Smoking ban in Berlin

but it is if they choose to do so

so if you take a job at a restaurant, bar, cafe, hairdresser (yes, they smoke it up at the hairdresser in Berlin), bakery (smoking cafe sections), pizza delivery, döner stand ...its your fault if you get lung cancer because you made the choice? Think of all the broke 20 somethings in school just trying to make a few extra bucks. Nobody wants to sign up for lung cancer.

Well, if it's a known smoking establishment, you'd have to be a bit thick to not know what the dangers may be. No one forces you to work in a smokey pub or cafe...that's your choice.

my point is that EVERYTHING is a well known smoking establishment in Berlin. It's out of control and that's why we need the ban.

Can't say that's been my experience...infact I haven't been in to one establishment where there was any smoking...maybe you live on the wrong side of the tracks?

it hasn't been your experience to encounter smoking at bars, restaurants and cafes in Berlin? I'm going to let this one go with a long hard chuckle.

vincecanada, did they also take into consideration the amount of money they spend on cigarettes during their lives or just money spent on health system? because then, surely the smokers would spend a lot more..

if i think of people i know and how much they smoke.. one packet must be about 4 euros (right? i'm not exactly sure about this because i don't smoke myself) so they'd have about 1 every other day. (365:2)x4= 730 euros a year! so supposing you live about 60 years and you've started smoking at the age of 18, 730x18= 13,140 euros in a lifetime.. so yeah still it would be cheaper to be a smoker, if you then add the 13,140 to 220k

i think i'd still not be a smoker

Smokers pay tax on each packet.

Johnsoda - the study basically examined health care costs.

It wasn't completely perfect, as it didn't take into account costs drawn out on public pension schemes, lost productivity due to time off work, informal caretakers, etc.. I mean, if you really wanted to go in depth, you could draw out the portion that the smokers paid in cigarette taxes to offset health costs, etc..

But I think you're mixing apples and cigarettes, by combining the cost of health care plus the cost of cigarettes to get your total, which I don't think is the right equation.

My only point was to throw caution on using the "health care costs" argument.

right, i get your point now

I've been a bit skeptical of that study because from what I understand it also didn't include extended health care costs like dental, which can also add up. My dad has been dealing with teeth problems and gum disease for years because of smoking.

Ya I hear you on that one! It's not like there are a wide variety of jobs that you can do during school, because of the time you need to spend in class and studying. You need something fairly casual and flexible. Also waitressing earns you some tips (even in Germany), which makes it miles better to do during school than retail.

Roman from Toronto ... you don't "have to pay for (my) inflated health care bills ", I'm a UK citizen, we have a National Health Service. So quit the suffering martyr pose. The taxes on cigarettes more than equal out any costs. Plus we pay income tax and national insurance. I'd be quite happy to recoup the taxes Governments spend on pointless, endless wars and rocketing military budgets, and ring-fence it wth the health service to use later!
For what it's worth, I agree with you on the smoking ban in restaurants. Most smokers would agree with you also. That wasn't the point.
Secondly, if you start attacking other people as "weak-minded" because of an addiction or a "vice", well, where do you stop? Should fat people be able to get health care ... when they are presumably so "weak-minded" they can't stop stuffing their mouths with food? Should those that are so "weak-minded" that they can't be bothered to get themselves to a gym twice a week be looked after? How about drinkers? Car-drivers? Wow, I thought Canadians were tolerant!
And re" the "smokers are more interesting" thing ... sure, it was a little tongue-in-cheek, but you deny quite a lot of artists, musicians, philosophers, teachers and writers smoke? Whilst quite a lot of boring Yuppies play squash, go jogging and rant about others' vices? Chill out, man ...

You say Canadians are supposed to be tolerant, a generalization. You say non-smokers are boring, another generalization. Most of my friends are non-smokers, no yuppies, don't play squash, don't rant about other's vices and are more fascinating, artistic and interesting than anyone I have met with a cig hanging out of the corner of their mouth. My first job here in Berlin was in a lab where 70% of the workers smoked and were allowed to on the job. These smokers took more sick days than the non-smokers forcing the non-smokers to pull up the slack...all the time. On average, a smoking employee was at home coughing up a lung so often that we were almost never at full strength. That's lost revenue for the employer (paying a smoker to stay at home more often...less than three days sick is not covered by health care) and lost time and wages for the other employees who enter a higher tax bracket through overtime hours, not to mention the added stress and the second hand smoke making us all sick too.
All this so that someone can sit back and smoke a cigarette.
Just seems a high price to pay for a simple toxic little stick.

