In Scotland, and as of late 2022, comprehensive hospital grounds smoking bans include the area outside each hospital at a radius of 15 metres out of the hospital, which could be the pavements or ‘sidewalks’ and the opposite pavement outside a hospital, where it is no longer allowed to smoke. In England, this may become the case because of the present government’s version of the previously defunct until the last general election Tobacco and Vapes Bill and its potential enactment through parliament, where it undergoes its second reading on Tuesday the 26th of November 2024.
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill similar to the indoor smoking ban proclaims that the action that is avoided, blackmailed everyday of our lives and erroneously punished by the law without having any victim out of its performance is an “offence”. This is a false statement if the person who performs the same activity are not at fault, do not feel guilty of it and there is no victim implicated from its performance. This is also a false statement because of the choice that has been exerted by one person who decided what the law will say or who has written it, who chose something out of everything in terms of everyday life exchanges to call an offence. The action proclaimed into an offence by such laws is obviously innocent, carries no consequences and has been chosen arbitrarily by the secretary of state to represent the return of its arbitrary punishment when using the writing of the law and his political power to do so. This is not the same perception of society in contrast to himself and no victim is proclaimed by the well-intentional activities that have been chosen to be converted into “offences”, nevertheless it is disgraceful that the law lies to those who have to follow it and are blackmailed to follow unreasonable and arbitrary commands and instructions.
For example, the well-intentional activity being avoided by the Tobacco and Vapes Bill is the purchase of tobacco from future generations of adults who have become adults after its enactment and will not be eligible to purchase tobacco because they were born after 2009. Noticeably, being born after 2009 is beyond each person’s control and responsibility and does not deserve to serve as a criterion for the punishment of the law in exchange, which in this and all similar cases is called blackmail. While it may be mainly guilty to trade tobacco products with youngsters and those underaged, this does not continue as a situation after each person has become an adult and is then innocent of purchasing tobacco, although this is not what the Tobacco and Vapes Bill claims by claiming this to be a lifelong offence. Even if anyone is innocent of buying tobacco as an adult and only guilty when doing so when still young, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill does not acknowledge the separation of innocence versus guilt in its writing and in addition makes the assumption that all youngsters who are still not adults have been born after 2009. Just like the indoor smoking ban, plain packaging legislation and other restrictive laws that do not constitute regulation rather than dictated restrictions in the form of instructional commands, with the China virus restrictions included, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill lies to those who are compelled to follow it.
Some opinions that have been expressed against hospital grounds smoking bans include expert opinion including the following – it is rather surprising how these opinions that were expressed by experts don’t have a say on or otherwise influence what finally happens:
It’s rather petty and vindictive to enforce a no-smoking policy in an outside area. Hospitals are supposed to show compassion and demonstrate a duty of care towards all patients. I’m sure they think they’re acting in peoples’ best interests but they’re actually making people’s lives a misery. It is also quite inhumane to expect patients who are ill to walk some distance just so they can smoke. I think hospitals need to show a little humanity because, like it or not, some people smoke as a form of stress relief and being sick or having a relative in hospital can be quite stressful.
When it comes to hospitals, we have to be liberal about smoking out of sheer empathy for the patients – many of whom are at the end of their lives. There’s no doubt that smoking is bad for you, so I’m not suggesting that we should encourage people to do it. But for many patients it’s a lifeline – a practice that brings comfort and relief at times of deep distress.
Smoking on NHS property is already banned to the highest degree. No hospital is without its sign saying that smoking is not allowed. But beneath every sign stands a smoker. No one enforces these no-smoking rules, and it is perfectly obvious that nobody should. Staff, their smoking shelters taken away, make mild efforts to be furtive. Visitors don’t bother, and to see them puffing away in front of these signs tells you what weight hospitals put on their own rules. Then there are the patients, often lacking the physical ability to leave the grounds. Some want to quit smoking but can’t, others freely choose to continue. Still more have no sane reason to quit at all. Many are dying already, and smoking gives them pleasure and comfort. This NHS policy, with its failure to provide anywhere for patients to smoke, with its pretence that putting up a sign means the issue is solved, with its utter indifference to enforcing its own rules, is simply hypocritical virtue-signalling, laced with dishonest cruelty.
Bring Back Smoking Freedom 