I think this is taking things a step too far, I smoke (and have done for over 50 years and having paid all the ludicrous tax hikes and rather than being a bloody burden on the NHS I think I've contributed more than enough!) and am aware it's not healthy but where is the freedom of choice? I still maintain that pubs should be able to allow smoking inside the pub never mind the beer gardens. No-one is umaware of the health risks so if a pub chooses to allow smoking and people don't like it then go elsewhere to a pub that doesn't allow it?
Driving is dangerous (for innocent pedestrians as well as drivers), when are we going to ban cars and buses?
It infuriates me that one hand we have shop lifting being given the green light thanks to the police ignoring it and people convicted of knife crime etc getting an automatic 50% off etc etc etc plus billions of pounds to pay benefits to people who've never contributed taxes we have the time and money to try and stop people having a smoke in the open air!!
They’re all very different issues though.
A driver who drives safely, sticking to the laws of he road and never causes harm to anyone else in his car is doing nothing wrong. But if he causes harm to others through his driving will likely be charged with a crime.
Someone with a knife that self harms only harms themselves, but if he started harming others with the knife he’d likely be charged for a crime.
But your smoking inside pubs may have caused a non-smoking barman’s death from lung cancer that he got from passively inhaling your cigarettes for years for all you know, and that doesn’t see you charged with a crime.
The way they got you to stop harming others was by banning smoking inside pubs. For that alone it was absolutely right for the smoking ban to be introduced.
Even as an ex-smoker, and even at the time I smoked, if someone said there was going to be a worldwide ban on cigarettes, I’d have supported it.
If cigs hadn’t been invented yet and someone suggested introducing them for the first time in history tomorrow, they’re that bad for us they’d never be allowed to introduce them.
Cigs are worse for us than many banned drugs are. Cannabis, mushrooms, lsd and many other drugs are actually beneficial to us in many ways. There is nothing at all beneficial to us in a cigarette.
As for the ban in the open air - smokers are burdening the NHS. Dealing with ailments from smoking costs the NHS £2.6bn a year, and there are around 80,000 smoking related deaths (Manchester being the highest in the country) a year. Imagine how much better than NHS would be if cigs didn’t exist.
