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Originally Posted by Salu
Just to add another dimension to the debate.
If I could predominantly address the smokers...
Ash estimates that just under 5000 lives could be saved each year by this smoking ban. If they are liberally overestimating that figure and just for arguments sake we said it only saved one life......wouldn't it be worth it? If I handed a bag round asking for a £1 to save a life of someone who had cancer for eg, you'd probably put one in. It wouldn't really cost you much (unless you were very poor of course). So how about actually allowing an element of cost into your life with respect to smoking and save a life?
In reference to children and passive smoking mentioned before, did you realise that 17000 children under the age of 5 are to hospital every year because of the effects of passive smoking?
Smokers, stop being so selfish and think of the health of the nation and not your "right" to smoke in a public enclosed space!
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Well firstly the figures are hardly from an unbiased source, and as you say, estimated. Presumably they refer to smokers rather than non-smokers, so are they saying that a percentage of smokers will give-up, hence the lives saved. This argument has been used before and as then I asked what the take-up rate of smoking was, and whether this declined due to a ban. From my experience most people do not start smoking in an enclosed public spaces, but rather sneaked at school, parks etc.
I also believe that this ban will have minimal, if any effect on children, as most children do not frequent smoky pubs but rather are affected within the home environment. BTW Where did you get those figures? Increased respiratory diseases in children is not simply down to passive smoking but many other factors, such as increasingly untested chemicals in household products, and even being to clean.