On-and-off smoker here (mostly off)

In my experience, nicotine is great for moderating rage and resentment. It can help in bad situations and also provides a space where one can effectively shut distractions out and enter a somewhat meditative state to work on issues. It performs this task very, very well.

It is not the same as "just taking a walk" or "standing outside". Absent-mindedly smoking provides a different experience. I am envious of people who can go to the park and get the same kind of effect out of it, but for a raft of different reasons I can't reach the same experience.

I know smoking damages nearly every part of your body. I know it's addictive. I know many smokers aren't considerate of others, and blow smoke all over people downwind, in through windows and leave cigarette butts everywhere. I know wildfires start from improperly extinguished butts. I am not one of those people, and take pains to enjoy a cigarette where I will impact as few people as possible. And when my life looks up? I quit, because I don't need it anymore, and it serves no useful purpose.

Unfortunately, there seems to be less and less room in the world to create the kind of space where one can take a few minutes such as this. And that I think is the crux of the resistance here.

We keep asking for more out of everyone, and usually to no benefit for themselves. We keep making organizational decisions which result in people feeling stressed, angry, resentful, and then in turn quite deliberately fail to understand when people pick up a vice that is harming them... and then try to ban that behavior, or sanctimoniously tut away that they are somehow selfish for wanting a break from it all for five damned minutes.

There's so many different instances under which this theme plays out. I doubt this law will be enforced evenly, and it seems predictably authoritarian and counterproductive like many substance control laws. We can't stop people stuffing a bunch of plants into a pipe, or into a paper wrapping and smoking it. It's simply too easy to do, and it provides too much utility as a temporary respite from life for people to stop.

Want to solve it? Try finding ways of making life less terrible for the critical mass of people so that they won't feel a need to smoke. And even then some still will, maybe out of spite, addiction (medical/psych treatment could be offered?) or downright contrarianism; but maybe few enough that it won't matter. That's the hard, and proper, fix for this. Smoking cessation drives are quite effective, as well as reasonable limitations on where one can smoke, and I think that is a fine policy balance.

I think cigarettes, especially manufactured ones, should be available and taxed appropriately for the healthcare burden they will produce later in life. Everyone should be aware of the health considerations in no uncertain terms. I think it's appropriate to limit smoking around areas where at-risk populations live and congregate (incl. Children), and the rest really has to be allowed to work itself out in the ad-hoc grey area loosely defined as "Community", "Consideration", "Conscience" and "Respect".

The Law is too heavy handed a tool to be expected to succeed here.

Anyway, I'm sure they've already thought about all of this and discussed it at length. Just like taxing older diesel cars without considering the consequences to folks the rural south who were unable to afford new vehicles.

“To protect children” is a stupid reason, but banning smoking anywhere outside of your own home, or spaces expressly dedicated to it, on the other hand, is how it should always have been.

Good!

You could say smoking is one of the most human activities ever. Does nothing but actively harm and potentially kill everything around you. Just what we're the best at.

But seriously now. Can we speed up smoking bans? Like, everywhere?

Banning children seems like it would be more effective.

I live in a country with a strict outdoor smoking ban and I love it.

There are dedicated smoking areas for people to smoke outdoors, but they are really small and cramped with smokers.

It’s actually really nice, you never see or smell people smoking unless you wonder too close to the designated smoking areas which are often really out of the way.

The streets are not really clean here, but at least it’s not cigarette butts. Even things like vapes need to be smoked in a designated area, but sometimes people do it on the street anyway.

Europeans should get a new hobby, smoking is gross and you smell like burnt shit

Good i hope more countries adopt this. Türkiye is terrible for this, lovely country and people but there are smokers almost everywhere.

This comment section is a disaster, just as bad as reddit. Comments of no substance on the side of popular opinion get upvotes, and waves of downvotes come for anyone who disagrees even a little, and even if they do it in a reasonable way.

I’m mildly asthmatic so I don’t smoke, vape, etc. I have tried a few times and it is simply too much for my lungs to cope with. I still think banning people from smoking in public parks or on beaches is a bit much, and not doing the same with vaping seems like a strange double standard. I had a college roommate who both vaped and smoked, and the vaping bothered me more. I still put up with it.

Hopefully enforcement is reasonable - respectful smokers who deliberately try to keep their distance should be allowed to enjoy themselves, but I understand prosecuting(?) those who show no care and smoke right next to nonsmokers.

Anybody who thinks they are breathing clean air just because they banned smoking is kidding themselves. At least the cigarette makes the smoker happy and causes minimal damage to passersby when smoked outside—meanwhile the massive air pollution that companies emit is shortening lifespans of every breather across the globe.

Sure, don’t smoke inside, whatever, but the criminalization and exclusion of addictive behavior is bullshit, in my opinion, especially when it comes in the form of pearl clutching “for the children”.

To protect children, meanwhile the soil is filled with cancer-inducing products pumped away illegally by big chemistry plants. In belgium and netherlands we can barely eat our own produce thanks to this. When are we gonna ban them??

Protests bigger than anti-Trump ones in the US incoming in 3..2..1..

For beaches, and parks, and hiking trails, and places where smoking is usually already banned (at least here), sure.

Standing outside my companies building and taking my smoke break should be fair game.

There are no kids around a random office building at 1:30pm on a Tuesday.

I thought everyone in France smoked, including the kids, no?

Dang, France is really about to take away the one thing that the USA has always been ahead of them on.