Smokefree Workplaces

[Helm]

I totally agree, squinky. I'd be the biggest hypocrite myself if I suggested that I constantly think of dying children. I don't. That'd be one way to go insane, yeah. I'm in my own little world most of the time. We are animals, there's safeguards in our 'theoretical consciousness' of what goes around in the world, where when the scope gets too big, the idea of pain just becomes abstracted into nothing. Life is egotistical, we mostly care about what happens to us. I'm not arguing this is 'good' or 'bad' (morality on such a fundamental level I find is misplaced) just that that's how it is. But when I do stand up to make strong opinions, I try to remember the bigger picture. I've seen people behave so obnoxiously about second hand smoke, I just HAVE to ask what they think about real injustice, about real life-and-death situations. I don't get the american for example that complains about second hand smoke but also elects Bush in office who then goes on to bomb children. I just can't understand where the line is drawn, where the 'little thing' can be argued to death with voices so loud, and where the 'big thing' is pushed aside.

[edmundito]

I think that the government should really apply some ventilation laws to places that just want to allow smoking, though I guess it's much cheaper to tell people what they cannot do instead.

Smoking was recently banned in all restaurants in this town (Over here on the edge of the mid-south/mid-west USA) unless they sell more alcohol than food, aka a bar/pub. And I don't mind going out having a few drinks with smoke lingering around because it's just the way it is, but some places have worse ventilation others.

And here, people tend to smoke outside if they work for a sit-down-at-a-desk  business like my job, and I'm not sure if it's the law or it's customary. What really pissed me off is that before we moved out to a nicer place, the people next door just smoked indoors, so all their second-hand smoke leaked towards our office, and that makes it very hard to uh... do anything, really, when you're being intoxicated by someone's else's waste.

When I used to live in a 2-season country, since windows and doors are always open, people sitting in front of me could smoke nd I couldn't even smell the second-hand smoke. nobody complains about it there.

So as long as the smoke doesn't linger in my face, I'm cool. Maybe I'm just like this because I grew up in a family with smokers.

[passer-by]

I just can't understand where the line is drawn, where the 'little thing' can be argued to death with voices so loud, and where the 'big thing' is pushed aside.

When someone can't Ã, respect the people they live/work with and they don't care about the well-being of their own loved ones (smoking is one example, not the major one) I don't understand how they can care for people who live thousands of miles away and laws that apply in countries they only see in travel agencies' bright posters.

[Helm]

You're not understanding me. When someone cares so much about the sanctity of life and not harming others that they obsess and encourage LEGISLATION that bans public smoking, seriously not the biggest of problems in our chemical society, while at the same time is ok with the second-hand smoke that craters from children-killing bombs emit, then something's wrong! Wee!

[Blackthorne]

I live in New York, where there's been a smoking ban for a couple of years now.

I think it really should be up to the individual owners of such establishments to set the rules.  If you want a business that caters to smokers, of which there are an (apathetic) lot of, you should be able to.

It's nice to have a choice - in both directions.


Bt

[passer-by]

while at the same time is ok with the second-hand smoke that craters from children-killing bombs emit

It may not be OK, either. Why can't both apply? I don't think non-smokers'unique thought is to ban smoking and that none of them has other priorities as well...

[Squinky]

Blackthorn, I agree with what you say if it was just customers and the business owner. When you get employees involved, then you have to think of them also.

[InCreator]

Being a hardcore chain smoker, I'm still not against the ban.
But what restrictions? If I can't smoke in room, I'll do it outside. If not at territory, outside the territory (schools, company areas, etc)
But NO ONE tells me not to do it at all. No one.

Also, I think this is not done with bans and restrictions. It's done with mutual understanding and agreement. I won't smoke in same room with children or people who doesn't like this. And they won't try to make my life harder with forcing bans and restrictions. Easy enough? Don't want to inhale, go away. If can't, I won't smoke.


And non-smokers, who's afraid of smoke like HIV or nuclear weaponry (and there are many) - I call them smokephobes which is actually quite right, are complete idiots. Wake up!
Yes, there are idiots like this. I inhale a pack a day, 7 years already - and I'm alive. Some sense a slightest trace of smoking 3 hours ago and starts rolling around and yelling that he's been poisoned. Or something like that. Called phobia and hysteric fear. I suggest free bullet per person like this.

