 Poster: A snowHead
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ise, I've been looking for a little tin for just that purpose for ages, and have failed to find one. 
stanton, You're worse about smoking than I am about piste safety!  I would like to say, however, that as a (rarely) drinking smoker, who's fit, does sport all day, every day, doesn't eat fat, chips, crisps, cakes etc. I resent this constant suggestion that my one little vice is single handedly costing the NHS (or it's Dutch equivalent) more than all the fat, couch potatoes who have heart attacks, diabetes etc from their disgusting lifestyles!  We know that obesity is almost as much of a problem in Holland as in the UK (and we're all going towards the disgusting Americans). We also know that in the UK about 10x as many people die each year from MRSA than from secondary smoking.
I can understand the seconary smoke argument, but cost - not guilty!!! 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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easiski, seriously ? I'll get you one next time I'm in Morillon, here's a link in fact.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Really easiki, a pocket 'hash' tray.Didn't know you rode goofy 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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ise, I've been looking for one of those as well. Used butts certainly give one a very unique aroma. 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I suppose I should contribute my position.  I only started this yesterday morning. Hadn't really read much of it until now.
I have never smoked (bar peri-pubertal puffs and the usual pretentious cigars on special occasions - not that far post-pubertal when I think about it). The odd whiff of cigarette smoke doesn't bother me (actually can smell quite nice), but to trail someone smoking in the chairlift in front of you, or to stop and take in the air and have someone light up nearby is admittedly irritating. Worse still in restaurants. Not such a big deal to me in bars when I'm not eating, but I'd certainly go more if smoke free. I guess I wouldn't mind a ban in public (including open) places, but unless legislated I'd agree that with restaurants/bars/pubs/clubs it's down to the licensee. You're not obliged to go in, even if there is nowhere else to go. 
As far as costs and savings to health, social security, pension, economic activity etc go, and their relation to taxation, the cost of smokers to the economy far outweighs benefits, like savings gained by their early demise, unless their contribution by cigarette taxation is taken into account. However, if people didn't spend their money on cigarettes, they would likely spend it on something else taxable, and in any case the tax burden of a country would necessitate tax collection by some other route even if they were to save it all. 
Finally, I had kind of a romantic idea that the subtle but intoxicating smell of mountain air might entice smokers not to smoke in the mountains. Of course, the blending of many aromas potentiate each other, and it may be that to some, mountain fresh and smouldering tobacco actually come together as a fuming but fragrant fusion. 
Last edited by Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do. on Tue 1-03-05 6:29; edited 1 time in total
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I have to say, as a smoker, as far as I'm concerned, smoking is a selfish act, and the least I can do is try and minimise it's effects on others. I think that if you try and dress it up as a civil liberties argument, or an economics argument, or whatever else argument, then all that you are doing is fooling yourself.
Sorry fellow smokers. I expect to be sent to Coventry next time that I pop out for a crafty one. 
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Your goverment tells/advises you that its Very dangerous to smoke , so why do it
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You can tell he doesn't live under Tony Bliar's government, can't you? 
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slikedges, I was trying to work out why:
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I only started this yesterday morning.
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snowHead branded butt tin, anyone?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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The last figures I saw for government revenue from tobacco taxes = £7 billion
Estimated cost of treating tobacco related illnesses = £2 billion
Go smokers go!
(I'm feeling smug because I gave up whilst skiing 3 weeks ago and doing fine so far  )
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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One last thing but had to comment on this.
maggi,
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You can tell he doesn't live under Tony Bliar's government, can't you?
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Contrary to peoples opinions of Holland .This country is the No1 "Nanny'd" state of Europe . It is so regulated you would not believe it. You cannot do anyhting here without correct "papers". Everthing about you is held on a central town hall register. I give you sone other examples, its very diffcult to buy simple everyday drugs like you can buy in the UK like Headache pills, cough medicine etc. The Dutch would go to the Doctor & this would be written into your medical dossier. If you send your child to school with two sandwiches & 2 biscuits they would come home with one of each because the teacher would regulate how much they eat. Here they teach kids rules about acceptable quantities & only to eat one hot meal a day. When washing not to lather your body everyday as it destoys the skin cells.
