In Reply to: like I said posted by mackas on Saturday, 30. December 2006 at 13:41 Bali Time:
is about anything at all which we like/don't like about Bali and which may affect our decision to do/not do various things whilst we are there.
I have never smoked, but realise how difficult it must be for people who are trying to stop. Many of my smoking friends tell me how lucky I am to have avoided ever starting, in fact I've had friends telling me that since I was 16 and I'm now 72.
I'm not in favour of banning smoking outright, as I am basically a freedom of choice person. In fact I would be in favour of encouraging people addicted to so-called hard drugs [which I regard as a health issue, rather than a criminal one] to register at a suitable clinic and get their requirements free of charge, in a safe environment, whilst suitable treatment to get them off their addiction [if this is possible] is introduced into their program.
But, being freedom of choice, I prefer having the choice of being able to avoid other peoples' tobacco smoke and, wherever possible, socialising in smoke free situations. In Bali, this often means simply choosing a table on the edge of a restaurant where smoke from other tables is blown away, rather than towards where I am sitting. But sometimes it means avoiding a venue or situation altogether.
We're sometimes told [in WA] that less than 25% of us are now smoking and about 80% of those have tried to stop, perhaps repeatedly, but have not yet succeeded. We could perhaps deduce from these figures that only about 5% of people actually want to smoke. We all know how frustrating it feels to badly want to do something, but find ourselves unable to achieve our goal. Maybe that's why smokers often come through as so defensive about their habit and their "rights" etc.
I think it's probably fair to say that almost all smokers got addicted when they were too young to really appreciate the ramifications. In other words, they got conned by Big Tobacco, with the unthinking support of their similarly misled "peer pressure" friends. The "lucky" ones either managed to get through this difficult period of their lives without getting hooked, or managed to stop again before their addiction became unmanageable.
So I don't criticise anyone for what happened to them before they were old enough to weigh things up logically, but I regard it as totally unacceptable to expect others to share something which they almost certainly know to be both harmful to the health of those around them and also extremely unpleasant.