English Smoking Ban

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Now you guys are for it... same as us.

Bloody do-gooders should mind their own damn business...

December 1, 2006

English smoking ban to take effect July 1, government says

By DAVID STRINGER

LONDON (AP) - A ban on smoking in movie theatres, shopping malls, pubs and other public places in England will take effect July 1, the government said Friday.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has said the ban is aimed at aiding Britain's smokers to quit and part of a wider drive to improve public health. Government statistics compiled in 2004 found around one in four adult Britons smokes regularly. The measure extends England's no-smoking law to public places such as cinemas, offices, factories.

A similar ban will take effect in Wales on April 2.

Pub landlords and pro-smoker groups have all expressed concerns about the law - fearing a negative impact on business and the ebbing of civil liberties.

"Thousands of people's lives will be saved and the health of thousands more protected" by the ban, said Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt.

"Smokefree legislation will protect everyone from the harm of secondhand smoke...and will provide a more supportive environment for smokers who wish to give up."

In March, Scotland became the first area of Britain to ban smoking in public places, with businesses warned failure to prevent smoking on their premises would lead to fines. Individuals can also be fined.

Some workplaces, including adult care homes, hospices, offshore installations and submarines, are exempt from the ban. Smoking is also allowed in police detention or interview rooms and in designated hotel bedrooms but cinemas, offices, factories and shopping malls are all covered by the law.

Similar rules will apply in England and Wales.

[dougiebarder]

Ha ha ha-suck it up stinky
Oops sorry you can't now can you
What a great day.

[Keith Webb]

Originally posted by dougiebarder
Ha ha ha-suck it up stinky
Oops sorry you can't now can you
What a great day.

LMAO!

Originally posted by dougiebarder
Ha ha ha-suck it up stinky
Oops sorry you can't now can you
What a great day.

Hardhearted Cheeky Old Goat you

Ma Yappy again!

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Now we just stand out on the sidewalks and blow in your face as you walk by.

[dougiebarder]

Hey-this is England-there's always a bracing breeze to blow it away outside.
And yappy, I ain't that old. I've just had an old fart's outlook since birth.

[Gunner]

I went to supper in a pub in Bristol last week and literally was driven out of the place half way through my meal due to the overwhelming cloud of smoke. The demarkation line hovered about four feet off the floor!

Too bad the ban doesn't cover the places where relief from smoke is impossible for the "inmates": adult care homes, hospices, offshore installations, submarines, police detention and interview rooms! Imagine being some octogenarian trapped in a room where the staff who push your wheelchair are choking you out with their smoke.

Thank goodness I can go out to a pub in Canada and get pissy eyed without hacking up a lung!

At least UK smokers won't freeze off delicate parts of their anatomy like our poor Canadian smokers! I genuinely sympathise being thin blooded myself.



Mike

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

In Ontario at least, we had sealed, ventilated smoking areas. Not any more though...

[Gunner]

Yeah, I, for one, was quite happy with that option as it allowed me to make the choice to sit with my smoking buddies or go with the clean air. Thats the difference between do-gooders and good ole Canadian compromise... the do-gooders often go too far.

Mike

Originally posted by dougiebarder And yappy, I ain't that old. I've just had an old fart's outlook since birth. [/B]

OOOOPSIE ... so sorry there, Old Chap

Okay, okay, I shan't be cheeky to you anymore. I'll behave. Promise.

Yappy

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Originally posted by Vets Dottir
Okay, okay, I shan't be cheeky to you anymore. I'll behave. Promise.

Yappy

Fat chance of THAT...

Originally posted by Gunner Thats the difference between do-gooders and good ole Canadian compromise... the do-gooders often go too far.

Mike [/B]

I like the Canadian compromise too. All or nothing for everyone everywhere everyplace ain't right.

I'd like the choice, if I had a biz, to cater to or non-smokers. I'd choose a place, of course

Karmen

Originally posted by Geoff Winnington-Ball
Fat chance of THAT...

YOU be quiet raySun

[dougiebarder]

Originally posted by Vets Dottir
OOOOPSIE ... so sorry there, Old Chap

Okay, okay, I shan't be cheeky to you anymore. I'll behave. Promise.

Yappy

I take it as a compliment really, I'm practicing to be an old git sitting on a porch, and complaining about everybody who walk's past.
I get the feeling that a lot of people in our hobby/ ex forces have the same attitude and outlook (I'll admit that I might be more anti smoking than most though).

Originally posted by dougiebarder
I take it as a compliment really, I'm practicing to be an old git sitting on a porch, and complaining about everybody who walk's past.

Cool. And I've always enjoyed a big happy fantasy of getting old and yelling cranky and rude things from my seat on my porch swing, to anyone and everyone walking by.

