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from the all-those-in-favour,-please-cough dept.
Austria has one of the highest rates of smoking and youth smoking among high income countries, and that might not be changing anytime soon:
Many Western countries have banned smoking in bars and restaurants, but Austria is bucking that trend. Under a law passed in 2015, Austria was due to bring in a total ban this May, but now its new government of the conservatives and the far-right Freedom Party have scrapped the plans.
The move was spearheaded by the leader of the Freedom Party, Austria's Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, himself a smoker, who told parliament last month that it was about freedom of choice. He said restaurants should be free to decide if they want to have smoking sections, where "a citizen has the possibility to decide perhaps to enjoy a cigarette or a pipe or a cigar with their coffee".
The move has horrified Austria's medical establishment. Dr Manfred Neuberger, professor emeritus at the Medical University of Vienna, says it is "a public health disaster".
"The decision is irresponsible. It was a victory for the tobacco industry. The new government made Austria into the ashtray of Europe."
Meanwhile, the country is considering buying more jet fighters, recruiting more police, defunding its public broadcaster, and examining its past.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 16 2018, @06:10AM (4 children)
I remember back in the 80s when people en masse fell off their chairs in convulsions, because someone opened a can of peanuts. I remember how sickened all those non-smokers were in the non-smoking section of a restaurant for being within 10 feet of smokers.
I remember when people weren't snowflakes.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday February 16 2018, @07:16AM (2 children)
I remember when the airplanes had a smoker section at the back. As late as about 1998, in Europe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 16 2018, @07:57AM (1 child)
I remember how people in the back of the plane would let others from the front sit in their seats, so they could have a smoke.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 16 2018, @08:16AM
And I was a vindictive bastard who'd book a seat in the smoking section of the plane just so I could deprive a smoker from getting the seat. Not everyone lit up back there, but Jesus, if you are sensitive to smoke and was unfortunate enough to be stuck in that section because the plane was full, God help you. And just as bad if your seat was just on the other side of the curtain between the smoking and non-smoking sections. Those disgusting fumes could still be smelt half way up into the next section.
And fuck all smokers in restaurants and the horse they rode in on.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Friday February 16 2018, @01:31PM
I remember the sonic fold technology that prevented carcinogen-laden air from the smoking section mix with air from the non-smoking... oh, wait, no, that's science fiction.
I DO remember when an evening out left your clothes smelling like a bonfire for days afterwards (...and I wasn't in the habit of filtering 10 litres/minute of air through my jacket, so god know what ended up in my lungs). I guess, soon, it'll be reeking with a miasma of the top-10 vaping liquid flavours, but fortunately that doesn't mean that there are tiny particles of not-normally-inhaled substances embedded in the fabric that will also have been accumulating in my lung... oh, wait, no, yes - it does.
I remember when I had a 20-year-old cardio-vascular system that could tolerate a bit of smoky air.
Still, its good to see the nicotine junkies bravely trying to rationalise themselves the right to inflict their filthy and 100% avoidable habit on others.