The Smokers Sad Demise

Vic: As ex RAAF, I OFTEN put it in my pocket. When you go through training, you have to do it. After smoke break the smokers have to show their butt, then put in their pocket. At least, you did in the late 80s early 90s anyway.

There is only one valid opinion in this smoking debate, but bonfire hasn’t posted it yet. *harumph*

I’m a fan of the ‘make yourself foul and kill yourself slowly -over there-‘ brigade.

Well put Maelinar.

From what I just read I can hardly believe some of the RA posters here have the knowledge to be able to connect to the internet and post.

How, in this day and age, can you still stand up and say that smoking statistics are flawed ?

How, in this day and age, can you still stand up and say that the hospital bills of smoking related complications are covered by the tax on cigarettes ?

How, in this day and age, can you still stand up and say that secondary smoke doesn’t affect other people ?

I’ve got one word to say to you – Denial, you’re in it.

Regardless, you’ve been moved on, so be like an indian and go build a casino.

vg, I’ve already stated that I don’t smoke near people – can’t you get the msg?

I don’t mind walking 15m away to smoke. I do mind that there are no butt bins and I have to walk back to the door – which I have tried to avoid when smoking.

gingermick, please don’t tell me your an ADFA puke? Or are you just an idiot who is sleep deprived? Says it all really.

Quite right, nys. Way past my bedtime. Unfortunately, I have to go on shift at 2300hrs at Chisholm Ross, and it’s a bit of a drive. So, TTFN.

You’ve lost me. Walk 15m to the garbage bin. Stub the cigarette out properly on the stainless steel rim provided and, once its extinguished, throw the butt in the bin. It ain’t rocket science.

Plaza management has obviously reacted complaints to move smokers away from the doors. Not only does it make it health and safety compliant but its good business sense.

Then again you could smoke when and where you liked if you took the portable ashtray idea on board, again not rocket science.

I take offence to the coronary care that people who dont have self inflicted injuries (i.e. non-smokers) are deprived of because of the lifelong smokers that clog the system. Maybe an extreme view but I’ll wear it.

Deprivation of liberty issues relate to people like Gitmo inmates, not to the most villified individuals on the planet, smokers. I enjoy the occasional cigar or ciggie after a few ‘sherbets’ and I make sure that what I do doesnt offend anyone around me, and I dispose of the butt properly. Its not hard, just move your lazy bum the 15m and stop whingeing

gingermick, grow the fuck up. You must be 12yo. I think it’s past your bed time little man.

Again, it’s nyssa76. Idiot.

Hey, nys, is your smoking part of a long -range plan to be with your suicidal friends?

Vic, how would you know what is in someone’s pocket?

And again you prove my point – not ALL smokers are like that. Only a few are.

vg, I’m most happy to walk 15m each way (I already do) provided there is a butt bin in the area. If there isn’t one where I am smoking, but there is one near the door, then I have no choice. I don’t put my butts on the ground. So if people complain when I walk to the butt bin near the door that’s the Plaza management’s problem. I’ve done the right thing by being obscure and by not littering.

Those filthyy stinking bludger smokers just need to butt their tax sticks out and take them back with them.

Ever seen a smoker with an extinguished smoke in their pocket?

Nope, neither have I. The scum just throw their rubbish on the ground and expect the rest of us to ignore their filthy mess.

Deprivation of liberty my arse!

Walk your lazy butt 15m either side of the door and a ready made receptacle is right there.

Buy a roll of film, thrown the film out and keep the canister….hello permanent portable ashtray. Or even easier, buy one in a service station, not too expensive I believe

What an insipid argument you raise

would it be beyond the upset smokers to not smoke at work. On the Bus. In the shopping centre. At the movies…

Fact is vg that it’s one little thing after another, and as Cam rightly points out it’s just going to get worse. Problem is it’s a slow yet all consuming deprivation of liberties and when the end result is absolute extinction of rights then it’s not really being precious really.

It’s like taking little steps towards the edge of the cliff rather than jumping. End results pretty cataclysmic so no – I don’t think it’s precious.

Ashtrays are precious. Give ’em back.

vg, it might well be.

Cameron, I’ve seen smokers just toss them into the bin (alight) – most recently in Tuggers, down near the National Bank. I walked over and dropped some water from my water bottle onto the “blaze”. There is a butt thingy just above the bin.

