Let’s get one thing perfectly straight. Smoking cigarettes is not illegal in the UK. No matter how much the government tries to make smokers feel like criminals, smoking is not actually a crime. Just so you know, I smoke about ten ‘light’ cigarettes a month (on average) and I would break those ten into two batches of five, which are invariably smoked in the company of Irish Alice, who is, by all accounts, a devoted smoker and a bad influence (for which read ‘good egg’).
One of the joys of going to the pub, was to be in a grown up place, drinking alcohol and having a couple of fags if I wanted to. I understand that many people don’t like being in a smoky place which is why pubs always used to have Smoke Rooms so that people who didn’t smoke need not be troubled. Absolutely as it should be.
Last week there was a lot of publicity about whether the government was going to stop cigarette manufacturers producing attractive packets for their products, so as not to entice the young and impressionable. Apparently 60% of people who take up smoking stick with the brand they first tried. The manufacture of cigarettes is not illegal so they should be allowed to produce any pack design they like. As it is the packs are covered in public health warnings, and I think that as far as interfering with a legal product goes, that should be enough.
Did you know, that when people were allowed to smoke on aeroplanes, the air was much cleaner than it is now? The air in planes was completely renewed every three minutes. The air is now recycled causing a 6% increase in fuel consumption. The incidence of nausea and dizziness has increased since the air has been recycled and air rage incidents have also increased since smoking has been banned. I’m not suggesting smoking should be re-introduced, I’m just telling you.
There isn’t a person in the country who doesn’t know that smoking is bad for you. It causes or exacerbates cancer, lung disease, heart disease, circulation problems, strokes, diabetes, foetal abnormalities. No-one should be smoking around children, in cars with other people in them, on public transport or in enclosed spaces because it’s not fair to non-smokers and is extremely discourteous. Smoking should not be allowed in restaurants. Smoking makes your hair, breath and clothes smell. But it is not illegal.
What I find so enraging is that the government goes on and on and on about how people with smoking related illnesses are a burden on the NHS, are antisocial, selfish and nihilistic. They prevent cigarettes from being advertised and increasingly limit the places in which people can smoke but they know full well that they can’t manage without the revenue, so they don’t ban them.
It has been suggested that the revenue from tobacco products far outstrips the money spent on treating smoking related diseases in hospitals. This may or may not be true and no-one is suggesting that smoking isn’t bad for you. But where does government intervention and hypocrisy stop?
I put it to you that people who allow their children to become obese are guilty of neglect, ergo, abuse. People who stuff themselves with junk food day in and day out, never move and grow to be clinically obese are burdening the NHS with their own set of dietary-related illnesses. Alcohol causes more problems than you can possibly imagine but I don’t see the Famous Grouse being put in a plain bottle and sent back to its pen. And what about Alcopops? I mean, bloody hell, if ever there was a product aimed at children. To me, it’s only a short step from that to having Clifford the Big Red Dog advertising Marlboro full strength, but it would seem that Advertising Standards disagrees with me.
If someone is smoking twenty cigarettes a day, it’s going to have a detrimental effect on their health. If someone drinks a couple of bottles of wine every day, it’s going to have a detrimental effect on their health. If someone eats shit all day every day and never moves, it’s going to have a detrimental effect on their health. If someone is burdened down with stress and worries and isn’t sleeping, it’s going to have a detrimental effect on their health.
It’s the hypocrisy that I can’t stand. Having the odd fag, the odd drink, the odd MacDonalds (other fast food is available) isn’t going to kill you. Having lots of any of them just might. Until junk food and alcohol manufacturers are told to put their products into plain packets, the government should lay off the cigarette industry. If the government thinks it’s that much of a problem, ban it. But if they still want the revenue, then people must have the freedom to smoke or not. Pubs and clubs should be at liberty to have a smoke room, fag packets could have dandelions nailed to them if they want.
I say to this and any future government, make up your minds. Ban smoking or don’t ban smoking but stop being such appalling hypocrites.
Photographs courtesy of Peter Ashley from his forthcoming book ‘The Cigarette Papers’.
Substitute the word “dog” for “cigarette” and you can see something similar going on for dog owners. As a new dog owner myself, I find it very tiresome that I can’t take my dog to a beach, say, and clear up any mess she makes and enjoy ourselves. Instead we are excluded.
