New Year Resolutions

[loveallthingsitalian]

I watch my father who is healthy in all other aspects hooked up to oxygen all day and now unable to even walk to the loo.

He smoked from the age of 14 until 60 (heavy) gave up 30 years ago but is now paying the price.

I sometimes wonder if taking teenagers to see ex smokers like my dad would do any good but I suspect not as they would just consider him an old man due to pass on soon and that they are young and invincible. Perhaps very very young ones before they have even thought about smoking would have some effect.

It also doesn't Help to see health workers puffing away, and surely they seen the worst end product of it.

 

[Scout]

Addiction in any form is a terrible thing, I know of people with drink problems which have ruined the whole family.

In my opinion alcohol and drug addiction are far more damaging addictions in terms of the effect they have on the addict and everyone around them. Nicotine addiction, although unpleasant to live with if you don't share it, doesn't dramatically change a person's personality and demeanour in the same mind-altering way. A smoker is unlikely to leave broken and beaten people in his/her wake, whereas it's a miracle if alcoholics and druggies don't.

 

[maymorganlondon]

In my opinion alcohol and drug addiction are far more damaging addictions in terms of the effect they have on the addict and everyone around them. Nicotine addiction, although unpleasant to live with if you don't share it, doesn't dramatically change a person's personality and demeanour in the same mind-altering way. A smoker is unlikely to leave broken and beaten people in his/her wake, whereas it's a miracle if alcoholics and druggies don't.

It's more insidious. Passive smoking leading to lung disease, or heart disease, or vascular diseas and a predisposition to a large number of different cancers. It's a time-bomb. The main difference is the impact is not apparent so quickly. It doesn't make it better or worse, only different. And the impact in all cases on the health and social services is immense.

 

[Scout]

I watch my father who is healthy in all other aspects hooked up to oxygen all day and now unable to even walk to the loo.

He smoked from the age of 14 until 60 (heavy) gave up 30 years ago but is now paying the price.

I sometimes wonder if taking teenagers to see ex smokers like my dad would do any good but I suspect not as they would just consider him an old man due to pass on soon and that they are young and invincible. Perhaps very very young ones before they have even thought about smoking would have some effect.

It also doesn't Help to see health workers puffing away, and surely they seen the worst end product of it.

My father was chronic asthmatic most of his life (disabled with it before 50) and died from asthma and emphysema. He had a heart attack along the way when he had a bad cold and his heart couldn't cope with the effort needed to breathe. He was mad enough to smoke cigarettes for about 35 years and then a pipe for another 15 years. He swore he didn't inhale the pipe, but he did. My poor mother, who has never even tried a cigarette in her 89 years of life, lived surrounded by my father's smoke for 50 years with, thankfully, no ill effects at all. My father even used to smoke in bed so there was nowhere Mum could get away from it. I used to go and buy my father's cigarettes as a kid, and I think that went some way to my starting to smoke at 13.

The number of doctors and nurses who smoke is frightening.

 

[louise66]

I have always regarded smoking, as an abhorrent activity, and have never even tried it. Although I can understand those who began, before research proved it was a killer, it amazes me that, now they know the consequences, they continue. What really annoys me, is we are forced to endure passive smoking, unwillingly, because smokers are too selfish to wait until they get home, to light up.

 

[Scout]

It's more insidious. Passive smoking leading to lung disease, or heart disease, or vascular diseas and a predisposition to a large number of different cancers. It's a time-bomb. The main difference is the impact is not apparent so quickly. It doesn't make it better or worse, only different. And the impact in all cases on the health and social services is immense.

Yes, there are health ramifications for people around smokers, but if I had to live with a smoker, or an alcoholic or drug addict, I have absolutely no doubt that I'd choose to live with a smoker. It's absolutely impossible to live with any kind of normality when you live with an alcoholic or druggie. My mother, at 89, has still not recovered from her childhood with her alcoholic father, and a friend of mine whose husband became addicted to drugs is still terribly damaged years later. If my grandfather and my friend's husband had merely been smokers, neither my Mum nor my friend would have experienced the horrors that they did. I doubt that a smoker would have held a gun to my Mum's 7 year old head, for example. To this day there's rarely a week that passes without my Mum referring to that, and her experience with her alcoholic father has coloured her whole life, and those of her mother and sisters. Smoking is without doubt dangerous for everyone healthwise, but I believe it is still by far the lesser of the addiction evils for both the addict and those around them.

 

[Scout]

. . . . What really annoys me, is we are forced to endure passive smoking, unwillingly, because smokers are too selfish to wait until they get home, to light up.

Where are you being forced to endure passive smoking Louise? Smoking has been illegal in any workplace, public building or on public transport for years.

 

[maymorganlondon]

Where are you being forced to endure passive smoking Louise? Smoking has been illegal in any workplace, public building or on public transport for years.

When you enter and exit buildings, restaurants, pubs, bars, cafes... when you enter and exit hospitals (!!!), when you sit or stand or walk next to someone who has been outside for a quick ciggie. You can find plenty of research evidence that passive smoking does not require being in the presence of someone actively smoking. The smoke and toxins remain on the person's breath, skin, hair and clothes... and that also counts as passive smoking. Also when you are on the street and someone in your vicinity is smoking, the fresh air is nothing of the sort.

