Current smoker
Mates, would you bloody cut it the hell out already, you're getting ridiculous !
Smokers and non-smokers too, you're both just as bad, at least the ones posting here !
I'm a smoker - i smoke somewhere around 10 ciggies a day.
I like smoking, and i like to smoke - i keep smoking because i love it.
But, I also love being able to go into a restaurant and eating without choking from cigarette smoke, or going into a pub and having 1-2-4-11 pints without getting feeling like i just escaped from a house-fire.
I love sleeping without waking up with raspy lungs from smoking in the same room during the day.
Yes, i'm a smoker, and i love the smoking ban.
I do think you brits are a taking it a bit too far - but that's not a problem, you're taking every thing too far, including paranoia, and sometimes stupidity.
For example, the same ban is in effect in Finland - but in Finland you can find a bloody ashtray in front of almost every building bloc or building.
In Helsinki-Vantaa airport, you have a smoking room - blocked from the rest of the airport, and heavily air-conditioned - but inside.
In UK, you have to go hundreds of meters to get to a bloody ashtray, and you have to go through security twice to have a smoke in Heathrow.
That's the problem, really - you just didn't implement anything to make smokers feel like people. Sinners against society, having to do some penance to smoke - ok. But not people, not in UK.