So if we dont agree with a law we just flout it.Can I disagree with income tax, car insurance, car tax etc etc etc please?

I have never read such a foolish letter yet.

Clearly neither of you are aware of the duty of civil disobedience:

"...People often think that the proper response to an unjust law is to try to use the political process to change the law, but to obey and respect the law until it is changed. But if the law is itself clearly unjust, and the lawmaking process is not designed to quickly obliterate such unjust laws, then the law deserves no respect — break the law."
- Thoreau

In case you still need dots to join, this law is unjust, because:

-- Adults are capable of consenting to pick up a packet of 20 cigarettes and smoke them in an evening; but the law says that adults are not capable of consenting to enter or work in an enclosed space where they might (in the smokiest of environments) inhale up to 1/20th of a cigarette in an evening.
-- Adults are capable of accepting the risks of being employed to enter burning or collapsing buildings, being employed to lay cones barely a metre from speeding traffic on busy motorways, being employed to race cars at lethal speeds around a racetrack, being employed to shoot bullets at people and dodge bullets shot back at them... but the law says they're not capable of accepting the miniscule risks of being employed in a smoky environment.
-- Separate smoking rooms, as allowed by most other European states with smoking restrictions, would've provided both a 'safe' working environment and choice for all customers, but our law claims they're only safe when they're used in care homes and hospices, not anywhere else.
-- The benefits of modern ventilation systems, which have been proven to be effective in removing smoke particulates and reducing already harmless quantities of toxins in smoke to negligible levels, have been completely ignored by the lawmakers, who cite negative studies based on outdated, inadequate technology.
-- Second hand smoke itself presents a minimal health concern even with no measures taken to lessen it. As a non-smoker you have a 1 in 10,000 chance of contracting lung cancer; with exposure to SHS this rises to 1.25 in 10,000. It has recently been proven that eating bacon is 13% more likely to give you cancer.
-- The law punishes property owners disproportionately for others' misdemeanours, forcing them into acting as unpaid enforcers of a law which removes their choices and often destroys their businesses. He who smokes on your property could receive a £50 fine, but if for whatever reason you decline to stop him from doing so you are presumed to be guilty of allowing him to smoke (unless you can prove your innocence) and you're liable to a fine 50 times higher than he who is actually smoking.
-- The law ruins any businesses which rely on smokers, and especially those which focus on smoking, e.g. shisha bars, cigar and pipe clubs and many "spit & sawdust" drinking/smoking establishments with a smoking clientèle and staff. Rather than allow such places to choose to continue what they do best, the law instead tramples on the venues, tramples on the livelihoods of proprietors and staff and tramples on the private lives of those who enjoyed using them. The list of ban-related closures grows day by day, all when a bit of compromise would have saved them all.

Bravo to Hamish, and bravo to anyone who joins him in defying this unjust law.

freedom2choose.info

Bravo to Hamish - A Country divided is no advert for competent Government.
Only the most incompetent of decision makers or anti-smokers would consider this law to be sensible when it was never needed or asked for.
Who, when discouraging tobacco advertising, would force smokers outside where their laughter and camaraderie becomes an effective advert for smoking?
Who but the blinkered fail to see that bans make activites more atractive to young people?
Who but the incompetent would describe a situation where some premises can offer outside spaces and others cannot a 'level playing field'?
Who but the gutless would exclude 14 million voters from contributing to discussion about a law that severely impacts upon their own activity?
Who but the bully would force fellow human beings outside into constructions that even the RSPCA would condemn?
Who but the liar would promote minimal statistical correlations as scientific fact?
Who but the arrogant would consider a law that excludes and demonises a quarter of the population to be of benefit to a cohesive society?
Who but the thoroughly inept would accept the word of groups who have everything to gain from the promotion of ineffective pharmaceutical products?
Who but those bereft of commercial experience would claim no loss of trade in sectors where the majority of customers smoke?
Who, despite having accepted millions of pounds of public money, to educate and discourage smoking would impose punishment to hide their failure?
Only the mentally challenged would declare that 21st Century technology cannot remove even fine particulates from the air.
Only politicians would pass a law to detracts attention from their frequent failed initiatives and their inability to guide our Country.
The destruction of jobs and businesses, the loss of recreation venues, damage to the environment and communities, the promotion of isolation and depression are the real costs of this legislation and still our politicians believe the propaganda of hate.
There has been no permanent reduction of smoking prevalence in Ireland; the claims of a 17% reduction of heart problems in Scotland have been exposed as a fabricated LIE; the closure of social clubs and pubs and subsequent social damage in Scotland and Ireland are REAL.
Smoking, like other adult vices, belongs INSIDE adult social venues. They were the people's answer to providing for less than desirable adult behaviours without encouraging the young.

no amount of law breaking will change this unjust law and the pesecution of smokers will continue there wasno health motives for the ban it was all about money ASH are political charity by there own admission whos main funding comes from the health department with each director paid just under £60,000 a year. lord faulkner of worcestor who was one of the main players in getting the ban through the house of lords as just become a trustee&director of ASH i suspect this is his reward.he could not be in ASH before the vote as this would have been against the code of conduct but now the bans inplace he is getting well paid something stinks and its not fag smoke.

