The New Smoking Laws - when?

[SupraSteve]

Even if that's true, the CO2 breathed out by the walker is less harmful (from a global warming perspective) because it'll have been derived from food, not from fossil fuels. [i guess we're not talking here about the fossil fuels consumed in producing and transporting the food.]

Are there different types of CO2?

[nick2]

My mistake, your posts on the matter (over several months) have led me to believe you did. But now I don't understand why you're objections to the ban are so forthright and outspoken?

 

Just because something doesn't efect me personally doesn't mean I can't object to it.

 

I think the whole thing is a waste of time and effort and simply distracts peoples attention while the government ignores the real health/environment issues.

[Superlative]

CO2, carbon dioxide is of course not the only nasty produced by dirty gas guzzeler exhausts. CO, carbon monoxide is of course one of many others , this can kill in very small quantities, if anyone disbelieves this I have devised a simple test.

It involves you sitting in your locked garage for a while. On one occasion you have a packet of cigarettes and no car engine running. On the other occasion you have no cigarettes and the gas guzzeler engine running.

[SupraSteve]

Just because something doesn't efect me personally doesn't mean I can't object to it.

I agree, I'm simply surprised by the virility of your objection when smoking has no good points to defence. Free choice I'm all for, so long as it doesn't impact others - smoking in enclosed areas in others presence obviously does.

 

I think the whole thing is a waste of time and effort and simply distracts peoples attention while the government ignores the real health/environment issues.

Fair enough, I agree that there are other issues, but personally this one if very important - and will doubtless save the NHS millions, if not billions, as tens of thousands of victims of passive smoking simply don't occur and millions of smokers give up their harmful habit.

[Superlative]

No, but if the carbon is recycled from within the atmosphere/biosphere system, as with the food, it doesn't make a net contribution to the CO2 in the atmosphere. What you breathe out will be taken up by plants again and so on (on average). Whereas by burning fossil fuels you're adding more CO2 than will be taken up again by plants. That's the whole point of using biofuels.

This is very true. Plus of course while you are drivng you are also breathing, so the walking a mile argument does not hold true.

[SupraSteve]

CO2, carbon dioxide is of course not the only nasty produced by dirty gas guzzeler exhausts. CO, carbon monoxide is of course one of many others , this can kill in very small quantities, if anyone disbelieves this I have devised a simple test.

It involves you sitting in your locked garage for a while. On one occasion you have a packet of cigarettes and no car engine running. On the other occasion you have no cigarettes and the gas guzzeler engine running.

You didn't get bored of comparing apples and oranges then?

 

OK, here's another test. Drive for 8 hours a day up and down the motorways for a few years, but don't smoke.

 

Then do the same again, but smoke at the same time.

 

Let's see after which stint you're healthier.

[SupraSteve]

This is very true. Plus of course while you are drivng you are also breathing, so the walking a mile argument does not hold true.

Whilst the other argument holds some water (I was aware of it, was just playing devil's advocate), yours does not - I'll cover the mile in a lot less time if driving (especially if I'm on the motorway!), so will have breathed less.

[Superlative]

Whilst the other argument holds some water (I was aware of it, was just playing devil's advocate), yours does not - I'll cover the mile in a lot less time if driving (especially if I'm on the motorway!), so will have breathed less.

Oh dear.....the clutching at straws arguments have begun!

[Cyclone]

I agree, I'm simply surprised by the virility of your objection when smoking has no good points to defence. Free choice I'm all for, so long as it doesn't impact others - smoking in enclosed areas in others presence obviously does.

 

 

Fair enough, I agree that there are other issues, but personally this one if very important - and will doubtless save the NHS millions, if not billions, as tens of thousands of victims of passive smoking simply don't occur and millions of smokers give up their harmful habit.

 

that's not strictly true is it. Smokers make a net contribution to taxation, £6billion contributed, £2billion in treating them.

Cut that out and you have a £4billion whole in the budget.

[SupraSteve]

Oh dear.....the clutching at straws arguments have begun!

Yeah, because I was totally serious, wasn't I....

 

In all seriousness, at the end of the day smoking is seriously damaging to health (it even says so in massive lettering on the packet so you're not under any false idea), and should never be forced upon those people who don't want to partake in breathing in the fumes and exposing themselves to that risk (not to mention the stench).

 

Cars and other causes of pollution are a separate topic/discussion, if you want to have that one - but the above fact deems it necessary - argueably vital - that smoking in places the public have access to should be banned. End of discussion as far as I (and common sense) am concerned.

 

EDIT - and my point still stands even with Cyclone's comment about tax. (TBH it's a small amount in a government's annual budget anyway, and it changes nothing about the health argument in any way.)