Smokers should get "paid time off work to quit"

[Si Hunt]

I usually steer clear of smoking topics, because it's a lifestyle choice "exercised" by a few of my fellow posters, but, sorry, this is ridiculous!

Businesses are being urged to help workers give up smoking before the smoking ban in England on 1 July.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said workers should be allowed time off with pay to attend "stop smoking" clinics.

And the NHS watchdog also called on employers to provide staff with information on nearby services.

But the pro-smoking group Forest said non-smokers might be unhappy about their colleagues getting time off.

Unusual to see Forest and Simon Clark taking the right side for once, but I dare say there's a sinister agenda to it (predicting a backlash against smokers because of this perhaps).

Nevertheless... WTF? If smokers are getting free time off then I'm taking it up so I can quit! It's enough already that the taxpayer FUNDS classes for people to stop smoking, without them doing it in paid work time as well!

Any thoughts?

Si.

[Carol Baynes]

Ludicrous. It's an addiction,fair enough, but workers should use their own time.

[Ralph]

Yes it's the most pathetic reason I've seen yet for taking time off work. We might as well have overweight people given time of for health farms and people with babies should get to sleep another hour.

Anyway none of this was needed in Scotland or Ireland so whats the big deal?

[Rob McCow]

On the other hand.

Smokers can take 'five minute breaks' regularly throughout the day. Let's say someone has 20 cigarettes during a working day - that's 100 minutes of lost productive time.

It's not fair, but from a purely monetary point of view it makes sense to give them something in return for quitting. Either that or pay them less because they're less productive.

[Si Hunt]

I want to tackle this issue now you've bought it up Steve, because it seems to me that smokers have this weird, twisted argument whereby they do something to cost us money, then we're supposed to pay money to stop them because it will be cheaper for us in the long run!

It's just an utterly flawed argument, but you see it everywhere. Build special smoking rooms! And then we won't give you cancer. Pay for us to quit smoking! And then we won't take work breaks all day. Pay for us to stop! And then we won't take up so many hospital beds.

Sorry, but life just doesn't work like that, and this warped reasoning seems only to apply to smokers, as if their choice to smoke is some kind of right that comes without any kind of responsibility. Why won't the state pay for me to have a new TV? Because I'll be so bored without it that I'll go and vandalise the town and that will cost you taxpayers more money in the long run! You see, it'll be cheaper for you to pay for me to do something else. Hey, I'm going to go and jump out a plane now but I can't afford a parachute. Mr Taxpayer, pay for me to buy one or else I'll break both legs and have to claim unemployment benefit for the rest of my life!

Si.

[Pip Madeley]

I agree, it's all bobbins.

[Alex]

I agree, it's a load of nonsense, and I'm a smoker myself. There's no reason at all why people should get time off to quit, whenever I've tried to stop smoking in the past, it's during working hours it's easiest as you're distracted at least most of the time.

Maybe a badge with the words "Giving up smoking" could be given for free though, just so that work colleagues should know to avoid that person for the first week or so.

[Jason Thompson]

My mother once had a row with her boss over smoking breaks. Everyone she worked with smoked, and she didn't. They'd be forever nipping out for fag breaks, so eventually she demanded the same entitlement to breaks because she was working at least an hour more every day than the rest of them. Somehow her boss just couldn't see her point.

But it's a very valid one. Because you have taken a route that got you addicted to smoking does not entitle you to nip out whenever you feel like it to have a fag on top of other breaks the rest of the workers are entitled to, and there is no way in hell they should be given extra time off to quit. How would the company stop smokers from taking time off to quit smoking, then coming back and saying 'I tried but couldn't do it' when they've actually been enjoying their extra holiday and not even attempting to give it up?

[Ralph]

We should just set up a leper colony and shove them all in

[Dirk Gently]

I can't argue with any of the comments on here & agree with them all...with the possible exception of Ralph's.

[Paul Monk]

Its interesting because loads of places (inc. the council where Jody works) have no smoking policies which forbid taking time out to have a fag during working hours. So I reckon very few places offically allow workers time to do it, its just that virtually none of them enforce it.

[Ralph]

I couldn't resist - I'm waiting for the smokers to revolt

[Si Hunt]

I believe with smoking that it's a lifestyle choice and people should be allowed to do it (if they want to fill themselves with tar and lead) so long as it doesn't affect anyone else.

I don't, however, see why this self-chosen vice should be handed any "rights" above those that choose not to do it get. I don't see why they should have special rooms, special breaks etc. WHY is this hobby of "smoking" more of a hobby than something I might choose to do, like basketball or learning Dutch? I don't expect paid breaks (or, heaven forbid, whole days off) at work or allocated space in public places to do those things, so why is smoking any different?