Some people are ignorant. However, all smokers are labelled because of a small few.

However, the fact that the bins are now “lined” with metal does nothing. People will now complain re: the colour and easy access for little fingers to rub onto ash.

They should have kept the ashtrays and moved them. Simple really.

I walked in and out of the ground floor entrance to Woden Plaza 4 times today. I looked and saw that the said ashtrays were removed. I also saw 2 bins with the stainless steel edges designed for cigarette stubbing both within 15m of the aforementioned ground floor door.

I imagine it would be beyond the upset smokers to move the 15 or so metres either side of the doorway to further their addiction?

I appreciated being able to walk in and out of the Plaza without being infected by the smoke of others, and the smokers present were kind enough to move nearer to the bins to allow that. But its probably a little too hard for a precious few is it?

They can in fact bitch about the butts with no ashtrays. I’d say they place the same reasonable expectations on smokers as they do on every other consumer – find a bin and use it.

As I said earlier, I’m pretty sure there are already bins located strategically along the paths surrounding the plaza – so there doesn’t appear to be any need to move the ashtrays to a location where there is already a place to throw the butts.

Cameron, I already don’t smoke in walkways, so why doesn’t Woden Plaza just move the ashtrays? It’s not that hard.

They can’t bitch about the butts if they have taken away the ashtrays.

“nyssa76, they’re working on adequate hospital care by virtue of smokers not clogging up the hospitals in their later years because they have failed to take heed of all the warnings and still expect the health system to prop them up for ‘quality of life’.

Save it tool.”

Maelinar, cancer wards aren’t the only place in a hospital that needs more funding.

Where do you think the 60%+ tax on smokes goes to?

Why should people even bother to pay for private health insurance if you think that it is only Govt funded places being taken up by “smokers”?

Smoking causes health problems, all smokers know that. It’s nothing new. However, most of the “elderly” who are taking up the wards are those who started smoking BEFORE they knew the consequences of their actions – it was considered part of society.

Save it tool.

I believe the stats are there for a reason – to correct your misunderstanding as to whether or not smokers are in the majority or the minority. I think you’ll agree that the various sources do place the percentage of non-smokers within the 60-70% range, if not more.

Having said that, I agree that the risk of passive smoking is a question of exposure, and you’re right, the exposure from walking in and out of the plaza wouldn’t be enough to kill anyone, much less become a health issue.

The fact that it inhaling it is very unpleasant to a non-smoker notwithstanding, the exposure from the plaza entrance combined with the exposure a non-smoker gets at every other entrance or public thoroughfare where smokers insist upon inflicting their own unhealthy choice upon the majority of those who don’t DOES present a health risk.

I’m sure you have made a number of compromises for non-smokers in your time, and so you should. Get ready for more too as the ban of smoking in all enclosed/semi-enclosed public places becomes a reality for you.

Walk to the other ashies.

I never said they weren’t applicable – just prefer that when stats are thrown at me they’re for a reason and not just a smoke screen. Ha. Smoke screen. Haha.

If you look at all those studies you’ve googled you’ll find that passive smoking risks are relative to exposure. Trust me mate, you’re not gonna die of cancer because you walked through the automatic doors in Woden. It’s not a health issue it’s just the fact some people are absoloutely self-righteously intolerant.

It’s an issue because the ashies in Woden were there. Now they’re not. I’ve made enough compromises for non smokers in my time. It’s time they got over it and let me kill myself in peace.

Bring back the ashies.

Alright, try googling “smoking statistics” and check out the stats provided by numerous government agencies and independent studies throughout Australia and the world, and then try and tell me that the stats aren’t applicable.

IMHO, I don’t think that any percentage of people who don’t smoke would be disappointed that they are now able to walk through the doors without holding their breath.

The ashtrays are gone. ‘get over it’ and smoke somewhere else.

Yeah, you put it out and they have little butt ledges on the side of bins where you leave the trash. Very accommodating – if they don’t move them on you.

Nice on the source there Cam, although still not applicable to the vocal minority.

