A few years ago, the SBB started restricting smoking in covered areas of railway stations and platforms, introducing special “smoking areas”. (stupidly placed at the high traffic areas where everyone has to walk through the smoke and stale odours).
It seems this is no longer being enforced. I have seen SBB security several times walking past smokers on my local station platforms and not do a thing.
I would honestly like to see the Australian approach: ban smoking at or near any public transport stop or station. Smokers seems to have some degree of protection in CH, even if it interferes with the comfort of non-smokers.
Was there ever a penalty for it, though? I recall they put up loads of signs and painted “barriers” on the floor at entrances to stations but no threat of penalty for breaching it. Moreover, at our local station there’s a proper smoker’s bin halfway up the station where the smokers gather.
SBB staff should be armed with supersoakers to take care of any offenders. I’d pay increased fares just for that spectacle. Same goes for vapes and noisy kids.
EDIT - top choice for a Friday thread. I’m off to fire up the popcorn maker if anyone wants any…
I wish SBB would enforce it more. I’ve seen other passengers asking people to move to the smoking areas but I’ve never seen an SBB employee enforcing it.
Not really on topic but not totally off topic either so I’ll post it here anyway.
I was just up at the village school and noticed there are lots of ‘no smoking zoné (in French) notices painted on the ground all around the school boundary. It seems like a no brainier to me that the primary school would be a smoke free zone but it clearly needs pointing out to some people.
There’s been a huge no smoking zone at the hospital entrance here for quite a while now and that is really enforced. It always make me laugh to see the patients with their drip trolleys trying to balance an umbrella and smoke their cigarette at the same time miles away from the entrance.
TBH, I’ve noticed the trend of “e-cigarette” is not smoking. So, people puffing from their battery powered thingies under roofs and in platforms. Cigarette smokers tend to gather around the designated areas. Hemp smokers seem to be walking around, never static.
During the hockey world cup, a guy was smoking a cigar and I started sneezing out of control. I wasn’t performing, that shit was really strong. Cigar guy walked away.
Maybe e-cigarettes should be in the same category as cigarettes and users of them confined to a special area where they can be avoided.
The British doctor in the video below (at least I think it’s this video, I’ve been watching a few of his videos recently) says that vapes will most likely be proved to be carcinogenic too eventually. (Indeed, research seems to be already showing that - see below.) He says that if you find yourself in a car where someone has been vaping and run your finger down the window, it’ll come away with a sticky residue on it. He says that residue will be sticking to the vaper’s lungs.
Disclaimer: I know almost nothing about this space aside from receiving dividends from Altria, Imperial Brands, British Tobacco and … having watched The Insider in a cinema. I’ll still say that everyone may consume whatever they want as long as they’re not burdening others (whether it’s through smoke/steam or other more indirect consequences).
The only reason that this data is slow in coming is that cancer doesn’t appear overnight and vapes are relatively new.
There’s a massive, seductive and very surreptitious advertising campaign by Philip Morris and others to convince people, especially the young to start vaping stating it’s a safe, convenient and fun alternative to smoking.
The only reason that vaping is considered safer than smoking is because smoking is so, so incredibly bad for you that essentially nothing is more dangerous for your health.
The chemicals don’t just stick to the lungs, they burn through them.
Am I mentioning the story too much of my son’s school friend here who ended up in intensive care with collapsed lungs as the vaping chemicals burnt holes through the lung surfaces?
They are, but the marketing during some years was that e-cigs were “healthier”. That crap was stopped by regulators now and they moved to nicotine pouches.
The people I’ve see outside the dedicated areas are commonly with e-cigs, and not cigarettes.
The countries where smoking cessation has been most successful are those where it’s been de-normalised.
Having people smoking in the middle of a health and leisure complex, next to the diving area where impressionable teenagers hang out, and the restaurant, where families are eating does not do this.
The problem here is they are trying to please the smokers too much. Those days should have been long gone.
Oh, you own these companies, too, probably even more than me (via additionally Philipp Morris International, Japan Tobacco and others that are included in the indices that institutional asset managers invest in) – unless you have no pillar 2.[]
I know of exactly one institutional investor / Pensionskasse in Switzerland that doesn’t invest in tobacco: Stiftung Abendrot.
Their performance is terrible, too, so I hope you’re not with them through your employer …
Can we de-normalise alcohol too? My speech is not garbled, I don’t grope anyone, I don’t start fights, I don’t shout at random people on public transport, cause damage to private or public property, or puke on the street, or lose the ability to control my car or motorcycle by smoking a cigarette, cigar, or pipe - I do all three on a regular basis, and only outdoors. I guess I do stink, I’ll agree to that, but drunks are both more dangerous and a hell of a lot more obnoxious than smokers.
Edit: Don’t get me wrong, I do like a drink from time to time, a beer or three with friends (Guinness, Tetley’s Bitter, Kwak, any Bavarian Weiss, Moretti and Feldschlosschen here), a glass of wine, a nice peaty smokey whisky like Ardberg or Laphroaig, however in norther Europe whenever I complete a Dr’s questionnaire they put me down as “non-drinker” (apparently someone who drinks less than once per week!).
That’s happening anyway - young people (here at least) are drinking less and less.
I’m not going to bother to explain the problems with nicotine addiction and compared with alcohol but around 70% of people who try nicotine become addicted compared with 23% for alcohol.
Perhaps you should because I’m getting confused here, more opportunity to educate me…is it addiction that’s the problem for you? I couldn’t care less what people are addicted to as long as it doesn’t pose a danger to me and mine.
Is it tobacco (the plant) that’s the problem, the smoking of it and what it does to the body, or nicotine? Or nicotine addiction as a gateway drug to Fruity Loop vapes or…what? All of the above (other than the plant) are real issues for the addict. Alcohol abuse/misuse/overuse is a potential problem for other people too.
Don’t give me a second hand smoke lecture please, I don’t smoke indoors and don’t allow smoking indoors, including in my own house.
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