Please Note:

The compiled list will show only your name, town, (not your street or house address) and only the first part of your postcode.

Smokers represent 26% of the population. Antismokers are only an estimated 5% of the population. The remaining 69% either don't care one way or the other, or are sympathetic to the principle of personal liberty.

Therefore when the subject arises in informal conversation the smoker is often outnumered by non-smokers, and - as is common - the debate is uncontrolled. The result being that they are assailed on multiple fronts, unable to give an adequate reply to any one of them.

Most of these arguments are based on 'argumentum ad populum', or 'everybody says so, therefore it must be true'. Which is no guarantee at all that there is any truth at all in the matter. (Homage to Galileo.)

 The fact is, most people only know what they have read or been told by the media or the educational system. And as we all know, you shouldn't believe everything you read. Especially when it is promoted by self-interest. MONEY.

Always bear in mind that it is the Antismokers who are the aggressors. They are always the ones firing the first shot, trying to imposing their will on others.

How would you view the person who said to a hefty stranger "My God! You're fat aren't you? Why don't you go on a diet? You disgust me."

Or accused them of child-abuse for rearing overweight children?

Or claimed they had no right to medical treatment because obesity costs the health service too much through heart disease, colon cancer, diabetes and replacement joints?  The list is endless.

And that's just heavy people! The same sort of accusations can be levelled at drinkers too.

The most common arguments against smoking, and their counter-arguments run as follows:

(A) = Antismoker. (S) = Smoker.

(A) "Smoking is bad for you."

(S) So don't smoke. I am not insisting that you take up the habit, so please don't insist that I refrain from mine. My health is not your concern. After all, I don't insist upon your adopting a healthier lifestyle.

And did you know this? - Some studies show more health benefit than harm from smoking. Admittedly the evidence is thin on both sides but I'll just bet you haven't heard of these. They have been suppressed!  Which just goes to show how insignificant the data actually is.

Some of the world's longest livers have regularly smoked all their lives!

(A) "Smoking is bad for Me."

(S) This is the biggest lie of all. In spite of everything you may have heard or read there is simply no evidence that passive smoking, environmental tobacco smoke - or whatever other current buzz-words are used - is harmful to anybody else's health. Remember that smokers are always exposed to ETS too. There is even some evidence to show that exposure to secondary smoke in childhood can improve resistance to asthma in later life.

(A)" I don't like the smell of smoke, it lingers on my clothes and makes me sick."

(S) Now we are getting really subjective here.             You choose to complain about the smell of smoke when you can quite happily tolerate other noxious smells.  Why doesn't the smell of beer in a pub offend you? Or the smell of someone else's barbeque? Can it be that you have been conditioned by others to dislike the smell?

Many years ago smokers were welcomed to light up in the house of non-smokers with the phrase "Go ahead, I don't smoke myself, but I do like the smell."                You don't like the smell because you have been 'educated' to dislike it. Personally, I like the smell.

(A) "Smoking costs the Health Service too much money. You should be refused treatment."

(S) This is almost too easy to refute. I don't think it's any secret that tobacco taxes not only pay for a smoker's hospital treatment, but the treatment for three other non-smoking patients as well. Unless of course you are arguing that non-smokers don't ever get ill or die. And that's without reckoning on the savings from long-term care and pension payments. Are you are proposing a health service based on selective affordability?

(A) "You are an addict and therefore cannot think rationally about smoking."

(S) Another lie. By all recognised definitions, smoking is not an addiction. It's a habit. Granted, it can be hard to quit, but there are more ex-smokers around than those currently smoking, so it's not that difficult. An addict is someone who cannot quit without intervention, even if they wanted to. A habit is something a person chooses to do. Because they enjoy the effects they find it difficult to stop. I would argue that food is more 'addictive' than smoking. A large chunk of the population wish they could lose weight, knowing they must lower their intake - but simply can't.                                                        And how about sunbathing? Should that be banned to protect us from skin cancer? A cup of coffee or can of cola are 'caffiene delivery devices'. Ban them?*

(A) You are setting a bad example to children.

(S) Smokers are part of the real world. Children will discover smoking for themselves. Any attempt to conceal it will only increase the mystery and appeal of it. If we're really talking about setting examples then can we allow obviously drunk people to be seen on the streets, or fat people to go about flaunting their fatness, making drunkenness and obesity seem normal?

(A) You have been brainwashed by Big Tobacco and are therefore incapable of thinking rationally.

(S) No, It's You who has been brainwashed by the HUGE amounts of (usually public, i.e. yours) money available to the Pharmaceutical industry, Foundations, Trusts, Statisticians, Charities and Quangoes to come up with new ways of recycling old data against smoking. The 'Big Tobacco' argument hardly applies today anyway in the absence of tobacco advertising. - A ban imposed by lawmakers, seduced by the antismoking lobby, underpinned with corrupt science.

Some schools actually teach their pupils to be rude to people who smoke. We are paying them to promote this dogma!

Guns kill, knives kill, cyanide kills, cars kill. And they do it in one go!

Personally, during my lifetime, at 'twenty-a-day',  I have inhaled cigarette smoke directly into my lungs no less than FOUR MILLION TIMES! With no ill effect other than occasional periods of wheeziness. Curable in hours by simply easing up for a while.

By comparison, consider how truthful you find the bald statement on a packet of cigarettes 'Smoking Kills'. Based solely on some number-juggling, indicating a slight reduction of an average lifespan,

Smokers - I call that a LIE! 

* Personal Note: I am comfortable with all kinds of personal liberty, the right of others to be fat, eat junk food, or drink alcohol. The point is, I am not proposing to force them to change their adopted lifestyle if they don't want to, and expect the same courtesy.