1. Time to catch up with tripartite The Loneliness Triblogology from the Freedom-2-Choose (non-Scottish) blog through the medium of Frank Davis's essay by the same name (which links to all three parts). He links the smoking ban very convincingly with social disintegration, which may not be evident in busy city bars or to people whose social environment has never involved pubs or smoking. However social disintegration is necessarily a result of legislation that deliberately sets out to marginalise a culture, where social interaction is circumscribed by official standards of what is 'acceptable'. People who smoke will now be accused of 'excluding themselves' if they find themselves out on a limb.
2. Also see Leg-Iron's piece on adaptation 'The Ultimate Reality Game', (and as a quick aside, 'A Small Victory for Commonsense' from Subrosa whose conclusion is unarguable).
3. Finally Gildas the Monk writes on 'Scandal of the Care of the Elderly' (and also see 'The NHS: A True Story' from Simon Clark).
After reading all this, come back and argue that any money spent on anti-smoking groups and projects is well spent.
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The Analysis of responses to the consultation can be viewed at the following link:-
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/924/0096158.pdf
Of particular interest is Table 4.1 on Page 11 relating to the question " HOW DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD PROCEED?"
Just over one-third (35%) of those who responded to this question recommended that the existing exemption which permits smoking in designated rooms be removed by amending the existing legislation.
Around one in ten (12%) of
respondents advocated producing detailed guidance material without amending the legislation.
Within different respondent categories, the balance of views varied (Table 4.2
overleaf).
Overall, individual respondents were more in favour of retaining the status quo (55%) than organisational bodies (41%).
The vast majority (81%) of
patient representative groups advocated the retention of the status quo, as did 6 out of 10 of respondents who identified themselves as current service users.
NHS bodies were least likely to favour this option, with less than one quarter (23%) of these respondents recommending the status quo.
NHS bodies were those most likely (63%) to recommend amending current
legislation to remove the exemption permitting smoking in designated rooms in psychiatric hospitals and psychiatric units.
In contrast, only 12% of patient
groups and 28% of individual current service users favoured this option.
THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT HAVE IGNORED THE RESPONSES OF PATIENT REPRESENTATIVE GROUPS IN FAVOUR OF TOBACCO CONTROL DOGMA.
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