pushy railway smokers

An incident on an outdoor railway platform at Farningham Road, Kent – involving two young guys smoking under a footbridge, an antismoking older woman, a push, a stumble and a fall onto the tracks – has brought out another spate of venom against smokers and Soraya – the same age as the victim, Linda Buchanan – is angry because this is what happens when governments pass laws without teeth, failing to give relevant authorities the funding necessary to enforce them.

"The ban against smoking has only been in force for a year," says Soraya, "and if the government is serious about its nonsmoking policy then it should have given the railways the funds necessary to hire more staff to patrol stations rather than leaving it up to strident members of the general public, like Linda Buchanan, to enforce it."

"Those two guys were described as being about 25 and have probably been smoking for over 10 years already," says Soraya. "By giving naive people like Linda Buchanan the false impression that all smokers can change their habits so quickly and easily, or want to – for no other reason than because the antismoking lobby has spent millions of taxpayer funds promoting how disgusting the habit is – the government has exposed her to the wrath of two young thugs who, quite clearly, have no intention of quitting and resent interference in their enjoyment of what is, after all, a legal product."

"Actually, I am loathe to call them thugs because although they were obviously cognizant of the smoking ban, but lit up regardless, they did their smoking under a footbridge, far away from the main platform, being courteous towards fellow commuters who did not want to smell cigarette smoke,” explains Soraya. “They were providing themselves with a quiet smoking space – making a protest, of sorts, against the stupidity of applying the smoking ban to outdoor areas – not expecting someone like Ms Buchanan to go out of her way to confront them at 7am, three days in a row.”

"I’m not a heavy smoker, I certainly don’t smoke at 7am and I’d never push someone who shoved me verbally,” says Soraya, “but I do think that the total smoking ban is unreasonable. It would be civilized to have a smoking section in all indoor public areas, but failing that it is cruel, hypocritical and nonsensical to ban smoking in outdoor areas where toxic fumes and evil smells from trains, planes, vehicles, factories, homes and restaurants are already polluting the air or offending the nostrils."

"What was thuggish about their behavior was not their furtive smoking but their over-reaction to being told to stop smoking, three days in a row, by a woman who is very lucky that they gave her a push rather than sticking a knife into her," says Soraya. "And, if it comes to that, they were very lucky that she wasn't a gun toting lunatic."

"They had absolutely no right to touch the woman -- no matter how much provocation she gave them -- and this is their crime, not their smoking, but all the anti-smokers out there fail to make this distinction," points out Soraya. "Had Ms Buchanan not stumbled, fell onto the railway tracks and caused the guys to run away in panic, she could have had them charged with assault and lumbered them with a criminal record that would affect the rest of their lives -- and she still can, of course, providing they are located -- but she can't have them charged and given a criminal record for smoking."

"Smoking in a non-smoking area is an offence and, like a multitude of other silly offences under the New World Order, it is not a crime like murder, rape and theft; and if everyone believes they have the right, as Ms Buchanan did, to tackle strangers for committing these silly offences, then the actual crime rate is going to escalate and there'll be dead bodies everywhere."

"Being the same age as Linda Buchanan, I cannot understand what on earth possessed the woman to think that strapping young men of about 25, on their way to a laboring job by the description of their clothing, would pay any attention to her," laughs Soraya. "Having tried once to stop them smoking, what possessed her to impose her will on them, 'lawful' though it was, a second and then a third time? If she was so incensed, so out of her mind with rage, why didn't she approach the railway staff and get them to do their job rather than doing it for them?"

“Is she nuts or something? I wouldn’t approach two young women of that age to ask them the time, let alone two young men to tell them to stop doing something that offended me. I’d just walk away, as would most sensible older people.”

"Would she have similarly approached two men her own age doing the same thing?" asks Soraya. "I very much doubt it, and what we are seeing here is perhaps a woman with adult sons of the same age who won't let go, who continues to treat them as children, and that is why her last words to them was to 'grow up' before they gave her the push that made her stumble and fall onto the railway tracks."

"I'm surprised, really, that two young laboring men would be taking a train to work in the first place -- most commuters where I live are older people," says Soraya. "And yet as the cost of running a vehicle becomes prohibitive, forcing more and more people out of private transport onto public transport, I suppose this sort of incident is going to become rife -- if not for smoking then for any number of silly offences."

“But it doesn’t surprise me that this incident happened in the South-East, the most overcrowded part of the UK, a tinderbox of hostilities waiting to be ignited,” says Soraya. “Even where I live, where it’s not so overcrowded, I’m into cocoon survival.”

"Those two guys were probably still living at home -- for the same reason that they cannot afford private transport to get to work -- and were probably subject to constant nagging by their moms," explains Soraya. "When nagged young men are confronted three times by someone else's nagging mom, I guess they snapped."

"I'm not making excuses for the young men, I'm merely pointing out that every railway platform in the country, if not the whole world, is seething with people suffering from all sorts of afflictions and private miseries and the slightest thing can set any one of them off -- a whiff of cigarette smoke, a crying child, a piece of litter, a cell phone ringing, you name it, something is sure to offend someone – and if we are to survive as a harmonious society in an increasingly overpopulated world then governments should be promoting tolerance rather than pandering to divisive lobby groups such as ASH.”

"What about the Greyhound bus passenger in Canada who had his head cut off by the lunatic sitting next to him?" adds Soraya. “He wasn't smoking, he wasn't littering, he wasn't drunk and disorderly or in any way annoying the lunatic sitting next to him -- but something about him ticked off the lunatic -- the smell of his aftershave, an inadvertent touch, a cough, who knows?"

"And this is why governments that pass silly laws trying to control every aspect of human behavior are wasting taxpayer's resources."

"If governments must pass silly laws telling us where we can and cannot eat, smoke, drink, fart, urinate, defecate, expose our body bits, have sex, make noises, etc, etc, then at least put some teeth into these laws by requiring all authorities -- in this case public transport operators -- to raise their act and take 100% responsibility for the safety and comfort of commuters," says Soraya. "It was grossly negligent of the government to pass the nonsmoking ban without enforcement patrols to go with it, leaving people like Linda Buchanan with no option but to do the job herself (and heavy smokers like those two guys with enough rope to hang themselves)."

"If I were Ms Buchanan I'd try suing the government because her actions were based upon a reasonable belief that the government was serious about the smoking ban, why else would they pass the law?” points out Soraya. “However, because the majority of the population doesn’t trust anything the government does, preferring to remain cynical, minding its own business, I don't fancy her chances."

"Everyone else on that railway platform in Kent, except for Linda Buchanan, was minding their own business," says Soraya. "If she had minded her own business and the railway staff had been given government funds to properly mind theirs -- patrolling the platform 24/7 -- her wrist wouldn't be broken and two young men would not now be on the run, hunted down like animals, their future lives in ruin should they be located."