If you check, the cancer council relies on proving its ability to reduce cancer and discretionary cancer causing behaviours to obtain funding. Not likely we were going to see a rise in smokers in their stats.

oh and btw, they don’t provide a clear source for their stats either but I’m assuming they’re mainly internally funded studies which raises a few methodological questions anyway.

Gimme back my ashtrays.

Lol I was about to make a comment about smokers being too lazy/lungs working at capacity already to walk 20 metres from the entrance to look for an alternative receptacle, but it appears that it’s already been covered.

It was going to be funny though.

and on the ground isn’t? Putting it out first would probably be a good start.

Dropping a butt in the bin is a good way to start a fire….

The figures are for Australia, and are far from fabricated.

I didn’t make it up ixnay, my source is http://www.cancercouncil.com.au/editorial.asp?pageid=371

As I understand it, there are already plenty of bins that are slightly away from the entrances to the plaza.

As a non-smoker, I’m fairly tolerant of smokers having grown up as the only non-smoker in my family. I do, however, take exception to someone complaining about the removal of said ashtrays, when there are in fact bins elsewhere.

Personally, I don’t define “pretty understanding” of non smokers, when in fact you have no problem adding to the problem of passive smoking which has been directly tied to numerous health issues. Sure, smokers probably get plenty of shit for it, and more often than not this is undeserved. But I don’t think it is too much to ask for smokers to smoke away from the entrance to a building where 70% of the people walking in have to hold their breath when they pass.

Perhaps the smokers could ‘get over it’ and simply smoke closer to the bins? Or, do what the majority of consumers of products that leave rubbish do, take their rubbish to the bin. Dropping a butt on the ground is no different from dropping an empty coke bottle on the ground so in my mind is a littering problem, not a smoking problem. Had I been around when people were giving smokers a hard time for dropping butts I wouldn’t have had any part of it.

…and spot-on Thumper.

Haha, you can’t just make stuff up – source please Cameron?

The ‘vocal minority’ as referenced refers to those who complained enough to have the bins moved – I’m pretty sure that’s less than 60-70% (what the hey, if we’re making it up, lets go all the way and say 100%) of the population (I assume you mean Australia, or maybe the world, I dunno – what did you have in mind when you fabricated these figures).

I just want the ashtrays back.

I also fail to see how 60-70% of the population can be described as the vocal minority.

Just as non-smokers should whinge about something more important (though I would consider a personal health issue of relative importance) than second hand smoke inhalation, smokers should whinge about something more important than having their ashtrays taken away.

Religion is the biggest health hazard there is to us

I think smokers are the least of our worries for the health system of the future; it’s the burger, donut, all-you-can-eat menu and coke guzzling crowd that are the next big worry.

nyssa76, they’re working on adequate hospital care by virtue of smokers not clogging up the hospitals in their later years because they have failed to take heed of all the warnings and still expect the health system to prop them up for ‘quality of life’.

Save it tool.

It’s not really that subjective, given that there is a health hazard attached to 2ndary smoke.

So the positive for the anti-smokers is they don’t have to go through a cloud of smoke when they enter a shopping mall, and the positive for the smokers is they primarily don’t have the secondary smoke inhallation causing lung disease in innocent people on their conscience, and secondarily they won’t get bothered while smoking where they do manage to wind up because the non-smokers won’t have a need to go through there.

I suspect however that the non-smoking rule in that particular area is for the cafe that is right there, as it would have been affecting their OH&S compliance. (a designated smoking area needs to have an area of equal size designated non-smoking, and smokers walking by would affect the amount of tables they can designate smoking by virtue of their secondary smoke output)

LMAO, good call Mr. Evil.

Personally, I think that the “do-gooders” just want to bitch about something….here’s a thought, why don’t they bitch about serious issues i.e. mental health, state of our schools and their resources, adequate hospital care.

Oh that’s right, it’s in the “too hard” basket.

Maybe they’ve been moved to make way for the light rail?

Camel, a positive result is a subjective thing…

I wondered how much it actually cost to move the bins vs the mental anguish fo listening to a whinging vocal minority (maybe majority, but I’m guessing just a few well to doers with bugs up their arse)

I guess they already pay cleaners to empty the bins. Sweeping them off the floor probably won’t matter. If the end result is that fewer people smoke there, then that’s a positive result.

oooh, a smoking post – I heard it was the camel’s fault.