This is completely aside from the fact that smoking isn't a harmless hobby like those ones, and actually kills users and those nearby. We ought to be giving breaks and facilities to people who want to exercise or use the gym! Not kill themselves slowly. You have to pay 40 a month in most places to use the gym, yet quit smoking classes are free on the NHS! Arn't I saving the NHS money by improving my health? Why arn't gym sessions subsidised on the NHS under the same argument?

Si.

[Ralph]

I don't, however, see why this self-chosen vice should be handed any "rights" above those that choose not to do it get.

I'm sure theres plenty of other self vices some of us could request time for...

[Perry Vale]

When I saw this story on BBC Breakfast this morning, I thought of Si Hunt. It is of course, a ludicrous suggestion......

I will say however, that you don't have to be away from your desk smoking, to not be working.

[Si Hunt]

You rascal. Although I'm genuinely writing this in "processing time" while a data extractor on my desktop does its business.

Si.

[Dirk Gently]

I couldn't resist - I'm waiting for the smokers to revolt

Smokers revolting? I couldn't possibly comment.

[WhiteCrow]

I think YES they should be given time off to take classes.

But, should they be found to smoke again, they have to pay it all back. Will make people serious about quitting.

[Carol Baynes]

Smoking isn't a hobby. Let's get that straight at least. It's habitual and an addiction, but it's not one of my hobbies!

[Si Hunt]

Surely that's just words though. It's a hobby in as much as it's something you choose to do for pleasure that you don't have to do.

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

We had a laugh about this at work today - my boss had a 'action pack' in the post from (I think) the NHS, and amongst the recommendations there was providing "counselling and support" for smokers wanting to give up.

Thing is, the three or four guys on the shopfloor who smoke aren't planning to give up, they're just resigning themselves to having to go outside to do it.

But it's absurd - if people want to take time off to seek counselling, or whatever, to give up smoking, then they should book holiday time as they would for any other time off.

[Carol Baynes]

Surely that's just words though. It's a hobby in as much as it's something you choose to do for pleasure that you don't have to do.

Si.

I could have written your response before you did! It was you, Si, that I was expecting the response from! Not sure why actually.....and Yes, they are words and I always make them mean something...silly boy! Just words indeed!

Seriously, now, there aren't many pleasurable activities that you have to do. Smoking is not pleasurable in that way, no matter what the Dave Lewis' of this world tell you. Sorry Dave, but you can't sway me on this. If Dave could go back to a time when he didn't smoke I bet he would.
Smoking controls lives and dictates how you lead it, like all addictions. People carry on doing it because they are addicted, and the pleasure is not really what you mean by pleasure.

Yes, I enjoy(ed) it, but equally I loathed it. That isn't really pleasure.

Ok, I'm going off on one. But it's difficult to talk about this to someone who can't know.

[Dirk Gently]

Should people be paid to go & stop drinking?

[Captain Tancredi]

I'd argue that it can be a hobby- there's at least one tobacconist in Otley and two in Leeds I could mention who sell the paraphernalia, flavoured tobaccos, cigars and so on. Then again, I've smoked perhaps 15 cigarettes in the course of 34 years, although I was literally chocoholic (to the extent of making a point of crossing two roads to get to a newsagent's to buy a Galaxy on my way into college in the morning) about ten years ago, and it was quite scary when somebody pointed that one out.

[Dave Lewis]

Smokers can take 'five minute breaks' regularly throughout the day.

Can we? I don't get a cigarette break at any point during my working day, except, I assume during the two hour break on a Saturday that breaks up my fourteen hour shift - but that's the equivalent of my lunch break, so I'm guessing it's acceptable to have a couple of cheeky ones then. Of course, I waived my right to a break of any kind when I signed my contract back in 2005. Fact!

Having said that, I never even think about having a fag when I'm at work... I may have done back in the day, but the thought genuinely never crosses my mind before seven o'clock at night unless I'm having some all day drinking festival. If I stay at home all day and all night, I don't have a cigarette at all. That's a pleasure I reserve for when I'm filling myself with booze.

Smoking is not pleasurable in that way, no matter what the Dave Lewis' of this world tell you. Sorry Dave, but you can't sway me on this.

I'll never try - promise! However, if you ever ask me to crash you one, I'll happily cough up. As it were.

If Dave could go back to a time when he didn't smoke I bet he would.

If I could be in any period of my life except now, I'd go back there like a shot. Including... perhaps, over all other times since... to before the summer of 1991, when I discovered the evil fun of fags. But not because of the litres of tar and nicotine that I've pounded into myself since then... but because in those days, I wasn't the stupid, worthless c*nt I am now.