# Smoking in Europe **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 10, 2010, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-europe/538976 "2010-05-10T22:58:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-europe/538976/41 "2010-05-15T07:36:40Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > The question does come in to play when it comes to owners rights. I have a friend who owns a bar. He’s currently filing for bankruptcy as nobody wants to go to his bar any more. Mainly because there is another bar about three miles down the road in a different juristiction that doesn’t have a ban on smoking. > > And the real kick in the nads is that he even lost a good some of his NON-smoking customers because all of their drinking buddies are hanging out at the smoking bar. :smack: > > It’s a BULLSHIT law. What’s bullshit is that smoking bans are not state, nation, or world-wide. ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-europe/538976/42 "2010-05-15T08:32:59Z")
What strikes me nowadays here in Germany is that I can usually _smell_ that someone is a regular smoker, whiles just a decade ago virtually everyone smelled that way, from second-hand smoke. ---
**Author:** ![Swarog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Swarog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swarog)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-europe/538976/43 "2010-05-29T09:00:37Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > Europeans, are your local and national governments oppressing your right to smoke in the cafes, restaurants and pubs? Can you smoke within 3m of a building? Can you smoke in your parks ? > > Just asking you know, cause a lot of people around here in North America think Europeans have less freedoms. I’m thinking not so. POLAND SHALL NEVER BAN SMOKING!!! It is the life that flows through our veins!!! I’ve decide to quit smoking though… ---
**Author:** ![SnapShawt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@SnapShawt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnapShawt)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-europe/538976/44 "2010-05-29T22:23:29Z")
> [@glowacks](#): > > What’s bullshit is that smoking bans are not state, nation, or world-wide. What’s bullshit is that such laws even exist and the decision is left to business owners and consumers. If a business owner chooses to allow smoking, then consumers can choose to go there or to go somewhere else (perhaps a different business owner who has chosen to ban smoking). You don’t have a RIGHT to go to any business as they have the RIGHT to refuse service to you. This “I have a right to go to this or that place” comes from I don’t know where as that’s simply not true unless it’s a publicly funded place. In which case I agree with bans - in publicly funded places like libraries, hospitals, courthouses, that sort of thing where many times not only do you have a right to be there but you have no choice other than to be there. In that case, you shouldn’t be subjected to second hand smoke. Bars, restaurants, etc. - that’s another story. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-europe/538976/45 "2010-05-30T09:12:43Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > The UK has a ban in _all_ workplaces. No smoking rooms allowed. This is to protect the health of the people working there. There is also some ordinance about how near to the building you can smoke, but I’ve never seen it enforced. Ireland’s ban is almost exactly the same. There are some exceptions to the Irish ban. For example, smoking is allowed in certain enclosed areas in residential institutions, including prisons and nursing homes. There is also some sort of allowance for areas that aren’t fully enclosed. A lot of pubs now have “smoking areas” which are basically rooms without a roof. Some of these areas, I think, skirt pretty close to the edge of legality, but there doesn’t seem to be any huge desire to crack down on them. As an ex-smoker but someone who doesn’t mind smoke I have very mixed feelings about the law here. On the one hand it is nice not to come home smelling like smoke after a night out. On the other hand, all the “smoking areas” mean that your smoking friends are no longer forced to go outside on their own when they smoke and instead feel that, since the smoking area is heated and ventilated, there’s no reason for the whole group (smokers and non-smokers) not to just sit there the whole night. Problem is these areas are rarely _adequately_ heated or ventilated so when I go out with a group of smokers I often end up cold and smelling like smoke anyway. On nights like these I wish they’d just go back to the way things were. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-europe/538976/46 "2010-05-30T09:41:47Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > In the UK, France, the Netherlands and Belgium (no experience with other countries) are all non smoking in indoor public places. Italy too. ---
**Author:** ![sohvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sohvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sohvan)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-europe/538976/47 "2010-05-30T09:42:02Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > I no longer smoke, but I am flabberghasted by the lack of any attempt to accomodate smokers. Why does it require the government to provide pubs and restaurants to be smoke free ? Why does it have to be all or nothing? Why can’t we rely on the free market to provide for non smokers who are even a majority? Non smokers may have been irritated in the past with smoking in bars, so why have they hung out there? Obviously no big deal for them. > . This may come as a surprise to you, but non smokers have smoker friends, and the other way around. When going out with a group of friends it would mean going to a bar with smoking allowed, or leaving some of your friends behind. I hated the smell, and having my clothes smell like crap afterwards wasn’t pleasant either. I still visited those places, because I enjoyed the company of my friends more than I disliked smoking. That doesn’t mean “it obviously was no big deal.” ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-europe/538976/48 "2010-05-30T11:38:04Z")
If smoking is so common in Europe and has been for a while, yet less common in US, also for a while, one would expect regional lung cancer rates to show the difference, and an increasing one. Anyone have any good data on this? ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Poster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Happy\_Poster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Poster)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-europe/538976/49 "2010-05-30T11:47:11Z")
Smoking bans are very popular here, and very evil and illiberal leftie hogwash pseudoscientific crap. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-europe/538976/50 "2010-05-30T15:14:58Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > If smoking is so common in Europe and has been for a while, yet less common in US, also for a while, one would expect regional lung cancer rates to show the difference, and an increasing one. Anyone have any good data on this? [Here you go.](http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_dea_fro_can-health-death-from-cancer) ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-europe/538976/51 "2010-05-30T15:32:07Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > [Here you go.](http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_dea_fro_can-health-death-from-cancer) Interesting, but less dramatic than I would expect; that site also only shows current deaths per 100,000 population. If the correlation is so close between smoking and lung cancer deaths, I would like to see a smoking/deaths ratio trend line for each country for the last 50 years. The spread between the USA (321 deaths per 100K) and Netherlands (433 per 100K) doesn’t look like much. Extrapolating, and assuming a direct relationship, with only 1/3 more deaths at the top of the list compared to middle (USA), that’s not an impressive difference. Also, some nations that I assumed were heavier smokers than USA, like France, have fewer deaths than USA per 100K population. That would imply an inverse relationship or some other, stronger factors that contribute to lung cancer than just smoking. I guess I was expecting better numbers to support the current medical wisdom. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-in-europe/538976.md?page=2)