What do we thing of local councils employing undercover enfocement officers to police the smoking ban.

My own opinion as an ex smoker is that I was passively in favour of the ban, but on the whole not really bothered that much one way or the other.
Now that we are going to have a 'Anti Smoking Gestapo' in our midst I'm starting to think this law should be repealed.
There's something sinister and 'Thin end of the wedge' about the whole thing.

I was working to Scotland when the ban came in there. The change in the pubs was brilliant. After a night out one's clothes didn't stink of ciggarettes. One could breath whilst having a pint. The only down side is the 'Stars In Their Eyes' effect of many people smoking the doorways.

I think smoking is daft. I hate it when my clothes all stink after an evening at the pub. It also bothers me that smokers think it's OK to blow their carcinogens at me. No, don't have a problem with the ban. It seems that other places where it's in force have few problems. When I was in New York . . . . . you don't want to hear about that. It makes sense to me.

As for the spying bit. Don't know. Our council claims all kinds of things about what they can and can't afford. I can't see them paying anybody to drive round checking on the pubs and clubs. It's up to licensees and other customers as far as I can see.

The goverment is paying out £29 million for these spies.

And how much do we currently fork out to nurse people through smoking related illnesses?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favour of £29 for spies, let alone £29mill. But 1) where did you find that information? and 2) How do I apply for the job?

It was on the Beeb.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6346435.stm

Must be true then.

The ban is here in Ireland (well most of it) now three years, it actually polices itself. Only a handful of pubs were caught and fined since it's implementation. Some publicans complained that their custom was reduced, but after they set up smoking sections with heaters and tellys it was regained. As for spies, sure it only takes an anti-smoker to pick up the phone and make a call, once the pub staff get a threat with a fine you'll find that they wont need spies as much as they think.

I think you're right. There are some twats who will try to smoke when they shouldn't but I'm sure it will police itself.

One of my Irish cousins says the pubs now smell of farts.

Rather less than we are going to be forking out to care for people with the illnesses (such as dementia) that will increase in prevalence as smoking-related diseases become rarer.
And a hell of a lot less than would be necessary to ensure a reasonable standard of dignity in care for such people.
I'm afraid that if you look at the argument that the smoking ban will save the state money seriously, it quickly becomes clear that it is deeply flawed.

Am I missing, or have I missed something here?

Are you saying, J, that it's better for the NHS and society for people to be killing themselves off in droves by smoking unmolested by any legislation whatsoever? Even if the legislation produces longer healthier lives for smokers as a by product of its original intention which is to make life tolerable for people who have given up smoking or who've never smoked at all.

I'm completely with Andy (Larter) on this subject, BTW. It's been too long that a tiny minority have seen fit to exercise their "right" to make my eyes water, my clothes stink and my throat get sore just so I can have a night at a pub with some mates.

As for paying spies. Jeez, get a grip. Spend the money on summat sensible FFS!

Paying spies--get a grip. I'd question the validity of this figure, to say the very least. Sources?

Don't forget about workers' rights to a safe work environment. Despite what some will still claim (Has Joe Jackson lost his mind? Will he next be claiming there's no proof the earth is round?) secondary smoke is dangerous and can be deadly. The carcinogens that are produced don't go away when the smoke clears, but stay in the form of particulate matter, so even cleaners who clean the pub when no one is actively smoking are at risk.

You want to smoke, take responsibility for your choice and do it in your own home. If anyone should be inconvenienced it's the person who chooses to smoke, not the person who wants to breathe (reasonably) clean air.

If there'd been a smoking ban in the UK while I was there I would have enjoyed life much more.

No, I was addressing a specific argument about smoking, namely the assertion that smoking costs the NHS money which will be saved if fewer people use tobacco. I think that that argument is fallacious and even potentially dangerous.
The problem is that whilst a reduction in smoking will increase life expectancy, it will not necessarily reduce the demands for treatment and care from the NHS and may even lead to an increase in such demands. People who don't die from smoking-related diseases will contract others, even (especially?) if they live longer; the single condition that currently costs the NHS most at present is dementia, and the prevalence of dementias will increase as people live longer. So if restrictions on smoking lead to people generally living longer, the result may well be that we either need to spend more on health and social care or ration the resources that they require.
Care for people with dementia is already underfunded (partly because of the unfair and unjustifiable distinction between health care and social care) and the result is some scandalously poor standards of life for those afflicted and an appalling burden on informal carers.
There are other arguments for restrictions on smoking, but the economic one is dubious to say the least; and if the argument is not challenged, the danger is that health planning will be skewed by unrealistic expectations of savings resulting from a decline in smoking that subsequently fail to materialise.
And on the "spies" issue, local government has been allocated £29.5 million for enforcement officers, some of who will work undercover - it's been widely reported by the BBC.
The evidence that "passive smoking" is harmful has also been challenged, but that's a different debate.

I'd like more details of the figures, still. What is included in that? It sounds like inflammatory figure twisting.

And it's pretty well convention that if you have a law you allocate resources to enforce it. What's wrong with that?

Anyway, this argument is nonsense. If we didn't provide kids with vaccination they would probably die off much younger and thus would save us all kinds of money as they wouldn't get old?

Among other things, people often get diseses from smoking at a much younger age, when they would ordinarily be working and paying taxes. Have you seen someone die from emphysema? I have, and it's damned ugly.

Not every (theoretical) person who ends up living longer for not being exposed to cigarettes will not get dementia, anyway. By your argument we should stop all kinds of treatments as lots of things contribute to people living longer.

The evidence that the earth is round has been challenged too, but that doesn't make it reasonable, truthful, persuasive, or anything to do with good science.

This should take you to the relevant BBC story about enforcing the ban:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6346435.stm
It's actually almost unheard of to allocate resources to enforce a single piece of legislation (the only exception I can think of is funding for speed cameras): there has never been any dedicated funding for ASBOs, the Hunting ban, handgun ban or any drugs law enforcement for example.
Of course it is true that not everyone whose health benefits from not smoking will get dementia; there are exceptions to all of these statistical trends. However, if you look at the health stats, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that a population that lives longer will inevitably make greater demands on health care resources. That is not to say that health promotion is anything other than a laudable objective.
My argument was simply that it is wrong to assume that reducing smoking will save the NHS money, which is a claim made frequently by those who seek to restrict smoking. Of course, ultimately, the cheapest health system would be one that didn't treat anyone, but equally obviously that's not what I was advocating.
And I've seen enough people die from different illnesses to believe that the "quality" of death is pretty much a lottery.

So basically JBoyd, you're saying that we should all have a lower quality of life so we can die sooner and be less of a burden to the Health care system?

Is there something in the water on here at the moment or has everyone gone nuts?!

No, I am not saying anything of the sort.
I was making the (trivial) point that the oft-repeated statement that smoking imposes a financial burden on the NHS is not necessarily true.
And the (much more important) point that the assumption that if we reduce smoking (and for that matter other unhealthy behaviours) we will save money in health costs is likewise not necessarily true.
The second point is important because quite a lot of health planning at the moment seems to be based on that assumption that we can save the additional expenditure on healthcare that an ageing population will require by promoting healthier lifestyles. If we can't then we have to look seriously at how we fund the NHS and how we can make the available resources go further.