rant line has shown how common this is. I heard that since the ban, spiking has increased by 150%. This makes it easy for the likes of Jack the Ripper and Peter Sutcliffe to rape and murder women.Pubs must provide a smoking room to decrease this problem.
ANSWER
1. BADLY, AND NO THEY HAVE NOT BEEN ENCOURAGED TO GIVE UP SMOKING THEY HAVE JUST BEEN ENCOURAGED TO STAY AT HOME.
2. WE ARE TOLD TO SAVE ENERGY. PUBS/CLUBS HAVE THE CHOICE BETWEEN WASTING ENERGY OR GOING OUT OF BUSINESS (WHICH THEY PROBABLY WILL ANYWAY ONCE THEY GET THEIR HEATING BILL!) IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT - BIG TIME.
3. WHO, ON THIS PLANET, DID YOU ACTUALLY INTERVIEW??? I'M NOT EVEN GOING TO BOTHER TO ANSWER THE LAST QUESTION RE MORE SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE.
4. SMIRTING?? yuk. THE ONLY REASON PEOPLE STRIKE UP A CONVERSATION IS BECAUSE THEY ALL HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON - THEY DON'T LIKE STANDING IN THE COLD OUTSIDE A PUB TO SMOKE.
5. NON-SMOKERS ENCOURAGED? THEY HAVE A CHOICE BETWEEN STAYING PUT AND JOINING THEIR FRIENDS OUTSIDE - THE WORD "CHOICE" SHOULD JUMP OUT HERE AS THAT'S WHAT SMOKERS HAVE NO LONGER GOT. I'M NOT EVEN GOING TO BOTHER TO ANSWER THE QUESTION BEING ASKED HERE.