some facts
Scotland's smoking ban became law March 2006, you are a little behind the times. It's also not one of the few places where smoking is banned in public places, the whole of the UK is now covered by the ban as is Ireland. In fact there are a huge number of countries that now have a
public smoking ban
If you are going to have a go at us smokers, at least take the time to get your facts right first.
It's probably a bit late for a retort, I am surprised this thread went as long as it did, usually my threads fall on deaf ears it seems.
The point I was making was about a total ban on smoking in public which is, to this day, quite unusual in almost any country. You are right in pointing out that most of the UK has now got some kind of ban but it's not the same thing. If you go through the list that you yourself linked to you will find that it's not only a bit out of date, it also lists very few countries with a complete ban on smoking in public.
Most countries around the world at this stage, if they ban smoking at all, ban it only in
indoor, public, enclosed spaces.
The typical next step is to ban smoking *outside* on patios, in enclosed spaces or near doorways. The intent here is to shame the smokers into actually standing out in the rain to smoke and to give the outside restaurant patios back to the majority who actually don't smoke.
The next step after that (and it's a bold one), is to simply say smoking is banned in public and you have to be in your own house or car to do it, period. That's what I was talking about and what the article I linked to suggested the case was in Scotland. If that's not the case, then I apologise for misleading, but that's what the article said.
The point is anyway that if the ban in Scotland is *not* as wide or far-reaching as indicated, then the statistics are even more alarming by comparison.
PS - @
leekohler
I used the word "disgusting" because that's what it is to me. I have already apologised for the pejorative, but you have to allow me to think my own thoughts and feel my own feelings.
You rightly indicate that the word "disgusting" when used as an adjective for "drug-addict" conjures up a certain negative image, perhaps of spotty losers clawing at one's pant-legs or whatnot, and it does.
What I am saying is that (totally honest here), that's the exact image that comes up in my mind when I see a smoker on the street. I honestly do not see any difference at all between the two, and that's why I used the term.
Smokers are to me otherwise normal folks who have got addicted to a ridiculous drug that doesn't even give anything back to them other than sickness. They flout the laws, and don't give a rat's ass about their fellow citizens safety or comfort precisely *because* they are addicted. If they were not addicted they wouldn't do that because they are in fact, otherwise normal decent people.
This is just like the average crack-head. They *want* to stop smoking crack, before they started they were normal middle-class folks for the most part, but they can't shake the addiction. The need to do the drug turns them into animals that don't care about what's right or wrong, they just want to be left alone and to do their drugs.
How is this any different at all from an alcoholic or a smoker?
