Smoking

Let me just state my corner here. i'm a non smoker. no, an anti-smoker, even. i don't do it, and i don't like it, and i'm pretty obvious about it.

most people who smoke - that i've met anyway - started because of peer pressure or because 'they thought it was cool'. when will twelve to fourteen year old children realise that cool isn't ending your days in a hospital, coughing your crispy barbequed lungs up? (see above picture)

but i guess that being bullied for the whole of high school has its advantages: you don't fall in with the 'popular crowd' and therefore you're much less likely to be pressured into smoking.

however, i do get the point of some people who are non smokers but who tolerate it - for example, a being bad peer, Hannah Pidgeon, made a very good point about feeling left out because all of the smokers always go outside - and she gets left looking after the bags. This, i admit, is unfair.

but that's the smoker's fault in the first place.

This link has a very sensible, impartial(ish) viewpoint of the history of the smoking ban, and balances an argument between the NHS and ASH, the pro-smoking pressure group:

http://www.thesmokingban.org/

I guess what i'm trying to say here is smoke if you want, but i'll have no part of it! and kids, it is NOT cool!