Things Noticeable this week

[SanteeFats]

Originally Posted by jeffcj

As a [slightly tongue-in-cheek] aside: I once had a heated discussion with a newly-minted consultant who had the temerity to lecture me about the perils of the weed. I gently pointed out to this young idiot that:
smokers, as a group, die disproportionately young - and hence make a correspondingly very much smaller demand on the NHS for palliative and geriatric care, at a saving to the taxpayer of who knows how many millions; and that my 'filthy habit' had, over the years, paid for at least three dialysis-machines..

Not taking a side but the link below seems to indicate that smoking related health problems do cost a lot
http://www.cancer.org/research/infog...althcare-costs

and there is this one also

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-he...0JX2BE20141219

[jeffcj]

Originally Posted by SanteeFats

Not taking a side but the link below seems to indicate that smoking related health problems do cost a lot...

No argument about "a lot". but let's turn that on its head: 91% of the budget goes on non-smoking-related healthcare. And it ignores the disproportionately high contribution, via taxation to the health budget; and direct feeds into the larger economy, made by smokers. One could argue that smokers more than cover the cost of their own treatment.

To be clear about it; I don't really have an issue with a general ban, ever since passive smoking became scientifically established. Since when, I've never knowingly inflicted my addiction on others.
My issue/s are rather with the lies, half-truths, duplicity, coercion and self-righteousness which have infested the whole affair. And with the notion that a government has the right to penalize people for doing something that is [within given limits] perfectly legal.

[Greenman]

I wonder what would happen if you were able to bring a smoker, used to smoking in cinemas and pubs forward from the 1970s into this era? I think they would be amazed let alone aghast at how we've changed, although I must say I prefer a non-smoking cinema environment to what we had when I was a kid - you could see spirals of blue smoke coming out of the smoking seats and it made you wonder what was happening to their lungs and breathing. Scrapping that was a good idea, but it is also the cause of more colds and other symptoms on planes. When people smoked on planes the air was actually fresher because every thirty seconds, fresh air was pumped into the aircraft to keep it from smelling stale. Now you cannot smoke on board aircraft, that air is recycled and you can pick up all sorts of viruses and other nasties, plus many have complained of headaches too.

In some respects these E-Cigarettes are a good idea, but I think they need to differentiate between an actual cigarette and a pipe, because of so-called vaping phenomenon - this to me is a pipe(it is not held between your fingers like a cigarette) and more vapour emanates from these pipe-like things than a cigarette. One of our friends uses an E-Cigarette and won't use the other sort. She thinks they look more like the hookah style device you get in foreign restaurants and you can be enveloped in vapour from one of those rather than a cigarette.

[jeffcj]

Originally Posted by Greenman

...and more vapour emanates from these pipe-like things than a cigarette. ...

To be clear: the vapour is almost entirely water-vapour. All that nice health-giving nicotine goes/stays safely inside the addict's giblets : -)
I've got so many kinds of weird vaping kit I'd probably have a tough time proving to a Drug Squad officer that I wasn't being 'naughty'

Off at a tangent... to prolong/preserve human life is ostensibly a moral desideratum. BUT... let's take the long view [one no govt. seems capable of].
The First World is already undergoing an ageing crisis, with an increasingly elderly and economically less active demographic largely being supported by a younger, shrinking workforce. Couple that with the rest of the planet's burgeoning growth and you have an imminent disaster. So it may in the near future become socially desirable for people to indulge in life-threatening behaviours, thereby easing the burden on the world's rapidly-diminishing resources.
So the time may come when I am pointed-at admiringly by small children and feted in the street by nubile young maidens, for my civic-minded indulgence in a nice tasty public roll-up. Kitchener-esque posters will appear everywhere, exhorting: "Your country needs YOU - to smoke 50 a day, eat 20 1/4 pounders and swallow neat gin by the bucketful"!!
As any biologist will tell you. mortality is a very important part of life. Death, quite literally, nourishes the living.

[vannax]

Gotta love them folk who actually approve of telling folk what they can and cannot do on their own private property.
If a man opens a restaurant, it is his choice to let customers smoke or not. Period.
If he lets people smoke in his establishment, then those who don't like it are not forced to patronize it.
It seems many prefer to have the state force folk at gunpoint to behave in consonance with their desires. There is a word for governments like that.

[vinceprince]

Originally Posted by vannax

Gotta love them folk who actually approve of telling folk what they can and cannot do on their own private property.
If a man opens a restaurant, it is his choice to let customers smoke or not. Period.
If he lets people smoke in his establishment, then those who don't like it are not forced to patronize it.
It seems many prefer to have the state force folk at gunpoint to behave in consonance with their desires. There is a word for governments like that.

Why just one restaurant? What if the man is Ronald McDonald and he owns lots of property and restaurants?

So the workers just like it or lump it?

[vannax]

Originally Posted by vinceprince

Why just one restaurant? What if the man is Ronald McDonald and he owns lots of property and restaurants?

So the workers just like it or lump it?

I'm not sure how things work in the UK, but in North America, McDonalds is composed of privately owned franchises.
No-one is forcing anyone to work there.

If I open up a restaurant, it is up to me to decide if I wish to let customers smoke in my establishment. A worker can decide for himself if he wishes to work in my establishment. All these decisions are made by people freely following their conscience. Sending state troopers to threaten, coerce and/or shut me down for non-compliance with their edicts is highly unethical.
There are only two options: Let people freely follow their conscience, or force them to follow someone else's.

[SanteeFats]

Originally Posted by vannax

Gotta love them folk who actually approve of telling folk what they can and cannot do on their own private property.
If a man opens a restaurant, it is his choice to let customers smoke or not. Period.
If he lets people smoke in his establishment, then those who don't like it are not forced to patronize it.
It seems many prefer to have the state force folk at gunpoint to behave in consonance with their desires. There is a word for governments like that.

The only problem I see with that is in the customer base. As of 2014 about 17% of US people were smokers. If you have a smoking allowed public place that is a small customer base to draw from. Yes there will be non-smokers who will patronize it but if you are opening a business which side would you want to draw from?

[seany65]

Originally Posted by CARLTON BROWN

Apparently, David Cameron has absolutely no plans drawn up for an exit from the EU. What does this tell us all? The referendum is going to be carefully stage managed and the public will be coerced into accepting continued membership.

It is already obvious that this silly deal to keep Britain in the EU is a complete waste of time and most of the major faults with the way the EU is run, will remain. But the UK public, seen as sheep by most politicians are expected to be taken in by (Just call me) Dave's skilled negotiations that are apparently going to set us all free.

In reality, it's unlikely anything of note will improve and some of our existing rights may actually vanish. So as far as I can see, there is no point whatsoever in taking part in this referendum and if I was younger, I would certainly be hoping to move as far away from Europe as possible.

What they've not told us is, that in the event of an 'Out' vote, a short while later, after the 'exit negotiations', We'll be expected to vote again to confirm that we want out.

Very much like Ireland and the Netherlands had to do with the Euro.

[jeffcj]

Originally Posted by vinceprince

Why just one restaurant? What if the man is Ronald McDonald and he owns lots of property and restaurants?
So the workers just like it or lump it?

The economic reality is that 80& of the population don't smoke, money talks; and so only a quarter of jobs will be in smoky environments. On the downside, for the 'smoking' establishments - I imagine their employee liability costs would skyrocket, that might knock-on to prices; and it's possible the thing might collapse of its own weight... I'm sure that govt. would do all it could to aid the process.