I suggest being less cryptic in future. And past.

That's my genuine contribution to the debate - what debate can usefully be had any more? Which is a reasonable question to pose, isn't it?

Or is this the super thing to do with Grim... that you were talking about?

Or maybe it was the BETEO 'super offer',

I suggest being less cryptic in future. And past.

Oh, was it something like this poster?

Cos if so, your first post makes perfect ironical sense now.

Oh, was it something like this poster?

Noted. Not so many fans of the cryptic here, then. Hey, we live, we learn. I hope.

Noted. Not so many fans of the cryptic here, then. Hey, we live, we learn. I hope.

I smoke, and certainly feel a pang of guilt exhaling whenever small children walk by me on the street, but I can't help but feel the dangers of passive smoking have been massively over-stated by the anti-smoking lobby. "Passive smoking" is a very nebulous subject to do credible academic research on, and it's striking how rarely you see claims about the terrifying threat of passive smoking being backed up by real statistics.

The passive smokers won the legislative argument, and it's just the poor kids (born or yet to be born) living with smoking parents that are left carrying the can(cer) for the rest of us.

That reads like a threat...

It's quite opposite where I live - flyposters everywhere inciting Isamic fundamentalism. The most common is 'GLOBAL WAR ON ISLAM' and I'm always tempted to scrawl 'Where do I sign up?' underneath.

I just hate being lied to and patronised.

I once woke up to the slogan 'Islamic brothers! Rise up to the white bastards and slaughter them like pigs' on the door to my flat and on the bus stops and walls all over my street. It did make me feel a tad bit edgy.

Jeez, that would scare the crap out of me. I've always been very "why can't we all get along?" and have pretty much dismissed fears of immigrants and muslims and such as an over-reaction. However, something like that would instantly turn me into a xenophobic wannabe vigilante. Some of the stuff people here have had to deal with makes me hugely grateful that I live in quiet inoffensive suburbia.

On the "crazy posters" from, have any of the London BETEOers seen this little beauty?

It's quite opposite where I live - flyposters everywhere inciting Isamic fundamentalism. The most common is 'GLOBAL WAR ON ISLAM' and I'm always tempted to scrawl 'Where do I sign up?' underneath.

I'm not a biologist or a doctor, so obviously feel free to ignore absolutely everything that follows. For the purposes of disclosure, I quit smoking 5 years ago, but do not despise smokers. Although I do think you're all weak willed fools who may as well just be burning £5 notes every day

Passive smoking may well be a nebulous subject to do research on, but one wonders why one would need to.

Here's my thinking (such as it is).

Inhaling smoke from cigarettes indisputably damages the health of the smoker. Lots. Indisputably. Lots and lots.

I therefore cannot see how that same smoke, either after being breathed in and exhaled out by the smoker or just wafting off from the tip, fails to be harmful to the person sat next to you just because they're not holding the cigarette.

Logically, if smoke = harmful for the smoker, then that very same smoke must be harmful to the person sat next to you breathing it in. For me to be wrong, your lungs must somehow magically purify the smoke of all toxins and carcinogens before you exhale it, which doesn't happen.

And yes, passive smokers will inhale smoke at a lower rate and in smaller quantities than the smokers, but:

(a) passive smoking exposure obviously builds up with time and density of smokers, and bar staff (before the ban) were at a reasonably worrying risk of lung cancer and all that, as they were surrounded by hundreds of smokers for hours on end. We've all been in busy bars where merely breathing in is like smoking a fag, for heaven's sake. See also people who live in a smoking household where everyone smokes indoors.

(b) you only need to smoke one fag to develop lung cancer anyway. You'd have to be mahoosively unlucky, of course, but as there is (as I understand it) a running percentage chance of the carcinogens triggering a cancerous mutation each time they're inhaled, it's a risk. So therefore the same risk applies to a one off passive smoker, and much much more so to those who are repeatedly exposed to passive smoking. And it's not a risk that they're chosing to take. It's one that the smoker is inflicting on them.

As we've now banned smoking in enclosed public spaces we've probably done enough to reduce as far as is reasonably possible the risks to the general public of passive smoking, short of banning smoking outside as well (which would be taking things unecessarily too far). There's still the matter of people who smoke in their own houses around their children - these people are absolute 100% cunts, of course, but if we start mandating that they can't smoke in their own homes we've pretty much banned smoking, which I think we'd all agree would be a silly thing to do (see also every other attempt at prohibition). We should, however, ban smoking whilst pregnant. This has documented ill-effects to the baby, and if you can't get yourself together enough to quit smoking for just 9 months for the sake of the health of your unborn child, you may as well just repeatedly punch yourself in teh bump, too. It makes me very, very sad when I see pregnant women (usually young women/girls) smoking.

So, there we are.

The passive smokers won the legislative argument, and it's just the poor kids (born or yet to be born) living with smoking parents that are left carrying the can(cer) for the rest of us.

my mother smoked when she was pregnant with me, and I'm _fine_.