Congratulations to Launceston firm Watson’s Jewellers for their Facebook campaign to get rid of smoking in the CBD, not because of the dangers of tobacco smoke, but because it is associated with loutish behaviour. http://www.examiner.com.au/story/1140417/thousands-back-cbd-smoking-ban/?cs=98
Research by Dinnis et al in 2002 and reported in the journal Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior shows that:
“Compared with the non-smokers, both male and female smokers felt overall significantly more discontented, troubled, tense, quarrelsome, furious, impatient, hostile, annoyed and disgusted and experienced greater dizziness…….both male and female smokers showed greater increases than non-smokers in feeling spiteful, rebellious, incompetent and in sweating, suggesting that they experienced greater mood changes in response to cognitive stress.”
Banning smoking in the CBD will reduce behavioural disturbances in public places. No doubt at all.
Furthermore we need to get maternal smoking rates down because smoking causes crime in their offspring. Our maternal smoking rates are the highest in Australia. 26.9% of pregnant Tasmanian women smoke. See http://www.dhhs.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/74844/Smoking_Pregnancy_Report_2009.pdf
In an article by Brennan et al “Maternal smoking during pregnancy and adult male criminal outcomes.” In the Archives of General Psychiatry, 1999 the authors say:
“Results support the hypothesis that maternal smoking during pregnancy is related to increased rates of crime in adult offspring. The study extended previous findings by showing that maternal smoking is related to persistent offending rather than to adolescent-limited offending.”
A study in Finland found similar results:
“Compared to the sons of mothers who did not smoke, the sons of mothers who smoked during pregnancy had more than a two-fold risk of having committed a violent crime or having repeatedly committed crimes, even when other biopsychosocial risk factors were controlled.”And the American Journal of Pediatrics
“…….. it is estimated that maternal smoking in early pregnancy may account for 25% of externalizing (aggressive) behavior while maternal smoking when the child is 5 years old may account for an additional 16%. These findings provide further support for antismoking programs in pregnancy and in young family settings.”
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Comments (3)
And removing motor vehicles and licensed premises from the city would also have the capacity to reduce crime and health problems.
And there may be a case for not allowing too many non-healthy food outlets into the central business district (definition of non-healthy could be a tricky bit)
Yeah TGC I agree. I mean even teenagers introduce loutish behaviour. Why don’t we get rid of them. Then there’s all those people on electric wheelchairs zooming in and out of peaceful pedestrians.
We’re all like frogs in a slowly boiling pot. When we finally realise it the reaction will be awesome to witness. Wonder if I’ll be around.
while i agree that smoking is harmful to your health and should be banned, i feel you need to take a course in statistics. (much like many people who draw such conclusions) correlation is not the same as cause and effect. you might just as easily say that refrigerators cause food.
in fact many studies have shown that people with mental health issues are more likely to smoke, perhaps as a form of self medication as nicotine stimulates the brain’s pleasure center. other studies have found that a large number of prison inmates have mental health issues. Maybe you should be lobbying to fix the mental health system instead of protecting the sensibilities of a few glitterati.
banning cars would make a lot more sense. i’m sure a car pumps out a lot more toxins than a smoker. and if you want to talk about noise…