We did this in Sweden a few years ago and I’m very thankful.
Smoking is banned in all restaurants, train stations, school, and any other place where lots of people congregate
While working to decrease smoking is pretty objectively a good thing, maybe properly funding the NHS, which has been getting cut to the bone by Tories hoping to sell it to their pals would be a better approach to this particular problem statement.
FYI we did this in New Zealand years ago (like more than a decade ago).
It is amazing. There are well ventilated smoking areas (well outside). Inside the air is clear and you get home without reeking of smoke.
It’s the same in the UK - indoor public spaces have been smoke free since 2007. This is proposing removing public outdoor smoking spaces at bars and restaurants.
Oh, that’s a bit shit.
Even I, a non smoker, think that’s a bit rough.
As a former smoker, I think this is a good idea.
Smoking costs the public enormous costs in terms of healthcare.
Like hundreds of thousands of extra per liftime. That the NHS has to pay.
Here’s a study from 1990, add inflation and such https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199710093371506
So do a lot of decisions people make. Where do you draw the line?
Smoking tobacco is far deadlier and more addictive than nearly all drugs. MDMA, LSD, even cocaine.
Only Heroin and Fetanyl are comfortably both more addictive and more deadly.
You draw the line proportionally to how dangerous it is. The government regulation dangerous decisions is nothing new.
They put fences around cliffs. They ban driving under drug influence. They regulate driving with driving licenses. They force cars sold to meet certain safety standards. They regulate the max radiation that devices are allowed to output. They tax certain foods more than others (such as sugar-heavy foods). They ban certain construction materials (asbestos, lead).
The list is almost endless.
A lot of those things are very different from just personal vices.
If you want personal vices, sure.
Max sound volume (some people enjoy listening to really loud music). Max road speed (some people enjoy going really fast). Casinos (some people enjoy gambling). Animal fighting (some people enjoy watching those).
Each of those for a variety of reasons
- Annoyance of others (which could lead to severe health effects)
- Safety of others
- Your own wellbeing
- Animal rights
I don’t see why smoking is this special that can’t be regulated. It was regulated already.
If i want to drink a beer and smoke a ciggy outside at the pub in the SMOKERS section that should be my right. Why should the government have any say over this.
Why should the government have any say over this.
Because they’ll be the ones paying if you get cancer?
Not just him, it’s also negatively affecting other people around him. The smoke doesn’t just stop at an invisible barrier where the smoking area ends and the non-smoking area begins.
And I don’t think the staff are being paid more for taking on the additional risk.
90s McDonald’s flashback
Disgusting in retrospective
Ok tax it then to compensate for the difference dont start limiting freedoms.
Tax it.
Lol. Tell me you’re not an adult without telling me you’re not an adult.
I don’t see what the fuck you’re talking about here. Tax the cigarettes to compensate for the extra cost of medical care for the smokers and don’t infringe upon people’s freedoms. I don’t see what’s so complicated about that. Only the people who are costing the government money are paying the additional tax for the costs they themselves are causing. Are you fucking stupid or what?
You’ll get it when you’re older.
So you’re just the stereotypical boomer who hates anything getting taxed? might surprise you but a lot of these are young kids that you seem to be joking about are actually adults now and they can vote and hopefully we vote to abolish your fucking aged care.
This is why the American system is superior. You have the freedom to get cancer if you want, you just have to pay for it yourself instead of relying on handouts from govmunt. Don’t tread on me.
I feel bad for whatever state wasted its money on your education!
I called your mum. It’s not too late for her to have a postnatal abortion.
Because people should have the right to tell other adults what to do with their own body.
I really hope ur being sarcastic or did u just forget a word?
Do I really need a /s for that? C’mon dude.
It is fucking lemmy ive seen some people unironiclly spouting this shit.
Fair but they don’t outright say “we should have the right to control what other adults put in their own bodies” because while that is what they believe it sounds bad when you phrase it like that, they usually just say “for the children” or some such nonsense.
Because it’s still disgusting. Smoking is disgusting to anyone but smokers. Your cigarettes are fucking everywhere. Just do yourself and everyone around you a favour and realise that it’s maybe time to stop being gross. It’s like taking a shit on the street. Why am i not allowed to take a shit on the street? I just want to get drunk and shit outside? What’s with my freedom?
Governments have a say in your rights every single time.
When they put fences around a cliff they are infringing upon your right to throw yourself off a cliff.
That’s part of the powers of governments, deciding if you have the right to do something.
So why the fuck are you advocating for the government to take away more of your rights? Why can’t I throw myself off a fucking cliff if I want to? It’s my fucking God-given right. Stop being such a simp for the boot.
Because I fucking hate walking around the city and having to hold my breath because there’s a smoker in a 10m radius.
The same reason that I advocate for the government to not allow people to buy guns.
A 10 metre radius, hey? Fucking exaggeration, much.
The argument for taking away guns is because by taking away the individual liberty to own a gun you are increasing the total liberty of people to not get shot.
It’s all about the level of acceptable risk. If you were to use your rational brain to think about this instead of your emotions you would come to the realisation that cars are more dangerous than people smoking on the street, so perhaps we should ban all cars.
And if you’re at a pub and you don’t like people smoking, perhaps you can go somewhere else. Fucking walk inside. Leave the smoker section. It’s not that fucking hard.
By taking away the liberty of one person smoking, you are increasing the liberty of all the people around them to breathe in clean air.
Cars at least provide a purpose. We take the risk of having cars because they are very convenient. What is the benefit of smoking? The only benefit is calming the effects caused by not smoking while having a smoking addiction.
I just dont think ur math adds up. Here’s my logic on the matter
Loss of liberty = population * smoker% * average liberty of someone to smoke a ciggy
Gain in liberty = population * (1- smoker%) * relative air quality improvement * average liberty of someone to not be exposed to ciggy smoke
I would simply argue the relative air quality improvement is so small that the gain in liberty will never be greater than the loss. Lets assume that ciggy smoke distributes according to inverse square law and smoking reduces ur lifespan by 50% at a distance of 1m ur life is reduced by 0.039% at 2m its reduced by 0.0099% for comparison by my rough estimation the avergae driver loses about 0.036% of their life by driving and society accepts that risk so all u need to do is stand a little over a metre away from anyone with a ciggy and its safer than driving (i did all the calcs in favour of ciggies being as bad as possible.
This is all just fermi estimation but we should be in the correct order of magnitude.
