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CONTROVERSIAL police chief Richard Brunstrom has sparked up more fury - by banning his cops from smoking.

Speed camera fanatic Brunstrom has also told smoking bobbies they can’t become dog handlers, firearms or traffic officers.

And any cops who try to sneak a fag break on duty will face disciplinary action.

Smoking will be banned in all his force’s police stations - and even in their car parks.

The North Wales chief constable told his officers: ”Smoking is a nasty and dangerous habit.

”Smokers generally have a much worse attendance record and are more likely to suffer injuries at work.”

Adverts for traffic, firearms and dog unit jobs are now worded to exclude smokers from applying.

Chief Superintendent Geraint Anwyl said: “These units require the very highest levels of physical fitness.”

Simon Clark, of pro-smoking group Forest, said: “Ironically if you are sent to jail you’re allowed to smoke. But if you’re in the police, you’re not. It seems petty and vindictive.”

You have to admit that if your'e sat in the pub, and the people behind are doing cocaine in the toilets, or heroin, then you are not in any danger from their particular vice - unless they are forced to rob you at gunpoint to pay for it!
You cannot say the same for smoking!!

If cigarettes were to be treated as a new medical drug, and tested to the same standards, they would NEVER be approved for use, not even on animals!

That aside, is Brunstrom not violating his officers human rights by excluding them for using a legal substance ?

The North Wales chief constable told his officers: ”Smoking is a nasty and dangerous habit.

”Smokers generally have a much worse attendance record and are more likely to suffer injuries at work.”

Does he have evidence for this? - I've not found this to be the case where I work.

You cannot say the same for smoking!!

How much evidence would you like?

While a link between consistent exposure to other people's smoke and disease does not seem implausible, the evidence for it is remarkably weak - far weaker than is ever acknowledged in discussion of this new bill.

The most recent SCOTH report notes that in 'most studies considered individually the observed odds ratios failed to reach statistical significance'. In other words, any relationship between secondhand smoke and disease was so weak that it was impossible to tell whether the result was simply down to chance. The SCOTH figures were produced by tacking together all these studies, with all their potential confounding differences of subjects and methods. This seems to be a rather dubious approach, perhaps designed to produce the desired answer rather than the true one.

Figures for death tolls from secondhand smoking are not arrived at from examining the cause of death in individual patients. Instead, they simply take these questionable figures and extrapolate them to the whole population. Is the population of bar staff, who often work part-time or move on to other careers after a year or two, really comparable with that of the non-smoking wives in these studies who are exposed to cigarette smoke in confined and badly ventilated spaces every day for decades?

A 24 per cent increase in lung cancer rates for non-smokers sounds like a lot - but this increase in relative risk has to be set against the rarity of the disease in this group. The absolute risk of lung cancer for non-smokers exposed to secondhand smoke remains tiny. As for the risk from heart disease, SCOTH does not say at what age this increased risk applies. If it is at a young age, the absolute risk is again small. If it is in old age, when heart disease is commonplace, it seems implausible.

There are good reasons why transport companies and work places prohibit smoking that usually have nothing to do with fears about health. Few complain about being asked not to smoke on public transport because non-smokers have no choice but to use buses, trains and planes. But pubs are quite different, and for the government to intervene like this, it needs to demonstrate that substantial harm can be avoided. It has failed to do so.

How much evidence would you like?

Here for starters.

After accounting for differences in demographics, diet, and lifestyle, the team found -- not surprisingly -- that arterial plaque builds up 50 percent faster in smokers than in people who had never smoked.

However, people who didn't smoke but reported being in close contact with a smoker for at least 1 hour per week experienced 20 percent more vessel thickening, on average, than nonsmokers who didn't breathe any cigarette smoke.

I would have thought what you did in your own time was your own business so long as it was legal, but obviously that's not good enough for this particular swivel-eyed totalitarian control freak.

Perhaps he'll try to recruit some heroin addicts as he seems to think they are less of a menace to society than smokers or pensioners doing 35 in a 30.

How much evidence would you like?

I suspect there will be much contray evidence from either side, but from my own viewpoint, secondary smoke causes more than just mere inconvenience.

Historically, children in smoking households went on to smoke, so recent research showing increases in childhood asthmas might well be revealing a problem which was masked in the past.

As I pointed out - airborne pollution is responsible for many ills - and not just smoking. we live in an age where there is more reseach, as older coal fired stations have dissapeared, as have other sources. This give smoking a higher profile - which it might or might not deserve.

I occasionally use solvents at work, which are obvious to any occasional visitor, but which become nearly unnoticable to us. I suspect they would have more affect on those unaccustomed to them, than those who are in regular contact. I have no reason to suspect cigarette smoke is any different.

How does that follow? How does starting to smoke in later life affect an individuals chances of contracing childhood asthma?

They may be more noticeable to one unaccustomed to them, but it does not follow that they have a more harmful effect.

Many sufferers of childhood asthma these days do not always require inhalers, as they are taught to avoid the obvious causes of attacks - dusty environments, and cigarette smoke etc. My son was never convulsed on the floor like some sufferers.

Frequent smokers dont hack and cough like those who are exposed to secondary smoking on an infrequent basis.

Sorry Ernest, but neither of them have any statistical significance whatsoever...

And, as PeterE and Pete317 say, there's no correlation whatsoever...

OK.. Maybe, the children of smokers may go on to be smokers, but that's a fault of parenting, not "passive smoking".

I'm a lifelong non-smoker (and scientist) and I'm firmly convinced that there's no link whatsoever between "passive smoking" and "smoking-related illnesses".

If e.g. there is a risk to a smoker smoking a cigarette of X then if the secondary passive smoker inhales one 25,000 th (or whatever) from that smokers cigarette then he will have one 25,000th of that risk. Small but real.

If e.g. there is a risk to a smoker smoking a cigarette of X then if the secondary passive smoker inhales one 25,000 th (or whatever) from that smokers cigarette then he will have one 25,000th of that risk. Small but real.