Smoking
 

I am a heavy smoker and i think the best thing that could happen for me is smoking to be banned in all public places this might sound selfish but not as selfish as i'v have been affecting none smoking peoples rights for clean air for years. What do you think?

Re: Smoking
 

I admire your attitude.

Do you feel that banning smoking in public will help you to cut down or even stop?

As I said in the previous thread on this subject I do not object to people having the right to smoke. I only object to having no option but to breathe in their second hand smoke when I have never smoked and never wanted to.

Thank you for understanding that we have a right to clean air.

Re: Smoking
 

If bob's a heavy smoker, it might help him cut down, but I can't see him stopping immediately.

Unless he lives in a public place, of course...

I gave up smoking 4 years ago. I cut down first and then stopped completely a few days later

Re: Smoking
 

I am sure that banning smoking in public would cut down the habit and i am sure that i am not the only smoker that feels the way i do. I was the last idiot in the gang who didn't smoke and felt i was'nt part of it.

Re: Smoking
 

yep i agree

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I know that my friend who smokes, always says she doesn't smoke as much when she is around people who are not smoking. I suppose she just doesn't think about it as much.

Re: Smoking
 

now i'm only 14 and i agree with you y should young children suffer. my dad smokes and i want im 2 stop and i think what u have said is brave of you and igree this would prob help others 2 stop if we stopped it in public places as some people only smoke because there mates smoke when they go out and think it makes them look big. well done and i think u have the guts 2 give it up

Re: Smoking
 

Could you PLEASE not use this silly, telephone English, what you have to say is most important but why should people like me have to use some sort of translator?

Re: Smoking
 

I couldn't agree more, Less.

It's not big and it's not clever. SMS-speak may be fine for tweenies, among themselves. But I object to having to have a translator handy to make sense of some of these posts.

Re: Smoking
 

Well i have an opinion on this one, i am a smoker but im not a driver and i have to breath all the nasty gases from cars every day, a little test if i were to be in a room with a car running for half an hour and in a room full of tobacco smoke for half an hour which would do me the most harm?
Point made thank you.

Re: Smoking
 

Depends on how full it is with tobacco smoke.

Get a few people chain smoking and it can be quite uncomfortable.

Re: Smoking
 

well said less

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So...just because its not *as* harmful, its ok then?

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How much harm will be suffered when you finally throw that keyboard you are using away? It isn't bio-degradable but your perfectly happy to use it even though umpteen pollutants have been released into the atmosphere in it's production!

We ALL turn a blind eye to what we do that isn't friendly to nature, but we all expect others to behave!

:bangh8:

Re: Smoking
 

This from the BBC might be interesting...

Car exhausts contain a range of toxic substances that can have a serious impact on health. Once released into the air, these substances are breathed in and transported in the bloodstream to all the body's major organs.
Potentially dangerous vehicle emissions include:

• Carbon monoxide
• Nitrogen dioxide
• Sulphur dioxide
• Benzene
• Formaldehyde
• Polycyclic hydrocarbons
• Lead
• Tiny suspended particles

It is estimated that air pollution - of which vehicle emissions are the major contributor - is responsible for 24,000 premature deaths in the UK every year. Many of these deaths are due to asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory diseases - all of which are known to be aggravated by exposure to car fumes.

A Dutch study, published in March, of 632 children aged 7 to 11 years found that respiratory disorders worsened as air pollution increased.

Impact on blood

Many pollutants produce harmful effects on the blood and the coronary system. Researchers estimate that one in every 50 heart attacks in London are triggered by air pollution.

Lead, for instance, interferes with the normal formation of red blood cells by inhibiting important enzymes. It also damaged red blood cell membrances and interferes with cell metabolism in a way that shortens the survival of each individual cell. This can lead to anaemia - a shortage of blood cells - which can reduce the body's ability to circulate oxygen and vital nutrients.

Benzene has a suppressive effect on bone marrow and impairs the development of red blood cells. Exposure to the chemical may result in a diminished number of blood cells - cytopenia - or total bone marrow loss.

Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning is similar to suffocation. CO binds to the haemoglobin contained in red blood cells 200 times more effectively than oxygen, and so can dramatically reduce the ability of the cells to transport and release oxygen to the tissues of the body.

Toxic chemicals may also stimulate the immune system to attack the body's own tissues, particularly the cells that line human blood vessels.

The damage is initially slight, but it can build up with repetitive exposure to toxic substances and eventually lead to blockage of the blood vessels, increasing the risk of high blood pressure and heart disease.

Central nervous system

Research has shown that exposure to lead can lead to behavioural changes. It can also impair mental function, causing problems with learning and memory.

German research suggests that the impact of lead on the central nervous system may grow with advancing age. The immune system appears to be particularly vulnerable to the effects of pollution.