However, it was ghastly on planes when there was smoking. The air may have been cleared frequently, but the smell of cigarette smoke still made me feel sick. And why was it only cigarettes you could smoke, and not cigars or pipe tobacco? Pipe tobacco is much nicer…
Whilst waiting at traffic lights the other day with my children they noticed someone in another car was smoking. Shock horror! ‘That person’s smoking in a car!!’ They honestly thought it was illegal. Apart from my old mum no one smokes in my family and I certainly wouldn’t want my children to start but I find this ‘smoking is a crime or character fault’ attitude that they have picked up disturbing. If people want to smoke then they have a perfect right to do so just as I have a perfect right to eat as many puddings as I like.
Quite right, WH. I don’t smoke, though I tried it once many moons ago for all of three days. I decided I didn’t like it, thought it would be expensive and would also not be good for my health, so no it wasn’t for me.
Seriously, how can anyone imagine it is good for your heath when the packs are covered in cheerful messages (in massive font) saying Smoking Kills?
As you say, it’s the hypocrisy of the whole thing that is sickening. Alcohol costs the nation far more in health costs and policing etc than smoking does, but no-one’s going to ban that, are they?
And, equally, aside from mental health concerns amongst younger users, there’s not really a lot long with cannabis either. But that IS banned.
Legalise the lot, I say, and just limit where these things can be undertaken.
PS Yes, I did know about the effect of the smoking ban on plane air quality. Airlines must be laughing themselves silly at the extra profits they make through not having to replace the air so often. Not only is it responsible for a huge increase in cases of air rage, but it is also a big suspect in the increase in DVT cases.
I am SO GLAD to see someone other than myself finally taking a stand on this issue!
By way of introduction: My friends say I’m a chain-smoking, semi-drunken ex go-go dancer from the ’60s – and I guess that sums it up nicely. My enemies probably say something less flattering, but it doesn’t matter, ’cause they’re mostly dead.
I realize I have an anger management problem coupled with a bad attitude, but on me it’s charming – just like my smoking! I look good when I smoke, REALLY good! But I’m also a celebrity – and as a celebrity, I set my own rules concerning where and when I smoke. Wherever I light up automatically becomes the smoking section. I ALWAYS smoke on airline flights, and rarely have a problem with it. A fistful of dollars handed to the flight attendant usually takes care of things at the beginning of the flight, and I give the stink-eye to passengers who have a problem with me, and if that doesn’t work, a few screamed obscenities usually does the trick. If all else fails, I’ll head to the lavatory – you ever seen what a stiletto heel does to a smoke detector?
Of course I’ve heard the claims about the adverse effects of smoking – that’s why I had an ashtray installed on my exercise bike – right next to the cupholder for my Scotch.
Let’s face it, smokers are much more interesting and attractive people than non-smokers. How many times have we been trapped in a room with non-smokers? Do I have to remind you what that’s like?
And when you think about it – why do I find myself trapped in enclosed areas (like elevators) with people who fart? I’m forced to light a cigarette so I can breathe!
Don’t get me wrong – getting into a knife fight with a rabid “anti” isn’t necessarily the best approach, but speaking from personal experience, it IS fun, and a bit of an adrenaline rush. I think I’m a good example of the positive benefits of smoking… if I didn’t smoke, do you think I would have had my own television specials, guest-starred on numerous TV shows, and starred in several motion pictures? And what about all the stars I’ve slept with? Could I have done that if I were a non-smoker? Of course not. Just ask the game-show host who told me I couldn’t smoke during the show – I put my cigarette out in his eye, and walked off the set. Of course, I would never do things like this out of meanness – I’m simply an assertive female, a worthy role model to all you kids out there. And, I suppose some of it does stem from meanness, now that I think about it… But as women, and as smokers, we have the power – we must use it. I might be slightly more militant than you, but if you stick with me, I’ll teach you everything I know.
And one last point – I’m not looking for any payments from “Big Tobacco” because I smoke – truth be told, I may owe them a few bucks, since I occasionally shoplift a couple packs here and there – you know how it is…
Your friend,
Roxy
PS – And please, if you have nothing better to do, stop over at my blog. It’s guaranteed to cheer you up, and provide a sense of solidarity you’ve never before experienced. Or at least, it may make you smile. I smoke in all my photos, and I’m half-crocked when I write my posts, because that makes it better.
http://retroroxy.wordpress.com
Whilst i do smoke about 20 a week and never around my children..i certainly don’t begrudge those who have a drink even though i don’t..can’t stand the taste,nor those would eat junk food..makes my stomach do unspeakable things..never had a mcdonalds..and my children never have nor will whilst they live here when they move out thats up to them..i do find it hypocritical of the government to more or less pick on us “smokers”..if they did put it in a plain packet its not going to stop you smoking,drinking or eating…as for recycled air..can’t comment on it..but that surely cannot be good for you either…
sara
I am a non-smoker.