Geez ... :idea: Why wait til I'm too old to yell though

I get the feeling that a lot of people in our hobby/ ex forces have the same attitude and outlook (I'll admit that I might be more anti smoking than most though).

Read my smoke signals



Karmen

[Ken Hughes]

hi people, here in nz we have had the same smoking ban for a while now.its not working!.
at our local club the smokers go outside and so does the other patrons,altogether!,no one cares .
now the p/c goody goodies are going crook about sigarete butts on the street outside bars.
the ban has affected some bars to close from the lack of patronage.
im sure that the idiots running things have gone to far.

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

You've got a point, Ken. Some drinkers I know said to hell with bars when our ban came in on 31 May, and just chose to drink at home or with friends. More comfortable and cheaper to-boot.

[Snowtractor]

Originally posted by Geoff Winnington-Ball
In Ontario at least, we had sealed, ventilated smoking areas. Not any more though...

Yeah they're called gas chambers. I mean you put meat into a small room and put smoke through the room and you get jerky...kind of explains a lot of smokers attitudes.
Come on you old Dinosaurs, if I have to wear a seatbelt in my own private vehicle then you can butt out.
Sean

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Originally posted by Snowtractor
Come on you old Dinosaurs, if I have to wear a seatbelt in my own private vehicle then you can butt out.
Sean

With all due respect to your rank-and-station-in-life, PISS OFF. Spend your (obvious) excess energy telling your elected representatives to declare tobacco illegal. I WILL comply with the law, but until then, I insist on parity.

[Snowtractor]

...bottom line is don't you just love interferring governments that make ' personal choice ' and freedom 'THEIR' responsibilty because it is an easy political target. God forbid shutting down toxic companies slowly poisoning the environment or legislating violence out of hockey night in Canada.
Light one up for me Old Salt, myself I will stick to cigarellos like Clint..."Dying ain't no way to make a living"
Sean

[Ponysoldier]

Here they have made smoking illegal any were in public,
the only place one can smoke now is at home.
Patrick

Oh, Ma Yappy is SOOOO bad to post this news article and rattle some cages about these CURRENTLY LEGAL drugs of choice many of us "enjoy" .... ... ... (don't me please ... am just passing this little thingy on about what's in the wind ... I think I can see sneaky stills and bootlegging of alcohol and tobacco and cops and courts being very busy with the astronomical numbers of tobacco and alcohol regular consumers ... ... Ma Yappy)

Alcohol, tobacco worse than drugs: study
Updated Fri. Mar. 23 2007 1:59 PM ET

Associated Press

LONDON -- New "landmark" research finds that alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than some illegal drugs like marijuana or Ecstasy and should be classified as such in legal systems, according to a new British study.


In research published Friday in The Lancet magazine, Professor David Nutt of Britain's Bristol University and colleagues proposed a new framework for the classification of harmful substances, based on the actual risks posed to society. Their ranking listed alcohol and tobacco among the top 10 most dangerous substances.


Nutt and colleagues used three factors to determine the harm associated with any drug: the physical harm to the user, the drug's potential for addiction, and the impact on society of drug use. The researchers asked two groups of experts -- psychiatrists specializing in addiction and legal or police officials with scientific or medical expertise -- to assign scores to 20 different drugs, including heroin, cocaine, Ecstasy, amphetamines, and LSD.


Nutt and his colleagues then calculated the drugs' overall rankings. In the end, the experts agreed with each other -- but not with the existing British classification of dangerous substances.


Heroin and cocaine were ranked most dangerous, followed by barbiturates and street methadone. Alcohol was the fifth-most harmful drug and tobacco the ninth most harmful. Cannabis came in 11th, and near the bottom of the list was Ecstasy.


According to existing British and U.S. drug policy, alcohol and tobacco are legal, while cannabis and Ecstasy are both illegal. Previous reports, including a study from a parliamentary committee last year, have questioned the scientific rationale for Britain's drug classification system.


"The current drug system is ill thought-out and arbitrary," said Nutt, referring to the United Kingdom's practice of assigning drugs to three distinct divisions, ostensibly based on the drugs' potential for harm. "The exclusion of alcohol and tobacco from the Misuse of Drugs Act is, from a scientific perspective, arbitrary," write Nutt and his colleagues in The Lancet.


Tobacco causes 40 percent of all hospital illnesses, while alcohol is blamed for more than half of all visits to hospital emergency rooms. The substances also harm society in other ways, damaging families and occupying police services.


Nutt hopes that the research will provoke debate within the UK and beyond about how drugs -- including socially acceptable drugs such as alcohol -- should be regulated. While different countries use different markers to classify dangerous drugs, none use a system like the one proposed by Nutt's study, which he hopes could serve as a framework for international authorities.