There are over 100 hundred studies showing smoking causes death and disease in non-smokers.

I see the publicity seeking Howitt has now given up his ridiculous campaign, as should the pro-smoking fanatics on here who supported him.

Seems like he can't be bothered with 'standing up for his rights' after all as he's moving to Spain.

"I came, I fought, I ran away".

There is over one hundred eh, name three? For every one of those 100 I can point you to somewhere that will tell you that they are nothing more than lies and a distortion of the so called science behind them. That science is called Junk Science! People like ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) have only one agenda, to get rid of tobacco, that is their REAL agenda.

Hamish Howett is a Christian, a man of integrity, he has a social conscience and a sense of fairness that I can't really live up to. I wish I could! My wife and I are smokers and we have lived together for near on forty years. We have not had any problems with passively smoking each others smoke! The damage that we do Is to ourselves and no one else. Yes it might be irritating to the non smoker, that's why I advocate having non smoking pubs and smoking pubs and that we can have a CHOICE! But you anti smokers don't want us to have this CHOICE! You just want to feel empowered in such a way that you can 'lord it' over %25 of the UK population. We at freedom2choose.info will not be treated like this. It's time for people like Hamish Howitt to fight back at this onslaught of the largest minority in the UK.

Hamish you are a hero to the disenfranchised!!

GOD BLESS YOU!

Jon, at least Hamish has fought, and not only that, he has not given up, nor will he.

So you non smokers have 'won' a great victory? I don't think so! You are celebrating a law, improperly passed, with more holes in it than a colander. This law is in total disregard to Human Rights & Civil Liberties. Non smokers have rights just as smokers have rights, so why are there not pubs to cater for both sets of rights? the right to smoke and the right to a smoke free drinking zone? Where are these hoards of celebrating non smokers now they have got their way? Nowhere to be seen. m
Many (too many in fact) pubs are now on the brink of closure due to lack of clientele with the onset of the long cold winter. Non smokers will suffer publess zones if they are forced to shut-will they be happy with that? I don't think so. This country, thanks to Blairites, has been turned slowly but surely into a dictatorship: Hamish and thousands of others of the same mind want a return to democracy-and there is only one way to do that. Quite simply, take this idiotic dictatorial government on head first! Why should businesses built up over many years hard work be dissolved in a puff of smoke? Why should people become jobless overnight? Why should poverty be imminent because a law, improperly construed, was passed. To all non smokers I say this," beware, enjoy your moment of triumph for it will not last. If they take away one of your main pleasures will you be happy with your lot? Idon't think so". Hamish my son, fight the good fight, smoke the good smoke for this dictatorship will soon be over.

All anyone has to do is look at all this fuss to know that there is something very wrong with smoking bans.

As a person who smokes, I'd always heard that tobacco shills funded all studies that didn’t denounce smoking and secondhand smoke--and anyone who gave them credence was merely rationalizing their addiction. That's what the rhetoric says, right? Well, surprise, surprise. Organizations like Forces International (forces.org) and Freedom2Choose don't accept ANY tobacco money--and the vast majority of studies that show "smokers' paradoxes" are NOT funded by Big Tobacco and are often funded by antismoking groups but the results went "the wrong way"! In the US, the study from the EPA, upon which the "mountains of evidence" are founded, was thrown out by a Federal court because the "science" was so shabby (fraudulent); another court overturned the ruling, saying that the EPA is purely a research agency (and not a "final action agency"). These two rulings put together are legal grounds for dismantling the EPA--all because antismoking zealots (and their pharmaceutical masters, AKA drug lords) are so deluded that they need to corrupt science, claim it's gospel and then call everyone else "cranks in denial"! In the UK, the HSE's OC255/15 had to be buried and replaced (by OC255/16)--the original stating that no actual evidence could be shown for any hazard posed by SHS; the replacement also had a suspicious change in how to report questions about violations. Yet, the largest and most rigorous studies--such as two from the World Health Organization, the Enstrom/Kabat study and the Wu-Williams study--have been attacked vigorously by unfounded accusations or simply buried solely because they show that secondhand smoke poses no threat--and in some instances has *negative* correlations with development of disease! Most of the claims made by antismokers don't even make sense--mind you, the more vocal antismokers appear to be suffering from advanced cases of ASDS and need professional help more than contempt.

The entire grounds for antismoker laws and attitudes are based on these fraudulent studies. Otherwise, the government would have no grounds for interfering with the free market. Hence, the laws are illegal--and politicians know it yet they deflect any criticism by spouting "you must be a smoker" to anyone who doesn't like being persecuted socially, politically and financially. (And, for the record, many people who have suffered the most from antismoker laws and persecution are nonsmokers, both never smokers and ex-smokers.) The result of allowing ASDS to run unchecked in society is the demise of health, liberty, politics, science, families, friendships and a whole truckload more.

