Smoking ban

What an enlightening thread!

indeed, its brought out the weirdest alliances you wouldnt expect…

If you don’t want to smoke, drink, take drugs and eat shit food then very well done, but the leave the rest of us to make our own decisions about how we live our lives.

Given that the likelihood of obesity is 4 times greater in the most deprived compared to the least deprived areas & that smoking shows similar ratios, do you really believe that people are completely free to choose these things. Are poor people just spectacularly bad at making a judgement about what is good for them? If so do we just leave them to it. Sounds a particularly Tory viewpoint to me. Is there something you aren’t telling us daz?

I didn’t expect this thread to be quite the hand grenade it’s become!  This amused me though…

I watched Peaky Blinders and really wanted a roll up.

Me and Mrs Bloke seldom drink spirits, but we adopted a tradition of always having a whisky whenever we watched Peaky Blinders.

Are poor people just spectacularly bad at making a judgement about what is good for them? If so do we just leave them to it.

It’s this sort of patronising snobbish bollocks that I’m talking about. Poor people are perfectly capable of making the same decisions you make. The difference is that they might not have the means to consume the nice stuff you do or have a nice fulfilling middle class life which doesn’t tempt them to seek a bit of escapism in the form of a cig, a few pints or a crack pipe. If you’re so concerned about the health and welfare of poor people how about we make them less poor rather than passing judgement on their personal consumption preferences.

No, they are going to ID people.  Same as they do now

Because that works so well at the moment and there is no underage smoking or shops that sell them to underage kids with impunity. Who is going to have the time or resources to actually enforce this new version of the law any better than the current arrangement which doesnt work.

It’s this sort of patronising snobbish bollocks that I’m talking about.

OK. We’ll just let the  poor alone to be exploited by drug dealers & tobacco companies.

Conversely I am supportive of the legalisation of cannabis, so that’s seems to be a bit of a dichotomy in my thinking.

You don’t need to smoke cannabis to consume it. You can either vaporize the herb, without the addition of any other chemicals, eat it in the form of sweets(it seems very irresponsible to me to make chocolate and gummy bears out of cannabis) or take it in a liquid.

anything to try to stop children smoking is a good idea in my lofty opinion

completely useless drug, wont get you ****, wont get you laid, ban it.

I suspect that the Conservatives have chosen this method because it’s cheap above all else.

I suspect you are right… the conservatives see this for what it is, an easy/free win for them as the numbers of tobacco smokers are on the decline for many reasons, price of tobacco, health concerns and it not beeing seen as fasionable or cool any more I suspect being the main drivers, with this ban being almost anecdotal.

It does allow the goverment to say ‘look how good we are! the numbers of smokers are falling due to our tough stance on protecting public health!!!!!!.’

They are falling anyway but it just gives them an easy way to claim some sort of win. It’s no more complicated than that, IMO.

We’ll just let the poor alone to be exploited by drug dealers & tobacco companies.

Yeah lets not address the root problem but instead tell them they can’t do some stuff because it’s not in their own interests. What other risky stuff are you going to ban them from doing? Mountain biking? Driving? Crossing the road? Perhaps they need chaperones to make sure they’re living their lives properly and safely?

PS. If you seriously think people take drugs and smoke solely because of the influence of advertising or shady ‘drug pushers’ then you should probably get out a bit more.