 

[Scout]

When you enter and exit buildings, restaurants, pubs, bars, cafes... when you enter and exit hospitals (!!!), when you sit or stand or walk next to someone who has been outside for a quick ciggie. You can find plenty of research evidence that passive smoking does not require being in the presence of someone actively smoking. The smoke and toxins remain on the person's breath, skin, hair and clothes... and that also counts as passive smoking. Also when you are on the street and someone in your vicinity is smoking, the fresh air is nothing of the sort.

Louise said she's "forced to endure", but nobody is "forced" to go to restaurants, bars etc, and my local hospitals don't have crowds of smokers lurking at every entrance. As an ex-smoker I'm particularly sensitive to the smell and the smoke, I hate it, but I certainly don't feel "forced to endure" other people's smoke since the law changed. Do I sometimes smell other people's smoke outside? Yes. Am I "forced to endure" it? No, I choose to be there and I walk past it and leave it behind.

With regard to the danger from smokers' clothes etc., Cancer Research UK says "smoke particles might also build up on surfaces and clothes, although the impact of this is not yet clear'.

They define passive smoking as "breathing in other people's smoke" and say that "frequent exposure" is required to increase the health risk for non-smokers. Occasionally walking past someone as you enter a restaurant or a pub wouldn't seem to constitute "frequent exposure" to risk as they define it.

 

[loveallthingsitalian]

I lived with a mother and father who smoked heavily - what choice did I have until I had the means to leave home? Even then unless I totally disowned them I had to endure passive smoking.

So through no fault of my own there is a possibility that I may have future problems.

Hardly a choice between one or the other is it? One happens now the other looms over you into old age.

 

[Scout]

I lived with a mother and father who smoked heavily - what choice did I have until I had the means to leave home? Even then unless I totally disowned them I had to endure passive smoking.

So through no fault of my own there is a possibility that I may have future problems.

Hardly a choice between one or the other is it? One happens now the other looms over you into old age.

I agree with you completely in those circumstances, it was the same for me when I was kid. My comments were purely in response to Louise saying that she's forced to endure passive smoking by people who don't wait until they get home to light up. I can't think of a situation where I'm forced to endure anyone's smoke since the law changed.

 

[maymorganlondon]

Louise said she's "forced to endure", but nobody is "forced" to go to restaurants, bars etc, and my local hospitals don't have crowds of smokers lurking at every entrance. As an ex-smoker I'm particularly sensitive to the smell and the smoke, I hate it, but I certainly don't feel "forced to endure" other people's smoke since the law changed. Do I sometimes smell other people's smoke outside? Yes. Am I "forced to endure" it? No, I choose to be there and I walk past it and leave it behind.

With regard to the danger from smokers' clothes etc., Cancer Research UK says "smoke particles might also build up on surfaces and clothes, although the impact of this is not yet clear'.

They define passive smoking as "breathing in other people's smoke" and say that "frequent exposure" is required to increase the health risk for non-smokers. Occasionally walking past someone as you enter a restaurant or a pub wouldn't seem to constitute "frequent exposure" to risk as they define it.

I think that unless you spend your time actively avoiding any and all situations where people are smoking, it is very difficult to avoid exposure to people smoking. In some buildings where you do need to go in, you cannot avoid the smokers as they are clustered outside the doors. With hospitals, and other public buildings you may be lucky enough that there are some entrances available where there are not smokers congregated having a ciggie break, but that is not everyone's experience.

I find that enjoyment of pubs and restaurants with outside seating (particularly in the summer) is compromised, for me, as you can't sit out and enjoy the fresh air - that's where you find the smokers.

I agree that the severe exposure to passive smoking which is the subject of the most research is indeed easily avoidable, but I have no doubt that all the other forms of transfer of the toxins contained in cigarettes will still constitute a risk. Try standing in a lift with people just off their cigarette break, for example...

 

[Scout]

I think that unless you spend your time actively avoiding any and all situations where people are smoking, it is very difficult to avoid exposure to people smoking. In some buildings where you do need to go in, you cannot avoid the smokers as they are clustered outside the doors. With hospitals, and other public buildings you may be lucky enough that there are some entrances available where there are not smokers congregated having a ciggie break, but that is not everyone's experience.

I find that enjoyment of pubs and restaurants with outside seating (particularly in the summer) is compromised, for me, as you can't sit out and enjoy the fresh air - that's where you find the smokers.

I agree that the severe exposure to passive smoking which is the subject of the most research is indeed easily avoidable, but I have no doubt that all the other forms of transfer of the toxins contained in cigarettes will still constitute a risk. Try standing in a lift with people just off their cigarette break, for example...

I completely understand where you're coming from May and I agree that it can sometimes be difficult to avoid situations where people are smoking. I was just taking issue with the overly dramatic phrase "forced to endure", which rather makes it sound as if she's tied to a chair for hours having smoke blown in her face! It may be that I'm a lot older than Louise, because to me having to work for a living and having to sit in an office surrounded by smokers whose smoke billowed around my face for eight hours a day, and having to travel on trains and buses whose air was thick with smoke was being "forced to endure" other people's smoke. Walking past them when I enter a building or waiting for the next lift or using the stairs instead doesn't seem like anything to complain about after decades of that.

 

[miss molly]

I have just been working out what I have spent on Christmas not just at Q and boy it adds up. Its time to cut the spending on makeup that I don't really need but just want and use up my stash.