To treat war veterans,the disabled and the elderly as lepers by forcing them outside in the cold, wind and rain shows the true despicable selfishness and hatred of the Anti-smoking brigade. Why do they not agree with allowing people a choice of either a smoking or non-smoking pub, the answer is that just like the Nazi's they will have no opposition to their dogma.This is the worst law ever passed by gullible politicians who believed the LIES of ASH and the WHO and made lucrative deals with the pharmaceutical companies. Well done Hamish you are the first to battle them but not the last.

Thank you Stephanie for letting people here in the UK, who are blind to the FACTS about SHS and the people who distort the truth to push their own agenda and make smoking, a legal product by the way, feel as though they are somehow dirty? I am glad that Americans are waking up to this propaganda, and downright lies, that surrounds the myth of Second Hand Smoke (SHS).

If the facts don't fit, ignore them. If you cant find a real criticism invent a lible. If the law gets in the way of your addiction, break it. First, the science is overwhelming and is listed in the Scoth report. The tobacco lobby call it junk science but I prefer to believe the country's leading scientists and medics who did the review. Second, there is no code of ethics or conflict of interest that would have stopped Lord F speaking in the house about smoking (Tory Health Secretary Ken Clark was a Director and then Chair of British American Tobacco). 80% of the polulation support the law and only 10% strongly oppose it. But I suppose the "antis" will say that that the BBC and Mori are all part of the anti tobacco conspiracy.

If the facts don't fit, ignore them.

Exactly my point, the scoth report does not fit the facts, it is often used to scaremonger the non smoking public into hysteria against the smoker.

If the law gets in the way of your addiction, break it.

Exactly! It is MY ADDICTION and doing no harm to anyone else but me and 14 million other smokers (it's funny though that there more old age pensioners who were brought up with smokers and thought nothing of going into a bar, restaurant or enclosed building and they are still alive to enjoy life, until the 'anti everything' brigade takes their hard won freedoms away from them!

The tobacco lobby call it junk science but I prefer to believe the country's leading scientists and medics who did the review

If you want to understand the science about Second Hand Smoke(SHS) go here if you need educating: http://www.antibrain

s.com/shs.html

Here is an extract:

The Chemistry of Secondary Smoke

As noted earlier in the chapter on Language, about 90% of secondary smoke is composed of water and ordinary air with a slight excess of carbon dioxide. Another 4% is carbon monoxide, a gas that can act as a poison when in sufficient quantity by reducing the amount of oxygen your red blood cells can carry. The last 6% contains the rest of the 4,000 or so chemicals supposedly to be found in smoke… but found, obviously, in very small quantities (1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80).

You said:

80% of the polulation support the law and only 10% strongly oppose it. But I suppose the "antis" will say that that the BBC and Mori are all part of the anti tobacco conspiracy.

which 80% are you talking about? 80% of non smokers? Or 80% of anti smokers? Or maybe your talking about 80% of anti tobacco zealots?

The old saying that: There are LIES, **** LIES AND STATISTICS, still rings true in the UK today.

So if you want to throw some more 'Junk Science' at me Martin, fire away!

to martin in castleford..the true facts are the scoth members are all bent..14 out of them have direct links..and i wouldnt doubt shares in big pharma companies,that are making billions out of the misery of quitting smokers,by selling at extortionate prices patches /gums/inhalers that do not work..the truth is they were jealous of the money the tobacco companies were making so they invented all this SHS crap.I will issue a challenge here Martin.Name just 1 persom who has died from secondhand smoke..just one,and dont say roy castle because it now known he smoked cigars..

And, further to "zanuzi's" challenge, I ask anyone to produce a death certificate that actually states as 'Cause of Death'....Second Hand Smoking. You will not find one and you never will! It is simply a load of codswallop, spin, hype or whatever you want to call it. This Labour government is struggling to fund the NHS (which one of their own, Bevan, set up years ago for the working classes) as they are spending fortunes in countries we know nothing about (fighting futile wars etc) so they have had to find a way to cut down hospital expenditure. "I know, lets attack the smokers! for it is they and they alone who are responsible for our hospitals being overflowing. Yes! we've cracked it, clear the smokers out of hospitals, free up beds and cut the NHS bill by millions". What they really mean is that they've had to find a scapegoat for their financial ineptitude and the smokers are that scapegoat. Blair realised the anger that would emanate from such a socially destructive law-why do you all think he promptly handed the reigns over to Gordon Brown so quickly? And now, why do you think Brown refused to go to the polls. Simple really: this dictatorship is on it's way out of government-and not a moment too soon. We'll all have to pay a toll to flush the w/c next!

John Id say he means the anti-smoking zealots. 80% of them(only?) support the ban- wow- whys it not 100% Castleford Martin?

For the rest the above posters some up pretty much what Id say. Anyway to go with the title of the article well done Hamish for standing up for freedom, property rights and of course REAL science not the junk the antis will keep spouting! Doing what is right isnt necessarily what the law says- like was enforcing apartheid the right thing for example?

remember everyone who supports the smoking ban the reason the health services are in trouble is because people are living longer due to the better health campaigns.we cant even pay pensions to the people we have now.anyone who believes in this policy should read a poem by pastor martin niemoller.and welcome every tax grab with open arms.