. . . there’s smokers and it seems to me the study which found children whose parents smoke are more likely to take up the habit than the off-spring of non-smokers is stating the obvious.
The Harvard University study published in the American journal Paediatrics found that teenagers are three-times more likely to start smoking if their parents do.
“It’s telling them that smoking is a fairly normal thing to do, it gives them the impression that it’s quite acceptable,” says ASH’s Ben Youdan.
Not only normal, is it possible they’re also deseniitised to the smoke and smell so it doesn’t seem as unpleasant to them as it does to children who grow up in non-smoking households?
Alhtough it was common for people to smoke not only in their own homes but in other people’s when I was a kid neither of my parents smoked and I always hated the smell of cigarette smoke so much I can put my hand on my heart and say I’ve never, ever had even a puff.
I do have other vices but the whole idea of sticking something that smelt so revolting into my mouth and breathing in has simply never appealed.
Because of that I’m pleased it’s not just illegal to smoke in enclosed public spaces it’s also socially unacceptable to do so in most private ones too and I’ll give the credit for that to the previous government.
I never saw this particular legislation as an example of the nanny-state. It’s more an OSH requirement to protect bar staff and patrons not very different from ensuring farm workers who deal with sprays aren’t exposed to any drift.
Homepaddock 
It may have been intended to protect workers but as usual the fascists that pushed it went too far. Specifically the meatworks in Hastings that established a smokers area at the plant. Positive ventilation meant that no smell would ever exit the area which was liberally splashed with signage warning of the smoking that occured within. Only a righteous fascist would say that it was a place of work and should be closed, but that is what happened. The judge agreed that the company had done everything possible to comply with the law, had done everything an employer could do to keep employees morale high, but the law is the law and it was closed.
We can’t have a precedent being set so slam dunk those cheeky Hastings people.
And now we see a senior policeman who knows the law refusing a breath test at his home.
Yet again the law is being upheld and in both cases it has added to the contempt for the law and its practitioners.
LikeLike
`chidren whose parents smoke are more likely to take up the habit’.
I am not sure about that HP. My wife and I have never smoked (apart from teenage experimentation) yet our four children have all been smokers, Fortunately only our son now does the girls all giving up as soon as they became pregnant. I think peer pressure has more to do with it.
LikeLike