Not one. Maybe I frequent better establishments which respect the rule of law?

I was talking pre-ban. Perhaps I should have been more clear.

Roman, you worked in a lab where 70 per cent of your fellow workers smoked? What were they, beagles?
Sounds you like had an awful job, and this has somehow got turned into an illogical hatred of smokers. How can you prove that your colleagues took time off " because they were smokers"? Did you check? Maybe they had stomach bugs, or migraines, or depression? Maybe they had family crises, hangovers, a sense of utter boredom with their dead-end job? Diarrhoea, broken limbs, rampaging colds, exotic viruses?
Maybe ... they JUST FANCIED SOME FREE TIME!
And really were not that bothered that they had just ( shock, horror) propelled someone into ( gasp!) " a higher tax bracket ".!!!
The impulse to prohibit seems to go hand-in-hand with a certain humourlessness. And Berlin doesn't need puritans. Had 'em before, remember?
Smokers aren't " weak-willed" ( what, as opposed to ubermensch?). We simply follow Oscar Wilde: we can resist everything except temptation. Or like Morrissey " we're hoping for / an early death ". !

Sweden, Canada, California ... early adopters of non-smoking legislation ... vapid cultural deserts.
Paris, Berlin, Rome, London, Madrid, Barcelona et al ... almost entirely covered in nicotine... birthplaces of culture, dangerous, alive, and vibrant.
A mismatch if ever I heard one.

i have to say this thread has given me the best giggle in ages, on an otherwise dull post-bank holiday tuesday.
Kudos to Jim Cross and King Billy for particular entertainment factor and hard-to-refute arguements. As a smoker (lapsed, ex you could say) i can see the pros and cons on both sides but the holier-than-thou arguements of the anti camp p*ss me off endlessly. I was geared up for bringing in the morbidly obese point until Jim C beat me to it... obesity is fast becooming the biggest health risk in the western world and will soon be the biggest drain on healthcare systems, but we can't even address the issue with fat people becuase it makes them feel insecure or something... anyone else smell the b*llshit?

Also, a little addition to the passive smoking sources - i suggest those of you who have to reach for the hyperbaric chamber at the mere whiff of cigarette smoke bear in mind the carcinogenic effects of wood burning stoves, oil heaters, gas barbecues, bush fires, a volcanic eruption, a dust storm or the neighbor's open wood fire.

Anyway i say embrace the smoking ban. It silences the incessant yapping of the anti camp and in Dublin has led to the evolution of a nice little sub culture outside the bar.

Sweden, Canada and California are vapid cultural deserts? Wow, you really are ignorant.

Not early enough!
What do you call someone who can't resist the urge to do what everyone else is doing because they have been convinced its cool? There is nothing interesting about doing exactly the same thing as all your peers. "Hey look, he smokes so I will too...than I can be as cool as he is". Now that's a vibrant, dangerous and alive culture...masses of people doing exactly the same thing because they don't want to feel left out...very original.
If your culture told you that ugly pink poka-dot track pants were in style, I'd bet you'd be the first to wear a pair.
Go ahead Jim...be a follower.

So,in comparison to Paris, Berlin, Rome and London how are Sweden, Candan and California not vapid cultural deserts?

What's your definition of culture?

Paris and Berlin are my favorite cities, but I'm not going to say that San Francisco, Vancouver and Montreal are not great cultural centers, and I think it's ignorant to say that one culture is better than another. All those cities have thriving arts scenes, beautiful architecture and landscapes, and cool people. I've never been to Sweden but I've heard great things about Stockholm and the city has a rich history.

Also New York City banned smoking fairly early compared to a lot of places. Would you call NYC a vapid cultural wasteland?

