The only thing more surprising than the gall of these public health crusaders is how many people support their non-logic.

First of all, the laws like this essentially turn private businesses (bars) into commons. Apparently it's not enough for anti-smoking activists to be able to put their own effort into running a private bar and making it smoke free.

Why should you have a "right" to go into an establishment and have your whim catered to in the name of public health?

Even if the cancer was linked to passive smoking (and the only conclusive evidence shows that living with a smoker if you don't smoke is probably not a good idea), what is the real justification for this?

Let's be honest. This isn't about health. It's about nannys using the power of the state to shape the world in their image.

Pretty soon you will be using the same reasoning to go after fatty foods. After all, those fat people are quite an eyesore. And we have an "obesity crisis" don't we? And don't eat that goddamn hamburger around my child. You're poisoning his mind with cultural pollution: the idea that greasy food is delicious and good to eat. Your rights end where my safety zone begins.

It's issues like this that remind me that there is no party of tolerance. Just a party that wages its crusades in the name of Christ and a party that wages its crusades in the name of Four Out Of Five Experts Agree.

I do so love overreacting smokers. Normally I'd dismiss this as sarcasm, but as he went out of his way to tell us to take him seriously... I shall mock him.

Mock.

Smoking is smoking. What does being Scottish have to do with anything?

We've had smoking banned in public where I live for a fews years now. It hasn't been a catastrophe; the bars and clubs are as busy as ever.

Either ban fags altogether or not at all!!!

Oh and troglodyte

''Smoking is smoking. What does being Scottish have to do with anything?''

The thread is about smoking in Scotland so I would guess being Scottish and livng in Scotland perhaps may have alittle to do with this thread.

So put that in your pipe & smoke it !!!


or not!!!

You sound like a swing state. HAR!

This news story is about the Scottish Assembly passing a law to ban smoking in Scotland. The Welsh assembly want to do the same but they don't have the powers to do so. Liverpool wants to do the same but it doesn't have the power. England probably won't for a while. I don't know about NI. Ireland banned smoking in public and it seems to have gone very well.

Yep.

You think public health is not important? You'd scrap all health and safety laws?

So, um, only Scots are entitled to an opinion on this one?

I guess the Jews couldn't smoke in bars in medieval Eurpoe either.

I'm in Scotland and I'm pissed off with this law. Not so much because I HAVE to have a cigarette everywhere I go - I don't - but because this Scottish Parliament seems hell bent on bringing in legislation on people's personal habits to a unprecedented degree.

Scotland does have a dreadful record on health. This legislation won't do a great deal about it. Tacking poverty and social exclusion might.

The rights of the 75% of us that don't smoke outweigh the the rights of the 25% that do. Besides that, it's not just about customers, it's about the employees. Spending eight hours a day swimming in cigarette smoke is hazardous to one's health. An employer is no more entitled to have employees working in a smoky workplace than they are requiring employees to use unsafe machines.

I just told you.

So you claim that a smoking ban isn't really about public health and then you come out with this gem.

Not even remotely the same thing.

Yeah, smokers sure are a downtrodden minority.

Yes, excellent logic. You know what else? I think we should ban those handicapped spots, I mean, I rarely ever see them used so if they were so necessary why aren't people using them?

Of course there's legitimate reasons to have public health regulation. This isn't one of them. The fear of getting lung cancer from sharing a bar with smokers is like fearing cirrhosis from smelling a drunkard's breath. What's it's about, as has always been, is regulating and eliminating behavior we find aesthetically unpleasant.

Even the tobaco industry accepts that there is a health risk from second stream smoke. Are you really going to continue using their forged, lying, stats that even they don't use anymore?