"This is a landmark paper," said Dr. Leslie Iversen, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University. Iversen was not connected to the research. "It is the first real step towards an evidence-based classification of drugs." He added that based on the paper's results, alcohol and tobacco could not reasonably be excluded.


"The rankings also suggest the need for better regulation of the more harmful drugs that are currently legal, i.e. tobacco and alcohol," wrote Wayne Hall, of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, in an accompanying Lancet commentary. Hall was not involved with Nutt's paper.


While experts agreed that criminalizing alcohol and tobacco would be challenging, they said that governments should review the penalties imposed for drug abuse and try to make them more reflective of the actual risks and damages involved.


Nutt called for more education so that people were aware of the risks of various drugs. "All drugs are dangerous," he said. "Even the ones people know and love and use every day."

[Ken Hughes]

hi carmen the idiots are at it again in NZ.
they are going to pass a no smacking bill .
what does one do with an out of control child ? send it to the govt for them to look after? this stinks of nazi germany pre ww2 i think.
on the smoking/drinking front, the govt gets good revenue
from them,so what happens when its finally banned?
we will get hit in the pocket to pay for the shortfall!.
just my 2cents worth.

Originally posted by Ken Hughes
hi carmen the idiots are at it again in NZ.

so what happens when its finally banned?
we will get hit in the pocket to pay for the shortfall!.
just my 2cents worth.

I can only try to imagine what the financial chaos and crises would be on businesses, individuals, and systems, and/or how far farreaching and insidious that could be on everyone and everything. Wouldn't everything collapse, including socially? A lot must survive and be dependent on what booze and tobacco huge cash flow supports.

I don't know "economy" or how it all works and is intertwined with so much else of life and lifestyle ... but I do know that when money stops going round and round, then so does everything else dependent on it.

Yikes.

Ma Yappy

Originally posted by Vets Dottir 2nd
I can only try to imagine what the financial chaos and crises would be on businesses, individuals, and systems,

Well Karmen, it will have an effect here.

Our tax on tobacco varies with brands but lies between 76% and 83% of the retail price raising 10.5 billion GBP for the chancellor and the recent budget has put another chunk on that again. Petrol of course already has 80%+ tax on it and diesel even more.

With the country-wide smoking ban coming into force 1st July it will certainly reduce consumption and I think the C of Exc is hedging his bets to initially recoup the calculated revenue loss. The loss will not only be recovered by tobacco tax but elsewhere so the soft targets are again taxed, alcohol, petrol and a huge hike in annual road tax on large 4x4s (AKA private school busses).

The anti-smokers better not crow too loudly as they are going to be hit for the shortfall and the tip of the iceberg is showing. We are being massaged into thinking about road pricing via a GPS in the car at the owners expense and will include EVERY vehicle road licensed, therefore your collection of old cars, and army trucks for that matter. I predict this and other measures are in hand to cover the non-smoking losses.

The July 1 inception date throws up a few problems, that is all the beer tents and any marquee, at say, Beltring will have to be enforced as non-smoking; I already know this will be in effect at The Great Dorset Steam Fair http://www.gdsf.co.uk/ a 600 acre venue that makes Beltring look like a village fete and has hundreds of coal-fired (read smoke) steam engines together with probably 10 beer tents.

I have just missed it for this year's Overlord (cancelled according to the MVT but that's just this year's stooping to lower levels) but for 2008 I think it will have to be non-smoking in the beer tent during the public hours but I think I can skirt round it for the evening entertainments when the site is private being outside public hours.

I also have a problem that my limited company is registered here and I'm an employee, therefore I am obliged to place the regulation no smoking signs at the front and back doors, and stop myself smoking in my own house. I think I shall put Veare on the payroll as site safety officer to enforce this although her job description will require her to sleep, as currently, between 09:00 and 17:00.

No wonder then that Mrs. Notton and I have recovered our pensions from the mean, parsimonious, marble fronted institutions and placed a spread of investments, with pro advice, under our direct control for four times the returns with a fixed plan to be out of here in three years time and re-located at the far end of the Med with council tax at 1/40th, income tax at 5%, petrol half price, baccy at 1/4 price and 300 days of sunshine a year.

Have to go, the site safety officer is giving me stick about morning food break which I have to provide.

R.

Originally posted by Richard Notton
Well Karmen, it will have an effect here.

The anti-smokers better not crow too loudly as they are going to be hit for the shortfall and the tip of the iceberg is showing.

That old "be careful what you wish for" thing, hey?

I also have a problem that my limited company is registered here and I'm an employee, therefore I am obliged to place the regulation no smoking signs at the front and back doors, and stop myself smoking in my own house. I think I shall put Veare on the payroll as site safety officer to enforce this although her job description will require her to sleep, as currently, between 09:00 and 17:00.