VenusinFurs ( great name ... the Velvets thought California was a vapid cultural desert, didn't they?) ... are you SERIOUSLY saying Sweden and Canada are globally renowned for their contributions to culture!!!? in comparison to the European capitals I mentioned? ( By the way, I love Canada, lived in Vancouver for a while, and in comparison to the nutcase bully beneath them, the place is a beautiful oasis of sanity, friendliness etc. Just, um, a little safe and well-meaning.) And yes yes, please don't bother to post that Canada produces great writers and that California gave us the odd half-decent Beat, I know, I know). Still pales in comparison to all those filthy European smokers though, what with Freud and Picasso and Van Gogh and Francis Bacon and Beckett and virtually every French and English writer that EVER LIVED chuffing away on their little cancerous tubes of delight...
Roman, I can't get into a debate about the definition of culture ... not with someone who frets about their tax bracket and worker absenteeism. It would be like trying to persuade my great-grandfather that modern music wasn't "just noise". And I'll have you know I would almost certainly look MAGNIFICENT in a pair of pink polka-dot trousers!( or whatever the hell you were gibbering about.)
King Billy, I salute you. And you're right, the one cool thing about the ban is that it has created a little subculture. I guess the same occurred in the Prohibition era...speakeasies etc. I bet alcohol is the next target for our priggish health tsars...every pint glass or bottle of wine you buy will have a photo of a diseased liver and a ALCOHOL RUINS YOUR HEALTH sign on it. I'm not even joking ... the British Government has already debated this. Funny how in times of environmental meltdown, global economic crisis, terrorism and unjust wars, the Government wants us all to go about reporting each other to the smoking/drinking police. Very convenient, no? And as the Stasi era shows, there's always plenty of our fellow citizens quite happy to follow their wee agenda.
So King Billy, we will have to meet for a beer sometime, and blow our smoke-rings up toward the beautiful moon. As opposed to out of our tight little asses.

Forgot to answer ... Venus, New York didn't used to be a cultural wasteland. But now, with its spiralling rents and moral agenda, it's becoming one. Why do you think half of NY's artists seem to be living in Berlin!!! For the graffiti, smoking, late bars, darkrooms, sex clubs, musical and artistic cauldron... it reminds 'em of a time when New York was interesting!

Congratulations everyone, this is officially the dumbest debate on Toytown:

Whether or not smoking bans passed decades after the death of "Picasso, Freud, and Van Gogh" are to blame for those individuals not living in such cities.

Everyone knows George Gershwin moved temporarily to Paris in order to be surrounded by an atmosphere of thinking that would be friendly to smokers decades longer after his death.

Perhaps one day, the raw creativity contained in cigarettes will be distilled into concentrated form. Then citizens can bravely line up for their mandatory “creativity patch�

Until such time, I’ll continue to foolishly believe correlation does not equal causation.

Let's bring back heroin too while we're at it, seeing as Miles Davis used it then it mustn't be that bad, right?

Canada and the US haven't had as LONG to establish as much culture as Europe so I find your argument empty.

All those artists and writers you listed existed at a time when people didn't know the health risks of smoking. A lot of famous artists and writers were also addicted to opium. Does that mean that we should all just start shooting up heroin? There are lots of interesting people that do not smoke. It's a silly argument.

I don't care if the Velvets hated California. I love their music but it doesn't mean I take everything they said or did to be absolute truth and perfection either.

If you equate 'smoking' with 'interesting' I feel really sorry for you. Are there no other interesting aspects of your personality that don't have anything to do with smoking?

To me, it stinks of 'crutch.' It's like when people have to drink to have fun. Sure most of us enjoy drinking, but we could have fun without it. A select few people seem unable to entertain themselves without alcohol, cuz they need the crutch. Either that or they're just really, really boring.

Good point Venus. Who needs alcohol or nicotine. Or any drugs for that matter.Teetol non-smoking vegans are great craic.

I know some great, interesting people who are non-smoking vegans.

and just because someone is a non-smoker doesn't mean they're vegan. I pretty much love meat, and think cows were meant for eating.

It's pretty sad that you have to judge someone's entire personality by what substances they take (or don't take.) I, for one, have lots of friends that smoke, and I don't think they're lesser people because of it...I just don't want to breathe it, that's all.