But I am perfectly happy to be in a pub with people smoking. Rightly, as you say, a pub is where grown-ups go to do grown-up things. Drinking, smoking, swearing.
How long before playing darts is banned? Them darts is bloody dangerous around children, dontcha know! As for cribbage….
Just what is wrong with a pub having separate areas for smoking? Nothing. In my local there are definite areas where smoke can’t drift through. Prohibition beckons.
Welcome Roxy and what an exciting new reader! I did look at your blog – tremendous fun, keep up the good work. For some reason your name is ringing very loud bells with me, but I’ve no idea why. Thanks for the solidarity!
That’s an interesting one, Freelance – people don’t object nearly so much to cigars and pipes and yet I think pipe tobacco is really rather nice. Maybe I shall start a campaign to encourage people to smoke pipes. Particularly the young.
I take your point about dogs; I used to take my dog everywhere with and received no objections. I guess the problem is that a selfish minority failed to clean up after their dog and tarred everyone with the same brush. As is so often the case with many things.
Ah, now then, are we producing a generation of intolerants? Generations so often display the opposite characteristics of the ones who went before them, could this be the backlash to our liberalism?
I’m with you Morag – legalize everything and regulate it.
I’m an avid Discworld fan and I’m quietly in favour of the Patrician’s philosophy that everything should have a Guild with an accepted Code of Practice. If you belong to the Thieves’ Guild, you have an agreed quota and if you nick something, you need only show your Guild card and everybody’s cool about it, as long as you don’t overstep the mark. As a citizen, one is expected to take necessary steps to avoid being vulnerable to Thieves. It’s a view…
Sara – it’s all about tolerance and courtesy in the end, isn’t it? As is the case with so many things in life.
Sausage: Thank you for bringing a wider perspective! However, children shouldn’t even be in pubs after 7pm. Unless they’ve come to drive you home of course…
Well now, I have been reading your blog for all of two weeks, with interest, I might add; but this post has really got to me. I am a non smoker of five weeks but I am with you on your stance, if you can smoke responsibly then do so. I obviously can’t so I just have to stop, just like that, but I will enjoy walking through groups of smokers and enjoying second hand smoke. (Please keep that last bit secret?)
Oh, the achingly beautiful packaging of Gold Flake! There was a time when I was a smoker and that was my brand – my, how I enjoyed it. Your campaign (for I believe it to have commenced) for the promotion of pipe smoking surely deserves to take hold.The magnificent accoutrements of pipe smoking are to be encouraged, the pouch, pipe cleaners, smoker’s knife would equally suit a lady’s Hermes bag as a gentleman’s Harris Tweed jacket. To think, you could have your own tobacco blended! There is a precedent…my french brother-in-law had a female pipe smoking cousin…she was a station master and had a beard. I am led to believe that ‘pipe’ has an entirely different interpretation in French slang but maybe we should draw a veil over this. A finely crafted post as usual WH….and a reference to your being able to have access to Lord A’s forthcoming publication is just too teasing.
Wartime, I’m with you on this one. It’s the hypocrisy. It’s the inconsistency. Now, let me be clear. I don’t smoke. Never have. I have enough vices in my life. Everyone should have a little vice in their life but I don’t like smoking at all. Hate the smell of it. My mum smoked when I was younger and I reeked of it, which is why I couldn’t get a girlfriend when I was teenager. That and my extraordinary acne – I looked like a pot of baked beans coming to the boil. But I believe it was mostly the smell of smoke that put girls off.
Anyway, we live in a world were the ex Chief Executive of BP gets to decide on the future of higher education; the billionaire owner of Top Shop gets to audit governments cuts in public spending; and McDonalds help write government policy on obesity. Why should we be surprised that smokers are forced to stand outside in this freezing weather, so making them as likely to die of hypothermia as lung cancer?
We all know smoking is bad for us,but as a smoker myself, I rarely smoke now outside my own home and it’s no one else’s business.The Nanny state is getting out of hand !! The government cannot do without the revenue from tobacco taxes so why don’t they shut up about it.While we are on the subject,why don’t they return the licensing hours to what they used to be, and shut down all these awful nightclubs in every town and city that cost so much in policing. The idiots who use them and come out and cause so much havoc being drunk and disorderly would then have to drink in their own homes.Alcohol needs to have higher taxes and be much more expensive (I like a drink myself) but it is too cheap and easily available.Cannabis is much less harmful but againt the law !!! How can anyone make sense of it all.
