@jno wrote:

I do! This affects my freedom not to smell, surely!

I agree. I really don’t see the problem with smokers going outside quickly if they need a smoke.

@Stephen wrote:

The crude mortality rate for lung cancer in the UK in 2005 was 55.8 per 100,000.

For source see:
http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/lung/mortality/?a=5441

I can’t see where it mentions Secondhand Smoke in this article, could you point it out to me please? Excuse my blindness!

Being a somker myself I would love to see smokers being banned outside of cafes and bars. I myself hate the smell of smoke and would not mind at all to go outside if I really need to smoke. I would smoke less and less and it would be easier to quit.

I also smoke too much and am always quiting. Any chance to make me cut down or make it difficult is welcomed by me. I like smoking(not really) but hate ashtrays, bad breath, cost of smoking and the damage to my health!!

hehehe since my answer was almost the same I thought I would just save time and cut and paste

I thought you quite smoking? 🙄

Secondhand Smoke Fact Sheet
June 2007

Secondhand smoke, also known as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe or cigar and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers. It is involuntarily inhaled by nonsmokers, lingers in the air hours after cigarettes have been extinguished and can cause or exacerbate a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma.1

Secondhand smoke has been classified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a known cause of cancer in humans (Group A carcinogen).2

Secondhand smoke exposure causes disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke. Secondhand smoke contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or carcinogenic, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic ammonia and hydrogen cyanide.3

Secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 46,000 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year.4

Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke at work are at increased risk for adverse health effects. Levels of ETS in restaurants and bars were found to be 2 to 5 times higher than in residences with smokers and 2 to 6 times higher than in office workplaces.5

Since 1999, 70 percent of the U.S. workforce worked under a smoke-free policy, ranging from 83.9 percent in Utah to 48.7 percent in Nevada.6 Workplace productivity was increased and absenteeism was decreased among former smokers compared with current smokers.7

Fifteen states – Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Washington and Vermont – as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico prohibit smoking in almost all public places and workplaces, including restaurants and bars. Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon and Utah have passed legislation prohibiting smoking in almost all public places and workplaces, including restaurants and bars, but the laws have not taken full effect yet.8

Secondhand smoke is especially harmful to young children. Secondhand smoke is responsible for between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in infants and children under 18 months of age, resulting in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations each year, and causes 430 sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths in the United States annually.9

Secondhand smoke exposure may cause buildup of fluid in the middle ear, resulting in 790,000 physician office visits per year.10 Secondhand smoke can also aggravate symptoms in 400,000 to 1,000,000 children with asthma.11

In the United States, 21 million, or 35 percent of, children live in homes where residents or visitors smoke in the home on a regular basis.12 Approximately 50-75 percent of children in the United States have detectable levels of cotinine, the breakdown product of nicotine in the blood.13

New research indicates that private research conducted by cigarette company Philip Morris in the 1980s showed that secondhand smoke was highly toxic, yet the company suppressed the finding during the next two decades.14

The current Surgeon General’s Report concluded that scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to second hand smoke. Short exposures to second hand smoke can cause blood platelets to become stickier, damage the lining of blood vessels, decrease coronary flow velocity reserves, and reduce heart rate variability, potentially increasing the risk of heart attack.15

For more information on secondhand smoke, please review the Tobacco Morbidity and Mortality Trend Report as well as our Lung Disease Data publication in the Data and Statistics section of our website at http://www.lungusa.org, or call the American Lung Association at 1-800-LUNG-USA (1-800-586-4872).

Even if smoking was not bad for your health, I still think that people puffing smoke around other people (especially those who are trying to eat) is extremely rude, and very thoughtless.

It seems to me that smokers who don’t care who they puff their toxic fumes over are just the tip of our mannerless society’s iceberg.

People here just don’t seem to have respect for the rights of non-smokers to have clean air and not reek of ashtrays.

I am currently in an environment where the only break room is filled with smokers (Austrian and a few from eastern European countries) puffing away. I have a desk near this room and the smoke comes into the room where I work. Today I very nicely asked the smokers to please close the door when they’re smoking so that the smoke doesn’t get into my workspace. They gave me an evil glare and opened the door as soon as I went back to my desk. And frankly I resent not having a smoke-free space for my downtime.