The smoking/vaping ban - what is ACTUALLY legal?

Yesterday I wrote a blog in which I put forward the idea that the smoking ban is a tyrannical and unnecessary law that is now in place almost everywhere in the world - and if it is not, Big Anti Tobacco are making sure it will be. The smoking ban(s) should be challenged.

Smoking has been falling since the first reports of it's connection to lung cancer were offered to  us as knowledge. I remember, it was first avoided by "the educated" - those people that have a primary conduit to knowledge. At that time most people smoked. Soon, Doctors and Educators were disseminating their knowledge that smoking caused nasty things to happen to people and the message began to spread. Smoking rates started falling amongst ordinary people as a natural response to knowledge.

Enter the Events Managers - Big Tobacco Control Industry

 Excerpts from a 1991 US gov’t (NIH/NCI) “Blueprint for Public Health Action in the 1990′s 
 “As social beings, humans are subject to a desire to conform, to adopt the social conventions and norms of the majority, To the extent that individuals perceive their actions as deviant, there will be pressure to conform… Efforts to control tobacco use, then, should focus on creating a social environment that provides persistent and inescapable cues to smokers to stop smoking”

Another’90′s Blueprint  -  “To foster public perception that smoking is a socially unacceptable behavior.” ....... “Restrictions on smoking in public places remain a keystone in the overall challenge to achieve a tobacco-free society.”

The motive behind bans, then, was not to protect the innocent from secondhand smoke but, by officially excluding them by law, to make others begin to see all smokers as unacceptable and deviant. (my bold) The “desire to conform,” then, would cut both ways as the conformist nonsmoker would hop aboard the bandwagon of Public Opinion, and the now-excluded smoker would clamor to be let back in (or out, in the case of outdoor bans) to the Brotherhood of Man.

( Quote from Waltc on This blog from Frank Davis)

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Banning smoking/vaping to 25ft away from entrances, in parks, picnic sites, open stations, outdoors in any form, or in ventilated smoking rooms, is not about protecting people from our second hand smoke or, now, vapour. it is a manipulative action against yourself personally - a dangerous law that has made smokers (and now vapers) into a socially persecuted minority. And the crime is that it was done deliberately and with the knowledge that SHS was the hook on which to hang it - to "de-normalise" smoking and ESPECIALLY smokers. And a question I ask is - is the ban you endure on your train station or local park legal?

Smoking is normal to 21% of us and yet we never challenge our situation. We have been well disempowered by our shame at what we do. We are a larger minority than Gays and Lesbians, Muslims, Jews, and many other groups - but the only group society may persecute without restriction.

Exemptions to the Health Act 2006

There are very few exemptions to the law and where they do exist they do not apply to the entirety of the premises but to “designated rooms”.

These include:
Guest bedrooms in hotels and guest houses and certain rooms in care homes, hospices
and prisons

Private homes
However, if part of a home is used as a workplace, for example a room set aside for childminding or music lessons, that room must be smokefree. Where work is undertaken solely to provide personal care for a person living in the dwelling, to assist with domestic work or to maintain the building, the private dwelling is not considered to be a workplace and is exempt from the smokefree legislation.

Places such as open air (my bold)

Sports stadia are exempt. However the owners of such premises may choose to implement a smokefree policy.

Bus stops may be exempt if the shelter is not “substantially enclosed”.

In England, smoking by actors may be permitted if appropriate for the artistic integrity
of the performance. This exemption does not apply to other countries of the United
Kingdom.

Offshore installations such as oil rigs, may designate a room for smoking.

Specialist tobacco shops. Exemptions are allowed only for the sampling of cigars or
pipe tobacco and are subject to stringent conditions

Quote - "Prior to the implementation of the smokefree law, it was estimated that exposure to secondhand smoke in the workplace caused around 617 premature deaths in the UK each year.

By comparison, the total number of deaths in the UK from all other industrial accidents was reported to be 235 in 2003/4.

The degree of risk depends on the extent and duration of exposure. Particularly at risk were bar staff, casino workers and other employees in workplaces where smoking was routine. It was estimated that secondhand smoke caused one premature death a week among workers in the hospitality industries.
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Is that 617 minus 52 workers a year, or is my Math bad? How did they come to such estimations when an "accident" is so clearly caused, but a premature death is not. I was surprised the numbers of deaths caused by second hand smoke were so low - I expected millions of workers to be dropping dead daily all over England. I wonder where I got that idea from? Silly me.

In the UK, the open air is exempt from the smoking ban - many of the "laws" we endure are made by those drones who "desire to socially conform" i.e. brown nose to TC. But are they acting according to our law - or making it up themselves? Exempt from the ban - "Places such as open air"!