Welcome Toffeeapple, I’m glad you’re enjoying the blog and well done you for trying to give up. I so admire people who have the strength to embark on giving up anything that they like and I really wish you well with it. As someone who has never smoked more than the odd one, I’ve never felt the need to stop completely. Sometimes I love the smell of other people’s smoke and sometimes it makes me feel sick, but the smell of petrol makes me feel sick as do many women’s perfumes. Good thing we’ree all different, I say.
Good to hear from you again Jon. My father used to smoke a pipe and, being a handsome man anyway, a pipe made him look quite scrumptious. Also there was a man at work who smoked a pipe in his office and I used to go in there all the time to inhale great gusts of his vanilla scented smoke. And I agree, the paraphenalia of pipe smoking is not only enjoyable, but means one is never at a loss as to what to buy a gentleman for Christmas. I did once attempt to develop the pipe habit when I was 19, but sadly couldn’t quite take to it. Also the euphemistic label of Pipe Smoker sat uneasily with a rampantly heterosexual young womanin the early 80s.
And yes, weren’t fag packets beautiful? The Father of My Children had a magnificent collection in a glass case on the wall and I never tired of looking at them.
Actually I’ve just remembered a ghastly story about that case. One winter evening, we were sitting around the table with his daughter and her husband. It was 3 o’clock in the morning, much tucker had been taken and much alcoholic accompaniment and we had run out of gaspers. Living in rural parts meant no all-night shops and no-one would dare to have driven. In the case was a 1940′s pack of Woodbines with the contents still intact. We each took one with due reverence and lit up. There was a moment’s silence as the dry, acrid smoke stripped away the lining of our throats and then, as one, the swearing started, interspersed with gales of coughing and laughter. The pack was placed carefully back in the case and the door clicked shut.
Here here.
Hi Rosemary, good to hear from you again and you’ve raised some really interesting points. Licensing laws change all the time, depending on the national circumstances. They were introduced to stop working men being distracted. I’m not sure that alcohol should have higher taxes and anyway, have you ever bought a drink in one of those clubs? It’s absolutely extortionate and I don’t know how young people can afford to do it. Actually I do know- so many ofd them are still living at home, are not asked to contribute to the family purse and therefore have not only too much disposable income, but no idea of the cost and responsibility of adult living. I think the problem is the attitude of the young people not the alcohol. I also bet that if you were to ask our grandparents’ generation what they thought of young people’s behaviour, they would probably be saying the sames things we are!
Just one more point (you’ve got me going now!). Cannabis is often a very different animal to what was around when we were kids. It is much stronger and purer than it used to be (I believe) and is more likely to cause mental health problems in developing brains. If anyone has more information on this, please write in as I would actually like to be proved wrong.
As a smoker I agree on the human rights argument. However: the comparison with food and alcohol is not valid. A lot of people moderate their food, and moderate their drink – but good luck finding someone who can take or leave a cigarette. Such people do exist, but in all my life I’ve met maybe about six.
Hear! Hear! (and Cough! Cough!).
I do wish they’d get rid of all the endless signs reminding us that we’re not allowed to smoke any more. I think I’ve got the message by now. My particular bugbear is the announcement they make on the train I take into work each day which goes “East Midlands trains operates a strictly no smoking policy. Therefore smoking is not allowed in any part of the train -and this includes the toilets and vestibule areas”. They make this announcement at every new station (which is why I know it off by heart). Makes me fume (as it were).
No, no, no ! Smoking should without doubt be banned but no government is ever going to have the balls to do it. It is smelly, unhealthy and just completely disgusting. How many times have you been crammed next to a smoker in a train, who whilst not actually smoking at that time, reeks of stale cigarette smoke ? Absolutely repulsive.
On the subject of smoking on planes, I was once unfortunate enough to have been seated in the row immediately in front of the smoking seats. I don’t care how much the air was filtered – I had to spend the 10 hour flight being smothered by smoke from the people in the row behind, who virtually chain-smoked from the minute the no-smoking signs were extinguished. I tried to change seats but the plane was full. I love flying, but this completely ruined my flight. Thank God smoking has been banned on planes!
And I have to disagree with you about pipes as well. I think pipe smokers look like pretentious, old-fashioned (but not in a good way) prats. Sorry!
Dave: I think people get just as addicted to food and drink and I’m afraid I’m one of those who can take or leave the fags, but you’re right, it does seem to be harder to be moderate with cigarettes. Saying that though, I’m a great believe in the addictive v. non-addictive personality.
