Smoking in the UK

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BeerAdvocate

New member
I sort of started after the ban. The government does something and everyone says yup! good one that.... And so on. But you will be amazed how much has been eroded or taken away by the men in suits under laws or taxes. You will need more fingers on your hand to work that one out.
 
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patf

Member
In the States we have a program set up by law enforcement called D.A.R.E it is completly covered by tax payers and it is a complete failure. Kids that are in 5th thru 7th grades (approx.) do the program at school for a month or so and then they have alittle award ceremony at the end of the program. The kids pledge not to smoke, use drugs, or drink (until of age). By the time these kids reach High School the percentage of kids that have or are drinking, smoking, or doing drugs is in the 90's percentile. Just another example of miss management by the government but it does make the officers involved look good doing their civic duty with the kids; after all they will be busting these same kids.

Why is it government always seems to know what is best for everyone but it is almost never in anyones best interest?
 
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jonasbrotherFREAKt

New member
Defo, its gonna be a long process. Theyve suggested putting images of peoples insides on packs of fags now to show the damage smoking does, i think the idea was taken from Australia were they do it, although i dont remember the packets having them on when i was there last year. Maybe our local Oz residents could comfirm this?

That i think could have an effect, ive been on driving course when i was a trainee and they showed us wrecks of the crashes and the effects of drink driving and the thoughts have always stayed.

Education then images of someones insides everytime they buy a pack, then having to smoke them out in the cold. All that just too look 'cool' in some peoples case's!
 
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MYDOGSALY

New member
There used to be a brand of cigs in the UK called 'Death'.

They were in a black packet with a skull and crossbones on them.

When I was a teen, they were the ones that had the 'cool' factor. If the product is on the shelves, people will buy it.

There is one simple solution to the cigs problem. Ban them. Yeah, sure, there will still be the blackmarket option. But if you make them unavailable to otherwise law abiding people then the number of smokers would be cut by 90 odd percent.

It makes me laugh, the govt earns a vast fortune from smokers in the UK and then spends a few quid on a 'smoking is bad' advertising campaign and thinks it has the balance right. Of course, we reach for the pack at times of worry and stress, so when we're faced with a picture of a tumourous lung, we start sweating with fear. What's going to make us feel better? Ah yes, our trusty friend, the cigarette!

I'm guessing if you want to make a Treasury official spit his chips, tell him that smoking is being banned after the next queens speech. They love us smoking. How else can they afford to bail out failing banks, run the NHS or fund 'peacekeeping' missions all round the globe without us public spirited smokers propping up the economy?

If they were serious about 'public health' it would be banned, period. But smokers still vote in marginals and once you have a kid hooked on fags you have a strong chance you can count them as a revenue stream for the next few decades...
 
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jessica96307

New member
The government pulls in more than enough taxes, what they dont do is spend them in an efficient manner, apparently some local councils have a 6 figure bottled water bill, as a taxpayer I dont remember signing off on that.
 
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marlonduval

New member
I hate smoking with a passion. If I were dictator of the world, I'd lock all smokers in airtight boxes with 1,000 packs of fags and a small feeding tube that squirted nutrients 3 times a day, and not let them out until they were either dead or so totally sick of fags that even the sight of one sent them into a hysterical fit.

That said, being serious now, I'm dead against this. I really don't think it'll stop smokers smoking, I don't think the scheme will even cover its own admin costs, it'll create more opportunity for cigarettes to be sold on the black market, plus it'll needlessly make criminals of people who smoke without the licences. And that's assuming the government even manage to implement it properly.

I can sympathise with those who say let's inconvenience smokers as much as possible. My heart goes out especially to Lou - I know how you feel. But I'd rather see them inconvenienced by gradually reducing the places in which it's acceptable for them to smoke. This scheme is just more pointless admin and paperwork. As someone else has already pointed out - what will we need a licence for next?
 
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josephfrodo

New member
Spot on. There are already counterfeit cigarettes available that are worse for you than the real brands. These fake fags have no quality assurance and can contain much more tar than the amounts stated on the packets and are a lot worse for you as you really have no idea whats in them.

Prohibition just does not work, if it did then all illegal drugs would not be available and as we all know they are all more available than ever.

Hello all BTW, great forum. Maybe my first post should have been an introduction.
 
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SiameseliflUlPlease

New member
You haven't got any idea anyhow with legal cigarettes. To be honest I bet you there's not a single smoker out there that has much of an idea of how much tar is legally allowed in cigs and how they're tested for it and what the parameters of that test are. So really there isn't all that much difference... it's not as if smokers are resting easy because the quality of their fags are 'quality assured'.

How much worse than cancer and all the smoking related diseases does it need to be before smokers wake up?



The whole point of prohibition isn't the total elimination of illegal drugs... I don't think the anti-drug lobby or the anti-smoking lobby thinks they're ever going to entirely do away with it. The point is to limit access to those items as much as possible and make it as hard as possible for the average noob to get a hold of them. Even that is sometimes a long shot because there is simply too much of it out there. That doesn't mean that prohibiting drugs and smoking is useless... one does have to be realistic about the extent that any prohibition programs are going to work.
 
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Gnagstasmooth5

Member
I figured since everyone here is bashing smoking, someone needs to step up and hold the line

Smoking is hazard can't argue with that, but what about an occusional pipe after dinner? or a "fag" once a week? When I try to argue that, someone usually replys: "that occusional pipe can cost you your life!?"...Well that's wrong since only excessive smoking is proved to cause any harm.
 
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Tarodica

New member
1) unless your and old mustachioed pensioner that has medals on his chest and served in the British Raj... you'd look like a right tool smoking a pipe. So on that alone... you fail.

2) the problem is the smokers don't live in some little self contained world (we can all wish though right?)... they generally stand right by the door of a place where it's illegal to smoke and puff away... inconsiderately making anyone who wishes to enter have to wade through a cloud of smoke.... right before they usually stub out their cig butt and toss it on the floor.
 
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Tyrone

Member
Hey Slip, You can carry of a pipe if you are playing Jazz too.
I like a good quality cigar at new year or at a bike rally, I didn't have mine this year because I had a bad cold though.
 
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nokia

Member
Would you call passive smoking 'excessive smoking'? It seems there's quite a few people who have suffered from this over the years.

From the video in This thread I didn't really like the idea of an occasional smoke not doing any damage, it seems to me there's more than enough toxins and irritants in just one.
 
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TMan

Member
Possibly not, I'm undecided. Cigs are bad, but the body does have an amazing capacity to adapt and compensate. However, after seeing that clip, there's no way I could ever even consider smoking another fag.
 
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