Substances such as benzene, nitrogen dioxide and small particulate matter interact with the immune system and may cause changes, ranging from overactive immune responses to immunosuppression.

Cause of cancer

Long-term exposure to Benzene has been shown to be linked to leukaemia. It is also thought that the harmful impact that the chemical can have on the immune system may lower the body's defence against tumours. Polycyclic hydrocarbons are also thought to be carcinogenic.

Several of these compounds have caused tumours in laboratory animals when they ate them, when they were applied to their skin, or when they breathed them in the air for long periods of time. Studies in animals have also shown that polycyclic hydrocarbons can cause harmful effects on the skin and on body fluids.

(Source: BBC News)

Re: Smoking
 

this is also a good site for information
http://www.thetruth.com/index.cfm?crazyworld=truth

Re: Smoking
 

A-b

Just a couple of questions:

Is there still lead if we are using lead free petrol?
Tiny suspended particles of what?

Re: Smoking
 

I don't expect everyone (myself included) to be saints, but I know that I do as much as I can to reduce polluting the world we live in.

Re: Smoking
 

Re: Smoking
 

I was quite horrified recently to see in TV what happens to old equipment like PC keyboards. Not simply a case of not bio-degrading but the things are shipped out to other countries where people pock out the tiny bits of useful metals etc and the rest is burned (yes in great piles of atospheric pollution!)

Here we are dutifully sorting out plastics and cans and bottles for recycling, taking our large rubbish items to the tip and re-usable items to charity shops and jumble sales etc so as to produce as little waste as possible and yet on the other side of the world OUR (I use the term meaning people who use this type of equipment - not AccyWebbers in particular) PC type junk is polluting the world at an alarming rate, not to mention the harm caused individually to the people who are salvaging the bits.

On the subject of car emmissions vs second hand tobacco smoke - the former rarely happens in an enclosed space and so doesn't have the same relative impact.

Re: Smoking
 

:eek: Even though your P.C. is only consuming somwhere around the same power as a 60w bulb, that use of electricity is helping to create CO2 emissions which are supposed to be bad for the world, they reckon that for every one in the world to have the same living standards as we in the west enjoy, we would need the resources of another three planets the equivelent to our home planet Earth. No my dear, neither you, I, or anybody around here is doing as much as possible to reduce the worlds pollution we are all TOO selfish!

:eek: :signthis: :help:

Re: Smoking
 

My lovely tft screen supposedly uses less power than its bulky (and much heavier) predecessor

Re: Smoking
 

Oh good so I'm doing something for the environment then?! :D

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You and me both!!!

The day I got my new computer was a good one!

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Ah yes but what type of proccesses go into making that little wonder? the heating & moulding the plastic, the acids that are used to etch the printed circuits, the copper mining & smelting, the................:end:

But what the hey? Don't worry about such things after all we are overdue to be hit by a rogue asteroid which will cause a nuclear winter destroying all life as we know it, so don't let little things like global warming worry you, get the fags out & then go for a spin down to London & back in your car just so you can use some more motor fuel. Life is for living lets enjoy it before it's too late.

Re: Smoking
 

All I wish for if something like that happens is that I am with my wife and kids at the time

Re: Smoking
 

If you are the last words you will hear are, "this is ALL your fault!".

:daisy: :thumbsup: :joint: :smoky: :clown: :tongue8:

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:D Probably!!! :D

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:eek:Good Grief Less! Are you trying to make us feel guilty or something? :sad8:


It's a good job I do all my cleaning with non-toxic substances after all the pollution I've already caused. :flamethro

Re: Smoking
 

Hey Pixie where in my thread did i once mention OK? I never said smoking was OK i simply went on that the non-smokers are talking about clean air and it being unfair we are polluting your right to clean air, well like i said im not a driver but me and my children have to breathe car fumes everytime we step out of our houses! but im not campaigning about it your right to clean air is simply the same as mine, in this day and age theres no such thing as *clean* air just the stuff we all have to breathe.
I could then start on the drinkers would we all be for it if they decided to ban drinking alcohol in public places? after all there is ill living and deaths caused by that too. Innocent people get killed instantly from drunk drivers and fights with glasses and bottles, the list is endless.

I would rather be a passive smoker and still die at a good age than to killed by a drunk driver tomorrow.

Re: Smoking
 

willow my example was of one car in an enclosed space in reality we are talking hundreds of thousands of cars in an open space out come in a few years wont be far from the same!

Re: Smoking
 

I think the general thrust of comments so far is that there are far more things that can kill you, quicker than passive smoking. But these things are not legislated against. Passive smoking on the other hand is the current fashionable moral panic. It is hysteria whipped up by the media and politicians are only too happy to jump on any bandwagon they see as having the potential to improve their flagging popularity.