We have the same Goverment warnings on tobacco products as you have but no where near the level of tax which pisses me off as we have to pay way more genral tax than the UK.
More Dutch are emigrating than ever. In fact Emigration overtook Immigration last year !
Over & Out.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| richmond wrote: |
| skanky wrote: |
| You have to smoke the antlers to break them. |
You saw that on the telly last night! |
No, I read it in a book last year sometime. What was it on?
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Ian Hopkinson,
Why I wrote that (I started the topic) or why I started the topic?
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You know it makes sense.
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| slikedges wrote: |
| the cost of smokers to the economy far outweighs benefits, like savings gained by their early demise, unless their contribution by cigarette taxation is taken into account |
That statement is speculative at best, and seems unlikely to be true. The cost of care for old timers is enormous and it is not being met (by goverment) at present. Part of the problem is increasing and changing expectations. People are less and less willing to look after aged relatives. People expect better and better standards of care for themselves and their relatives. Peoples' pension provisions are nowhere near adequate to fund care. People want to keep their houses to leave to their family rather than sell them to fund care. The situation will get worse and worse as technology allows us to live longer and as we live more and more healthy lifestyles by, for example, not smoking.
The cost of a few months intensive treatment/care for someone with cancer or a monthly treatments and a bit of oxygen for someone with empysema is nothing compared to 10, 20 or even 30 years of residential care for an old timer who cannot look after themselves.
The bit about tax is correct; the contribution made by tobacco tax is probably not much; its function is to discourage people from smoking and to spend their money on something else, which will be taxed as well (and will probably be harmful to someone).
BTW, according to my paper today (The Guardian), working nights is equivalent to smoking 20 fags a day. Makes you think. (Makes me think 'In what way is it equivalent? Working in a call centre doesn't make your clothes smell, does it.')
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| slikedges wrote: |
| the cost of smokers to the economy far outweighs benefits, like savings gained by their early demise, unless their contribution by cigarette taxation is taken into account |
That statement is speculative at best, and seems unlikely to be true. The cost of care for old timers is enormous and it is not being met (by goverment) at present. Part of the problem is increasing and changing expectations. People are less and less willing to look after aged relatives. People expect better and better standards of care for themselves and their relatives. Peoples' pension provisions are nowhere near adequate to fund care. People want to keep their houses to leave to their family rather than sell them to fund care. The situation will get worse and worse as technology allows us to live longer and as we live more and more healthy lifestyles by, for example, not smoking.
The cost of a few months intensive treatment/care for someone with cancer or a periodic treatment and a bit of oxygen for someone with emphysema is nothing compared to 10, 20 or even 30 years of residential care for an old timer who cannot look after themselves.
The bit about tax is correct; the contribution made by tobacco tax is probably not much; its function is to discourage people from smoking and to spend their money on something else, which will be taxed as well (and will probably be harmful to someone).
BTW, according to my paper today (The Guardian), working nights is equivalent to smoking 20 fags a day. Makes you think. (Makes me think 'In what way is it equivalent? Working in a call centre doesn't make your clothes smell, does it?')
Last edited by Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name: on Tue 1-03-05 11:22; edited 1 time in total
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Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Quote: |
It's interesting to compare people's attitudes to smoking and spitting
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why do so many professional footballers spit (on the ground) all the time? Serious, intelligent athletes would be trying to conserve liquids. Spitting and smoking are equally nasty in my book. I just accept that in most pubs (other than the 'spit and sawdust 'establishments) I'm going to encounter smokers.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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richmond,
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That statement is speculative at best, and seems unlikely to be true. The cost of care for old timers is enormous and it is not being met (by goverment) at present.
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Whether or not IYNSHO unlikely to be true, why do you think it's speculative at best? Or is that just speculation?
1. not talking out of ars*: I remember that statement from a journal I flicked through
2. as you say, the govt isn't paying for old people yet (tho' that may change)
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The cost of a few months intensive treatment/care for someone with cancer or a periodic treatment and a bit of oxygen for someone with emphysema is nothing compared to 10, 20 or even 30 years of residential care for an old timer who cannot look after themselves.