Veare will make an excellent site safety officer for you

No wonder then that Mrs. Notton and I have recovered our pensions from the mean, parsimonious, marble fronted institutions and placed a spread of investments, with pro advice, under our direct control for four times the returns with a fixed plan to be out of here in three years time and re-located at the far end of the Med with council tax at 1/40th, income tax at 5%, petrol half price, baccy at 1/4 price and 300 days of sunshine a year.

Have to go, the site safety officer is giving me stick about morning food break which I have to provide.

R.

Again, yourself being the hand that feeds Veare food and affection, Veare shall be an excellent site saftey officer. GOOD CHOICE for the job Master R. !

Back to munching on raw sweet crunchy carrots then a and a

Karmy

Hey Geoff, now I know what was in those hookah pipes at that outdoor cafe in Ottawa! Flavored tobaccos ... not the funny stuff or some other funny stuff

Hookah Bars smoking to go too (logical) ?

http://www.cnn.com/video/player/play...h.bars.mxf.cnn



K

Well, the old snooze making a comeback, but with teens ... but this makes me wonder how many adult longtime smokers have already switched? I do know that I FREQUENTLY see empty COPENHAGEN containers tossed along the sidewalks and such. For a long time now, so maybe "Snooze-n" has been happening since the smoking bans started?

Would have to google to verify whats and where, but more banning progress taking effect in Alberta (Jan 1st i think???) and BC more bans come April 1st perhaps? (no fools joke I don't think but gotta verify)

Teens chewing tobacco

Smokeless tobacco is gaining popularity with high school students.

By JENNI DUNNING, SPECIAL TO SUN MEDIA

The London Free Press

Neil Bhatt, 17, a Saunders secondary school student, holds up containers of flavoured chewing tobacco that are becoming more popular with high school students. (Mike Hensen, Sun Media)

Dipping, spit, plug, or chew -- by whatever name, it's a trend in London high schools.

It's chewing tobacco.

Long associated with older generations, or spittoon-clinking cowboys, chewing tobacco has become a smoking substitute for youths and an energy-booster for others.

Just ask Steve Powers, 19, a graduate of St. Thomas Aquinas secondary school in London, who used to chew.

"It's a trend. There's no way around it," he said. "It's the same as smoking."

While some observers blame the tobacco industry for the trend, saying it goes after youths with candy-flavoured chewing tobacco, the National Smokeless Tobacco Co. Ltd. says its product is adult-only.


"I don't believe we have information that gets into (its popularity among teens) at all," said company spokesperson Tom Fitzgerald.

He said up to 60 per cent of those who buy the company's products -- those includes brands such as Skoal and Bandits -- are former smokers.

So, what's the appeal to young people, a generation repeatedly warned about the dangers of tobacco?

Many want a quick buzz or simply to fit in with the trend, said Neil Bhatt, 17, a Grade 12 student at Saunders secondary school.

Bhatt said he doesn't chew tobacco, but he's seen students at his school doing it.

His grandfather used to regularly chew, with no significant health effects, he said.

But after learning chewing tobacco contains 3,000 chemicals, such as arsenic and lead, Bhatt joined an anti-tobacco group, One Life Crew.

"I've never wanted to try it," Bhatt said. "I'm really informed about it now, and I could never understand why I would want to put that in me."

Powers started chewing tobacco when he was on the junior football team at school and saw older players do it.

His first chew made him feel dizzy and sick, he said. But he liked it better than smoking, so he took it up during class.

"It's way cheaper and it's more convenient," he said. "It's a way around no smoking signs."

Chewing tobacco -- it's consumed in pinches -- is a controlled product, just like cigarettes. Its legal sale is restricted to customers 19 and older. The average tin costs about $6, compared to about $9 for a pack of smokes.

Melissa Horan of the Middlesex-London Health Unit, a youth advisor with One Life Crew, contends the industry "actively" targets youth with chewing tobacco sold in candy flavours such as cherry, apple, mint, peach, citrus and berry.

With the product demand has come more flavours, said Tom White, owner of a Shell Select gas bar in London.

"We never used to sell all these new flavours -- it's like selling orange pop," said White, his business a few blocks from Oakridge and Aquinas high schools.

Horan said studies have shown kids as young as 12 have tried chewing tobacco.

Tobacco companies call the product "smokeless tobacco." But that's partly how kids get hooked on it, Horan said.

"It's giving the impression that it's smokeless and therefore is harmless," she said.

Chewing one pinch of tobacco for 30 minutes equals four cigarettes, she said.

The product contains lead and arsenic, can cause bad breath and lead to cavities and oral cancers, said Horan.

A recent survey of Ontario smokers age 15 to 19 showed 1.7 per cent chewed tobacco in 2003. It rose to 11.6 per cent by 2005, said Horan.