Despite protestations to the contrary, there is no proven 100% watertight link between passive smoking and cancer in non smokers. The environment and the food we eat and our sedentary lifestyles contibute every bit as much to the increasing incidence of cancer, if not more so.

"Oh but Roy Castle Died of Passive Smoking". No he didn't, he died of lung cancer, which was just as likley to have been caused by environmental factors or genetic predisposition. The media is very good at finding people who will testify in support of any thesis it wishes to advance, on the basis that people are, by and large, sheep in search of a shepherd.

Flat-pack Furniture. Now there's a little known hazard. It gives off formaldehyde, a recognised carcinogen, and yet you fill your house with the stuff, breathe in the fumes and then wonder why, twenty years later, you have developed lung cancer!

Re: Smoking
 

Can you explain to me how my computer desk is currently giving off formaldehyde? Does this happen on a daily basis? Are there any situations which cause it to happen to a greater or lesser degree? Should I be wearing a gas mask as I type? :blinky:

Re: Smoking
 

Yes. If it is made of MDF or Chipboard it gives off the formaldehyde continually. It is due to the glues they use to keep the wood chips and fibres together. this is why it is advised that you wear masks when cutting MDF. Chuck it out and get a metal or glass one. Better still see if you can find an old office desk. a bit of sanding and a couple of coats of varnish and hey presto, a piece of furniture that is attractive, solid and is an example of recycling in action. Mucho brownie points!

Re: Smoking
 

Looks I be dead soon then...

Re: Smoking
 

That's life mate. Make the most of it while you've got it.

Re: Smoking
 

Except for the bits about about sanding, varnishing looking attractive etc you've just described my desk A-B. It's one of those utility jobbies made during the post war years. As well as having plenty of space on top for all my p.c. equipment it has lots of drawers, a little tray thing for pens paperclips etc. and the best thing of all this must have been put on here by some guy that could see into the future, a little slide in & out piece of wood that is ideal for my mouse, puts it right were I want it. If I was ever to clear the accumulated litter from the top of my desk I would probably need to give it a coat of varnish but as it is I think it has that homely appeal to it that means I'll never part with it.

:thumbsup:

Re: Smoking
 

This is from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"Formaldehyde, a colorless, pungent-smelling gas, can cause watery eyes, burning sensations in the eyes and throat, nausea, and difficulty in breathing in some humans exposed at elevated levels (above 0.1 parts per million). High concentrations may trigger attacks in people with asthma. There is evidence that some people can develop a sensitivity to formaldehyde. It has also been shown to cause cancer in animals and may cause cancer in humans. Health effects include eye, nose, and throat irritation; wheezing and coughing; fatigue; skin rash; severe allergic reactions. May cause cancer. May also cause other effects listed under "organic gases." EPA's Integrated Risk Information System profile -..."

Re: Smoking
 

i dont see why non smokers av 2 suffer

Re: Smoking
 

And all these years I thought people wore masks when cutting MDF so they didn't breathe in the little diddy dust particles just because dust makes you cough etc. Maybe all MDF should carry a government health warning.

Re: Smoking
 

Can't remember where I read it, think it was the Evening Standard, but somebody worked out that if you walk the length of Oxford Street, you take in as much pollution as smoking 20 cigarettes!

The only sure way is to do a Bill Clinton - don't inhale!

Re: Smoking
 

Bill Clinton SAID he didn't inhale, but do we believe him after he was caught cheating??
That's just a by the by.......I have to say I have learned some very interesting bits of information from this thread......and I am glad to be able to say that my PC sits on an unvarnished pine desk.

Re: Smoking
 

I thought Formaldehyde was what they used when embalming?

And that ants were full of the stuff?

So does my aunt need embalming?? or shall I buy a new desk?

Re: Smoking
 

If I were your aunt I'd be worrying round about now.

I'll stick with the desk I've got - otherwise I'd only be contributing to global pollution by dumping the thing anyway.

Formalin is a trade name for a solution containing 40 per cent methanal (formaldehyde)and 60 per cent water or water and methyl alcohol; it is employed as a disinfectant, insecticide, fungicide, and deodorant. Formaldehyde is used extensively in the chemical industry in the synthesis of organic compounds. Its most important use is in the manufacture of synthetic resins. Recent tests have indicated that it is a carcinogen

Maybe we should all check our disinfectants and deodorants too. (not to mention the insecticides and fungicides - what do they use on good old traditional fly paper?)

Re: Smoking
 

We use Formalin quite extensively at work. It is used to preserve body tissues which are going to the lab for histology examination. It's nasty stuff to work with, it is also used in the cleaning of some instruments.

Re: Smoking
 

Didn't that guy use it to preserve a dead sheep as "art" ?

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HHmmmm...used to preserve....HHHmmmmm...............I think I'll take a bath to-night.....preserve....HHmmm

Re: Smoking
 

http://www.gifs.net/animate/smoking8.gifhere have a fag!!