Smoking and Court

I'm an ex-smoker. I gave them up after many attempts aboout 9 years ago. I now have all the fervor of a reformed smoker and hate everything aboout them. I was delighted when the smoking ban came in.

When I was smoking, after about an hour without a fag, I used to get restless, lose my concentration, become irritable and unreasonable etc.

I often wonder about members of a jury who are hearing a serious case. If the jury member is a heavy smoker in a stressful situation and he is not allowed smoke for maybe up to 4 hours at a time, how will he manage to concentrate and sit in judgement, if all he can think about is when can he get his next fix.

I can honestly say that I wouldn't like this person trying me.


Murt

Is the jury room not exempt from the smoking ban?

Not all smokers react like this. Plenty of people sit in cinemas (2 hours) flights (~5hrs) and just accept the deprivation. If there's no opportunity (can't exactly nip out to the wing of a plane), it's all you can do.

I've never used them myself, but I'd imagine nicotine patches/gum/inhalers would get most smokers through a few hours of deprivation.

Anyway, I thought we all wanted to 'get tough' on crime...?

I think there was no smoking in the jury room when I was on a case a few years ago but perhaps I was very fortunate and none of the other jurors were smokers.