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3. Actually it's years or even decades of emergency/acute/chronic/palliative treatment and re-treatment for cerebro/cardio/peripheral vascular disease, lung/breast/stomach/mouth/throat cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease etc etc (the list is truely endless), compared to the true cost (not market price) of non-nursing care.
4. I don't know what the av. duration of "residential care for an old timer who cannot look after themselves" is but I doubt it's 20 years.
5. actually the tax is worth quite a lot, it's just beside the point
Last edited by Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do. on Thu 8-09-05 12:07; edited 1 time in total
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slikedges,
1. I didn't mean to imply that you were talking out of your @rse, just that I disagree with you. There seem to be no reliable figures for the cost of smokers to the NHS (it would be impossible to apportion costs between smoking-caused and other illnesses for an individual, but a comparison of 'average' costs to the NHS for smokers and non smokers ought to be possible).
2. Someone's going to have to pay for them, and that means you and me, directly or through taxtion.
3., 4. I didn't suggest that the average duration of care (residential or not) for old timers is 20 years, but that sort of duration will be commonplace soon if it isn't already. Similarly, many smokers make few extra demands on the NHS, some make a huge extra demand, others somewhere in between. I am questioning the conventional (but now increasingly questioned) assumption that smokers cost the NHS more throughout their lives, because of their smoking, than do non smokers. Don't forget that because of the distribution of smoking across the 'socio economic groups', smokers are more likely to have poor health for other reasons (diet in particular) than non smokers.
5. The amount collected in tobacco tax is huge, but as you said, if it wasn't spent on fags it would be spent on something else and a large part of it would end up in tax kitty anyway.
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| kuwait_ian wrote: |
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It's interesting to compare people's attitudes to smoking and spitting
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why do so many professional footballers spit (on the ground) all the time? Serious, intelligent athletes would be trying to conserve liquids. Spitting and smoking are equally nasty in my book. I just accept that in most pubs (other than the 'spit and sawdust 'establishments) I'm going to encounter smokers. |
Can't see how they're equally nasty. Spitting doesn't make you clothes stink (even if you're spat upon, which we're saying isn't the case), doesn't make the spitter or their breath stink, hasn't been linked to cancer and other diseases (yes it can help spread infection, but that's different as disease needs to be present initially), causes no more mess and is in fact easier to clean up. It's also free, does not involve large plantations taking up reasonable quality agricultural ground, nor the exploitation of both poorly paid workers and consumers for profit, nor the use of resources in manufacturing and transport. It is merely something that makes people a bit queasy as it involves a slimey, bodily fluid and has been culturally linked with showing disdain.
Footballers spit (and I'm many other atheletes do too, just the footballers get more camera time and care less that they're seen) because of a build up of (I think lactic) acid that, according to Tony Cascarino, gives them a salty taste in the mouth that they want to get rid of. Personally, I tend to get a lot of mucus in the nose and mouth which I can either swallow, or spit (ooer). As it's on a grassy pitch and possibly raining, why not just spit it out?
On another track, I remember when someone who was smoking had a go at me for farting.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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snowbunny, Well smoking in all public places was banned in Italy in January, so perhaps that's the place to head for. It was quite strange seeing people in temperatures of -16 nipping out of the hotel for a fag!! The downside though is that they allowed smoking in the bedrooms because of the ban, so if you're a non smoker, your bed room will stink instead of the lounge!!
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7% of the price of packet of fags goes to the retailer, 14% goes to the tobacco company, and a whopping 79% goes to the government. With this in mind, they are never going to ban it altogether, which would seem to be the logical solution once you find that something was put out for general comsumption, that was later discovered to be a cause of terminal illness. I suspect that smokers more than pay for their health care, but I still don't want to be a passive smoker.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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The point is not so much to ban it entirely, rather from public places where it can affect anyone who doesn't want to get involved in the habit. As smokers begin to find it harder and harder to find a place to get their "fix", you'll find more and more start to give up. With fewer tobacco sales, production will slow and prices will go up, forcing more people to give up due to cost. As smoking continues to become less socially acceptable, the new generations will smoke less, thereby decreasing demand even more, slowing production again until, eventually, it becomes uneconomical to sell cigarettes anyway.