Welcome Littlejen and thank you for your comments – it’s good to have a bit of dissent. Can I just ask, have you ever been a smoker yourself? (converts often being the most rabid). What I find interesting is that not everyone who smokes reeks of fags all the time, I wonder why that is. I was next to someone today who absolutely reeked but I would suggest that they hadn’t changed their clothes for a while by the look of them. You have highlighted a problem though in public places – there is no point in having a non-smoking area directly attached to a smoking area, well not until they develop the invisible forcefield separation unit.
But you are completely wrong about pipes!
I do hope you keep reading.
Well written and thought provoking – interesting reading all the comments as well. I like pubs, always have, but most of them are not the same anymore because of the smoking ban. Some friends of mine are in a rock band, they used to play all over the place a few years ago but now they hardly ever get gigs because lots of the bars they played at are closed or are half empty. Their customers were driven away by the ban, nearly everyone in those places smoked, they weren’t the sort of places that did meals.
But they were great pubs, full of atmosphere – really good nights out. I sometimes wonder where the heck all those people go now. And that’s the thing when I think about it, there are just so many people I don’t see anymore because they were stopped from enjoying themselves when they went out. Where’s the fun in standing outside a pub in crap weather?… may as well stay in and do as you please, and I’m sure that’s what many do now.
All those really good bars and pubs, loads of them closed down and the rest not the same anymore. Why did they do that? I don’t go out nearly half as much as I used to.
I don’t smoke cigarettes, haven’t done since I was in my teens. I’ve always played football, gone running, and I ride the bike as often as I can get out on it – but whenever the mood takes me I’ll buy some small cigars and have a right old blast. Makes no difference to how I ride, never has, and if it did I’d maybe stop doing it [ the cigars] but I don’t think it’ll ever come to that.
But one thing I would never, ever, do is object to anyone smoking near me. Live and let live for goodness sake. They should give people a choice and have smoking and non smoking pubs, I know the one I’d be in. And I’d rather smell smoke than sweaty armpits. All clothes smell of something or other when they’ve been worn, just wash the bloody things and it’s gone.
I don’t think it’s right how they persecute smokers, it’s just not fair, and people who do should be ashamed of themselves. Everything in moderation and there’s no harm done. The total smoking ban, the packaging and all the rest of it is absolute bollox, in fact I’m off down into the basement now for a cigar …. shame I can’t nip up to my local and do the same.
I went to Spain some years ago and there they had restaurants that were smoking or non smoking, similarly bars. I thought this was a great idea because then you had the choice. If you chose to go to restaurant where people were smoking, then you knew what you were getting. I have to say that each type of restaurant was equally busy. I don’t know if this is still the same or whether a European country other than Britain has actually taken notice of EU regulations and abolished all smoking in public places!
Hmmm… were we perhaps at the same minimum-security correctional facility? It’s certainly possible that you and I were once cellmates – I was only in solitary for a short time at that facility (for disciplinary reasons), and shared a cell the rest of the time.
Don’t know Bunty – anyone know what they do in the rest of Europe, or indeed the world?
Ah, now that’s a good point G-rider and one that I had forgotten. After the smoking ban, many people started to realise that they could smell old beer, people and lavatories. The pub trade has really gone down the pan and although everyone throws their hands up and shouts ‘Recession’, I’m not convinced. I think it’s a combination of occasional poor management and the smoking ban.
Sadly, I think you must be a different Roxy – never mind.
You do know I was kidding, right?
Of course! x
I was in a bar in Cologne the other week and the barmaid (Frau Fagg we called her) had a cigarette on the go, and we could smoke too. Maybe because it was within a hotel, but I’d like to know what the score is before being arrested by the Cigaretten Polizei.
Try the Nags Head – after hours of course!
Welcome Cath – Nags Head where???
I’m with Littlejen…
I remember seeing planes on stand when smoking was permitted on board and always near the tail fin was the exhaust vent for the cabin which was identifiable by the yellow smear of nicotine that flared away along the fuselage.
The government have a plan, in a replacing the tax duty of cigs. It’s called the lottery and stratch cards, displayed in front of children. Gambling has little health consequences and NHS costs.
I’m now into my 6th or 7th week of not smoking.
Cold turkey after the only nicotine patch I could find ran out.
I no longer have that revolting taste in my mouth when I wake up.
Is all I’m saying.
O.S.M. B:52
Oh well done that OSM – I so admire you for sticking with it. Get a good stock of patches in for the Christmas period though, I always find that I’m more likely to fag it if I’ve had a drink.