'The smoke from one drifts to the next, rendering the other choiceless.'

BS. If that ever actually happened, its an easily rectifiable situation. Mostly though, you would need a TONNE of smoke to get out of Venue A, travel through the open atmosphere, enter Venue B and still have a discernable effect.

'For example a smoke free restaurant next to a bar where smoking is allowed? Who is then obligated to build a wall in the middle?'

Proper ventilation takes care of this problem. Next.

'What about multi-story buildings with certain rooms on certain floors smoke-free and others not?'

What about them? They wont have any effect on each other, assuming there's proper ventilation.

'And will smokers and non smokers alike need to check every building before booking?'

Only if they want to get fussy about it - entirely up to them. Ah, the beauty of freedom.

'So you see the Pandora's box that you propose be opened?'

Not. At. All.

Oh, and re: weed...for the last time, there is NO claim here (apart from one unfortunate sentence early on, which continually gets pounced on while the real arguments are ignored) that marijuana is harmless. No one is making that claim. I just can't see any rational logic behind it being against the law. I don't think any sensible person could.

I think the underlying element that we all seem to forget here is that smoking is a really stupid thing to do. It is a habit practiced only by the intellectually inferior minority, especially now that we are blatantly aware of the health and social damages it causes. There is no way that the rest of society should have to put up with it in any context, end of story.

tubley, we are all aware of the stupidity of smoking. We can accept that as a given. And to call someone intellectually inferior simply because they made a stupid mistake at 16 years old and developed an addiction, well, that accusation in itself is obviously pretty stupid. Geez, lack of knowledge yet piles of certainty. Always a deadly combination.

The point is that freedom also equals the freedom to do stupid things, make mistakes, learn from them, etc. Get it?

Wanna ban everything stupid? You have no small task on your hands there. May I suggest starting with mainstream television?

In large buildings, the solution would be to keep the building smoke-free except for one communal smoking room (on every floor if it's a huge building) with good ventilation where people can sit and relax instead of stand in the street.

No matter how unhealthy smoking is, we need to let people making their own choices.
We can offer smoke zones, quit-smoking courses and non-smoke zones; we can educate school kids about the dangers of smoking, and we can educate the public about it, too.

But at the end, people should be free to make their own decicions.

SHONGA's comment should be listened to as well- in many cases it is true that smokers get more breaks than non-smokers.
It may encourage people to start smoking to relieve stress ;)

The solution is perhaps to manage workers better; not to prohibit smoking.
What can be done about it? Any suggestions?

I propose that all workers are allocated the same amount of free time (say 60 minutes) and need to use some form of check-in, check-out timing system every time they leave and enter the room (e.g. office).

If smokers need to smoke, say, 6 times a day, then they can take 6x 10 minutes.
Non smokers can take their free time in little breaks or they can take one long break of 60 minutes.

Payment can be adjusted for people who have been on breaks for longer times than the allocated time.

Oh tubley, “OK Col etc, so what about situations where there are 2 private building next to one another, with one allowing smoking and the other not? The smoke from one drifts to the next, rendering the other choiceless.”

Back for a second bite of the cherry?

Let’s assume for the smoke to “drift” there must be some “wind force”, otherwise it would settle where it was and dissipate (dilute) in the atmosphere.

So what happens with the wind force? Well the effect on smoke is to ensure it dissapates quicker than if it were to simply settle.

On a purely practical level, you would have to have a lot of people smoking a lot of cigarettes, continuously, for the resultant smoke to affect the environment in an adjacent building.

Oh, I see spendocrat beat me to the punch, so to speak. Well said Spendocrat.

As for “It is a habit practiced only by the intellectually inferior minority,”

I used to smoke and only gave it up because I was told my life expectancy was 5 years max. if I continued (that was 18 years ago).

You suggest I am intellectually inferior?

My partner smokes, her IQ, 136

That puts her in the top ½ % of the population.

What is your IQ tubley, you know the IQ which makes you presume someone with an score of 136 is “intellectually inferior”?

Lots of people make lots of wrong decisions and do dumb things. I do, all the time despite my IQ being higher than my partner (Alpha Male thing, any one who was not “intellectually inferior” should have guessed that already).

However the “personal growth” the real reason we are here, depends upon people making mistakes and learning from them. No one learns by being forced to follow the dictates of the state. No one grows. Nothing evolves and innovation and invention is stifled.

Better that people are free to screw up for themselves than risk me dictating what they were allowed to do and screwing them up because I got it wrong.

Humility tubley, humility!

When I was a boy, my father was smoking 60 cigarettes a day and our house stank. I hated it and so did my mother. Then my elder sister joined in and the house stank even more.

When I was 10, my cousin gave me a cigarette. I didn't like it, couldn't finish it and never tried again. When I was 13, my father gave me some very good advice about not smoking, in a measured, sensible manner, and reinforced my intention to never start. One year later, in 1948, at the young age of 50, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. His doctors told him, yes, in 1948, that it was almost certainly due to his heavy cigarette smoking.

In two years, he went from being a young looking, good looking man, with the body of a well muscled athlete, to a haggard looking living skeleton. Radiation therapy was not as refined then as it is now and he used to come home from treatment with rectangular patches of what looked like burnt skin on the front and back of his body. He died at 52.

My elder sister, a glamourous, fun-loving woman, must have been well and truly hooked by then, because she carried on smoking heavily and died of lung cancer at 62.

I don't know what my father's or sister's IQs were, but I would say undoubtedly high. Maybe it runs in the family [enough said!].

Talking of IQs, one time I was flicking through an old copy of the Guinness Book of Records and saw a photo of the man with the highest IQ ever recorded. And guess what? He was smoking.

cont