[Terry]

Originally Posted by WillowTheWhisp

In some cases I'd be inclined to agree with you but unfortunately common sense doesn't tend to prevail.

Being in a restaurant enjoying a meal which is suddenly ruined by people at another table who have finished their meal and consider it "common sense" to then light up and waft their smoke over our table leaves me asking whose rights are being violated by whom.

The point about the MMR vaccine is a good one A-b and I can see why you wouldn't want to be dependant on a nicotine substitute instead of on cigarettes. However, it wasn't clear to me whether the "cocktail of drugs" related to your heart attack or to the giving up of smoking. My late husband (who was diabetic and insulin intollerant) took a "cocktail of drugs" which effectively kept him alive and he was very grateful for them. His death (in hospital) was totally unrelated to them or the diabetes but that's another story.

If medication is prescribed following a heart attack I wouldn't recommend anyone just giving it up because of the cost. You may feel fine but does that mean that everything IS fine? I certainly hope so but a friend of mine felt "perfectly fine" the day he set out for work and dropped dead before he even got there.

Don't the cigarettes themselves lay you open to the possibility of further heart attacks and cancer? Three of my grandparents and my mother-in-law all died of cancer. I was too young to know much about the suffering of my grandparents who all died within 6 months of each other when I was 4 years old. They were all 3 in different hospitals at one point which must have been horrendous for my parents. I did witness the suffering and decline of my m-i-l and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I don't think the stories are idle scaremongering by people with an ulterior motive. And on a purely selfish note I have no wish to die from the effects of "passive" smoking.

Willow I respect your wiews of all you have said. I myself am a very heavy smoker.. Nevertheless, I don't like to upset anyone else because of it. As for your thought that you don't want to die of passive smoking, I can assure you that that with all the laws in place at the present time it would be a sheer impossibilty. It wouldn't matter if you got three or four wiffs a day of ciggy smoke it would probably take a 4 or 500 years to die of passive smoking. You would have to be in it all day. 24/7/52. Yes sure I know it's not pleasant sniffing it, and I for one would not want you to, but we have to be realistic in the sense that if passive smoke is harmful then think of the full amount that is breathed in by the smoker. Actually it seems I am lookin for excuses here . No I'm not. I don't think that non-smokers should be subjected to any cigarette smoke whatsoever. But lets face it, we can all of us sit in a little outside cafe and enjoy lunch and enjoy all the fresh vehicle fumes together. You know the ones I mean. The ones that we can't smell, see, or notice that are far worse than passive smoking will ever be, and it wouldn't bother us a shmuck, and still think we are living in a healthy manner.
P.S. I still love you Willow