[jambutty]

*as long as it does not directly affect my health/smell of my clothes/burn holes in my jacket*.

That statement applies equally to vehicle exhaust fumes DeShark with a slight modification. They affect a person’s health, make my flat and clothes smell of exhaust fumes and contaminate the clothes on the washing line with dirt specks.

My argument is simply if the government is so concerned with our health they should attack all the ways that pollute the atmosphere not just smoking. They have gone for smoking because it is an easy option and they also know that people would be so involved in the issue and argue amongst themselves they could get on with screwing us down in other ways that pass by unnoticed.

I believe that a pint or two/a glass of wine/a whisky helps to calm my nerves.

Pushing 70 and living on my own like I do DeShark and hearing daily that some pensioner has been attacked in their own home a fag helps calm my nerves. What is the difference? Am I not allowed to calm my nerves in the best way that I can?

Why should the majority have to put up with the minority?

We already do and have done for centuries DeShark with the appointment of our government and behind the scenes with the aristocracy and influential. It is what people call democracy.

My main point however, is that I should be able to enjoy my pint in the pub, without leaving smelling of cigarrettes and ash.

And I should be able to live in my flat DeShark without it being filled with vehicle exhaust fumes. I should be able go down town and do my shopping without coughing and spluttering on the way round because my lungs are being filled with exhaust fumes. I should, if inclined which I’m not, be able to go down town during the evening without having to run the drunken yobbo gauntlet.

I would rather have someone slying a quick spliff next to me in a bus stop than a tobacco smoker anyday!!

I know nothing of smoking illegal substances shakermaker but don’t people who smoke cannabis put the stuff in a tobacco roll up?

In a nutshell the anti-smoking brigade are just skirting around the issue because they are not prepared to accept that all forms of pollution are bad for us in one way or another and that it is unfair to target just one source and condone the rest. In your own way you are all just as guilty as the rest of us in causing that pollution. To pretend otherwise is hypocrisy in the extreme.

Are there any of the anti-smoking lobby prepared to declare here and now that it is grossly unfair to target the smoker without also targeting the other major polluter – the internal combustion engine?

I doubt if anyone has the courage to do so because it will destroy all their arguments at a stroke and show them to be irrelevant to the debate.