Give it 20 years and you'll find that hardly anyone smokes anymore. It'll become a bygone habit like "snuff taking" has become. Go back 100 years or so and I daresay you couldn't move for people buying and snorting the stuff, yet where is it today? Habits change over (historically speaking) very small timescales. In the meantime we just need to force smokers out of areas where they can affect other people.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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[quote="skanky"][quote="kuwait_ian"]
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| On another track, I remember when someone who was smoking had a go at me for farting. |
Quite right too. There have been a nasty explosion.
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Heavy smoke in bars tends to give me a headache....and the beer....!!
That's why I would like to avoid it and after spending all day in fresh mountain air it tends
to be far more noticable. But if the people around who smoke are generally considerate then
no problem. And when the bar gets too much I can always leave.
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You know it makes sense.
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carled, ah yes, but is the great outdoors a public place? It seems not when it comes to smoking. Enclosed yes, but sitting outside on a snow covered mountain cafe patio, or a chair lift, it seems it's deemed to be "not affecting other people" yet we can see from this forum that it does! The problem is that more and more youngsters, especially girls (it suppresses appetite), are taking up the habit, and as we know, youngsters think they are invinsible, whilst the older population are giving up. Added to this is the fact that some of the 400 chemicals added to a cigarette, have been carefully engineered to make it as addictive as they can, so you have a psychological and biological dependance. Habits, historically, can last an aweful long time, look at alcohol and opiates! But i live in hope
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Why do anti smokers, who have a good case for smoking being banned or discouraged in many places, mess up their case by spouting inaccurate and tendentious rubbish?
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Poster: A snowHead
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Im a Smoker that farts a lot, its not looking too good for me on here.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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slikedges, I thought you meant "I only started smoking this morning" which seemed a bit puzzling
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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mick newby,.....boom?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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richmond, I work as an NHS Smoking Cessation Advisor, if you want the hand outs, researched by ASH and others, which are factual, so much so that the cig manufactures agree, I'll send them. There are in fact more than 400, but I didn't want to overload with techi stuff!!!
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BTW, if you want a good example of people prepared to risk their health for (presumably) enjoyment look at the 'Brèche Nonne Evêque' thread. I don't do that, and don't want to do that (and cannot conceive of being able to do anything like that), and it's clearly more dangerous than, say staying at home, but I don't want these people to stop doing it.
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I dont' want anyone to stop doing anything that endangers themselves that they want to do, just don't want to join them thanks, either directly or vicariously!
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There is an anti smoking industry just as there is a smoking industry, and just as I wouldn't trust fag manufacturers to tell me the truth, I wouldn't trust ASH either.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I am a sceptic too, ask your GP, hospital, and the fag manufacturers, it's public info, not a secret anymore! (well it never was really, just that no one asked till people started dying)
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sharon1953, I'm not questioning the link between smoking and ill health - the US Surgeon General in 1956 (?) confirmed epidemiologically what most people already knew anecdotally. I question the assumptions (not necessarily yours) that:
1. smokers cost the NHS more over their lifetime than non smokers;
2. I have some sort of right to breathe clean air in facilities such as restuarants and bars which I choose to enter (places over which I have no practical choice are different);
3. simply because something is bad for you, you should be actively discouraged or prevented from doing it (provided that you know the possible consequences).
I don't know whether 1. is correct or not, and I'm certain that nobody else does, whatever they may claim. 2. and 3. are matters of opinion, obviously.
There is a lot of misinformation around from both the anti and pro smoking industries. Do not imagine that because the fag manufacturers now appear to accept some of the antismokers' positions, this means that they now agree with them and that therefore they are probably correct. They appear to accept them because it suits their purposes to do so; they want to be seen to be being 'reasonable', and they are attempting to ride the current anti smoking wave. When, for economic or other reasons, the tide turns, as it may, they will quickly adapt their position. Their imperative is maximising profits for their shareholders, nothing else.
I'm all in favour of people not smoking when I'm around, and I wish that there were more smoke free bars and restaurants. I'm also in favour of stopping people from doing things only when it is absolutely necessary.
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FAQ
I would of loved to of seen that 