This whole ongoing fiasco of an ( admittedly hilarious!) debate kind of proves my point. The anti-smoking gang have ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE OF HUMOUR!! Have you never heard of comic exaggeration? King Billy, Kitkat and I seem to be having fun ... whereas the anti-smoking, holier-than-thou, priggish and prim bunch seem to joylessly hector and carp, like a bunch of dour primary-school teachers, banging on about "harmful substances" and "health costs" and generally seeming about 250 years old. Very mature, very sensible, very ... drab.
Venus ... the fact that you profess to love the Velvet Underground whilst simultaneously moaning about smoky bars and the happening nature of SWEDEN blows my mind.
Question: who was the last person to initiate a smoking ban in Germany? For the apparent betterment of others, naturally. Clue: he had a funny little moustache and wasn't particularly keen on the "degenerates" of Berlin. Spooky, huh? Policing other people's behaviour...it's a slippery slope. If you don't want to ever breathe smoky air, move to Switzerland. It's almost as wild as Stockholm, though with less herring.

NO WAY!!! how did you come to such a conclusion? has someone done a survey.


Pretty sure you said they were all selfish earlier. But reading your posts sends me to sleep so i cant face digging it out. boring.

Now there's a sentence that could clear a room!

Why? I can't like a band, value my health and enjoy cultures and countries different from my own?

Things are taken seriously in here because this is a debate, not a joke. And everything you've said I've heard other people say seriously. And who said debating isn't fun? Perhaps I'm bored at work too and just passing the time?

No, I didn't say they were all selfish. I said that a lot of smokers can't see the other side of this argument and want to continue to smoke in public places because their addiction is making them selfish about the issue. I thought I clarified that earlier. And I say 'a lot of smokers' because I do know smokers that don't mind smoking outside and don't have to whine about it so I realize it doesn't count for everyone.

We know...it's kinda sad, there are far more important things to be concerned about rather than which bars are smoking and which ones aren't

i think we're more concerned about our health than the actual bars where smoking is or isn't allowed..

there is also a growing amount of straight edge people/bands out there, which seems to back up the point that more people are against such things and looking into a healthier and conscious lifestyle.

Yeah, sure. So I assume you're also actively protesting; polluting industries, fattie foods, vehicles powered by jet or internal combustion, activities/pastimes that promote lethargy etc? I call "moaners with nothing better to complain about"

where did heroin go?

Apparently it was made illegal some time ago!

i think the fact that the anti camp haven't cracked a single joke in this whole "debate" kind of says it all. Can any of you contemplate the concept of tongue and cheek humour?

I'm a semi smoker, i am half heartedly trying to give up but the truth is i kind of like it. Anyway, my point is that that i (like most smokers i'm sure) DO see both sides of the equation i.e. i recognise that restaurants are more confortable as non-smoking envoinrments blah blah however... the other side of the argument is that the anti-camp have taken their anti stance a little too far, in my humble opinion:

Venus, you have come in for a bit of a thrashing in this debate and part of me admires you for standing your ground in the face of such adversity but i have to say your argument about the dental costs associated with smoking has actually made me burst out laughing at my desk, for the second consecutive day (ie i'm tyring to say its bordering on the rediculous)

Yes, Venus would be much more justified in her position if she were acting like an abusive troll.

I was going to join this debate in a weighty manner but Jim Cross said it all for me. Here's just a few points to keep the pot boiling:

Anyone who has an argument against smoking in public places could equally apply it to drinking: Both are drugs, and while you do not have to breath in someone else's drink in a public place you frequently suffer from the effects of their drunkenness. This can range from being beaten up, having to listen to an utter pile of crap, abuse towards members of the opposite sex, noise pollution, general licentiousness and a range of intangibles.

Choice is often used as an argument. To have a social life at all smokers should be able to go to some public place and happily smoke if they wish. They are a fairly large social minority who presumably also have rights.

Our society has moved from religious persecution up until 1950 (last witchcraft ban lifted) to a kind of medial persecution. This obsession with health is really intrusive now. There are far too many 'nos' in life nowadays and not enough 'why not' and 'who gives a toss'

Stand back an wait for tomatoes

Ever heard of Godwin's Rule (of Nazi Analogies)?