What do you think?
I gave up smoking after about 19 years. I went to a hypnotist and it cost me £100. I did not get paid this money by my employer or time off to do it! If you smoke it's up to you to stop. Why are we starting to look at smokers as victims?
The majority of cavers that I know do not smoke (aren't we a healthy lot he says smugly) so when we go to the pub afterward it pisses me off that I then go home stinking of fags. I cannot wait for the ban to come in. If they want to smoke they can still go outside.
Employers should deduct the time that smokers take up each day going for a 'fag break' which other employees do not have.
There, I've said my bit. Whats yours?

I gave up smoking 17 years ago (my only New Years resolution).  If a smoker can get compensation, good luck to them.  They won't get it from where I work - smokers are restricted to two 5 minute breaks a day which they have to take off the premises which also means that they aren't insured for the duration and are therefore liable to have pay deducted for being on leave.  That's what it's like working for the government.

No way should they be allowed time off - I gave up fifteen or so years ago and had to do so by my own volition and the knowledge that unless I did so - my life would be shortened.

Only if I get paid time off work to give up eating chocolate!

No way!  At the moment smokers are allowed to go out for ciggie breaks (and they get their coffee breaks) - non smokers just continue working.  Why should the rest of us take on extra work so that they can be paid to kick their habit? 

No way!

As with a lot of people, cigarette and cigar smoke cause me to have an asthmatic reaction. Luckily many of the pubs in the main caving regions are relatively smoke free and don't cause much of a problem to me. But my local (a very short stones throw away) now that's another matter - when you open the door the smoke billows out on occasions - and this is a place with a respected restaurant! I've been in there on three occasions in the past dozen years and been ill as a result each time.
Pubs are the centres of small villages, and I'm being excluded by this vile activity perpertrated by a vociferous minority. The sooner the ban starts the better.

In the workplace, we have a £4000 shelter for the smokers to kill themselves in and no cover for the healthy cyclists bikes! While the big, big, boss still smokes nothing will change!
At the transport company I worked for once, the smokers shelter was 100m away from the main building in the middle of the lorry yard, with all the fumes and dust; unsurprisingly it was hardly ever used - there must be a lesson there!

My local health authority recently stopped supplying nicotine patches for free - their rational was that the patches were cheaper than the cigarettes they replaced, so the ex-smokers could afford it - there was uproar in the local press, but I'm glad to say that the LHA stood by their convictions.

While smoking remains as socially 'acceptable' as speeding then I'm afraid it will continue. And the government couldn't afford to cut it down too much!

Simple solution, have the classes after work

This is such a ludricous idea (and I smoke). Typical of todays increasingly wet, drippy, society. FFS.

Smokers already have a financial incentive to give up. It's called saving money by not buying cigarettes. If it hasn't worked so far, then paid leave to attend sessions won't work either.

Must add that, as a smoker I have no problem with the impending ban.

Tha saving money aspect doesn't really apply, Peter, as those of us that smoke, without offending others, because we enjoy it. Most smokers I know "import" the stuff anyway (at around half the cost - you know - free cross border trading within the EU etc). In my experience, a lot of the hand rolling tobacco in shops is usually stale as it's been there for so long.

No legal incentive is going to work if you don't want to give it up, Hughie, financial or otherwise.

I do not smoke but have not been too bothered by others smoking but as i have known people die from smoking,
i think smokers should be given every reasonable help to give up.
One help would be to not allow smoking at work. :-\

Re: Should smokers get paid time off work to give up smoking?

No.

paul said:

Only if I get paid time off work to give up eating chocolate!

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Give up CHOCOLATE!!!    No, never!!  Gave up smoking 'just like that' after 23 years  :halo:, but chocolate....  nah, it just isn't going to happen - even if you paid me!  How could you even suggest it!!!!!  :spank:

I guess I will soon have to pull my finger out and update our smoking policy before July comes around, I don't for a moment think I will be including paid time off for course's. I doubt many people will.

It might be interesting if there were some conditions attached, i.e no more fag breaks once the course is completed......

And that's it isn't it - they already get time off to fecking smoke. Outrageous.

Short answer,    no way

I don't like people smoking around me. So paid breaks to attend anti-smoking sessions, if it helps them give up,  sounds good to me.
Paid breaks to let them continue smoking is a different matter entirely.

I work at a school,total ban in school area,I go to my car off site at lunch and have a puff,do i need it?sometimes it helps me relax, still trying to kick the habit.Pure utter codswallop taking time and getting payed.
If i can do a four/five hour trip underground without one i can do it at work without taking extra breaks

p.s.  When the new law comes in who is going to fine all these school kids £50 every time they are caught on school site and the school could be fined a lot more £2000 i think, all schools will be shut after a month

need a fag...........no i dont...........yes i do.................arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh

In answer to the question, No. However I despair that as a society we can't be more tolerant, and this from a lifelong non smoker.