[LimpingFish]

Surely when this ban comes in, all that'll happen is that you'll get a huge crowd of smokers standing outside the front door of the pub having a fag, so that whenever you walk in or out of the building you get suffocated in the process

Actually this is pretty much the norm here now.

[Helm]

Why can't both apply

I'm sure they both apply for a lot of people. But bombs still fly off, while cigarettes have been delt with. Do you believe now that the smoking ban is in effect, these wonderful people will move on to the slight bombing problem, or do you believe that the smoking thing, along with a host of other trivialities act as a smokescreen (no pun intended) for more important issues that may partain to bombs, dead children, politics and money?

[passer-by]

Called phobia and hysteric fear. I suggest free bullet per person like this.

For people who don't like seeing smokers around patients' wards, asthmatic children or elderly with respiratory problems? Or for people who have health problems aggravated by smoke/airconditionning and any form of unclean air and they just ask for smokers to smoke wherever it is permitted within the building (canteen) or in bars/pubs etc where a ventilated place for non smokers Ã, probably exists Ã, or where non smokers can CHOOSE not to go at all? Ã, (While they can't stop working?)

[passer-by]

Why can't both apply

the smoking thing, along with a host of other trivialities act as a smokescreen (no pun intended) for more important issues that may partain to bombs, dead children, politics and money?

It depends on the person, really.

[Helm]

That's an insightful comment.

[Nikolas]

I think that the government should really apply some ventilation laws to places that just want to allow smoking, though I guess it's much cheaper to tell people what they cannot do instead.

Well, I don't know about that.

I mean the TAXES that the goverment gest from the cigys sold is probably amazing. Especially in the Uk where the price of chigarettes is at leas twice the price in Greece (for the same brands mind you...)

I find it kinda tricky thing, since there are sooooo much money envolved...

[Pumaman]

I've seen people behave so obnoxiously about second hand smoke, I just HAVE to ask what they think about real injustice, about real life-and-death situations. I don't get the american for example that complains about second hand smoke but also elects Bush in office who then goes on to bomb children. I just can't understand where the line is drawn, where the 'little thing' can be argued to death with voices so loud, and where the 'big thing' is pushed aside.

People are selfish by nature -- and second hand smoke is something that effects a lot of (for example) Americans in their daily lives, whereas Bush bombing Iraq does not.

Therefore people are bound to get more excited about something that does directly affect them (smoke) than something that does not (civilians being bombed on the other side of the world).

[Haddas]

I try to keep others in mind when I smoke on the town. If people walk by I'll hold my breath until they walk past or refrain from inhaling until they've moved past me. It's not nice blowing your smoke at people who do not wish to have anything to do with it.

[MrColossal]

Why is there a cure for flacid penis and not a cure for cancer?

Because getting a penis hard is easier than curing cancer...

Why is there a smoking ban but not a stop war ban?

[Blackthorne]

Blackthorn, I agree with what you say if it was just customers and the business owner. When you get employees involved, then you have to think of them also.

Well if it's up to the owners, then the risk is implied in said buisness.  Just as an arc welder or construction foreman knows the risks inherent in their jobs.  If you work at a place designed to cater to smokers, the conditions are a factor in you choosing the workplace to apply to.


Bt

[Las Naranjas]

Insofar that all workplaces are equally accessable to every employee in the workforce, who also have skills equally applicable to each firm, and there is no asymmetries in the information available as to the MRPL, and subsequently efficient pay rates, and of course there are equal skills in negotiating.

All we have to do is remove all monopsonistic powers from the factor market and conditions and pay rates would perfectly reflect the costs incurred by the workers. The absense of monopsonistic competition is a feature of markets in the real world!

Of course, in the absense of perfect competition, we need government to make up for market failures.

[SSH]

Just for info: Fine for a smoker will be 50 GBP, fine for establishment will be 2500 GBP

Also, Scotland has already done this legislation, and it kicks in at the end of March this year...