Study Reveals True Cost of Passive Non-Smoking

Today, a study conducted by Cambridge University reveals for the first time the true cost of passive non-smoking. While it has long being recognised that non-smokers have a higher than average propensity to lead sad and boring lives, the impact of such lifestyle choices upon smokers has, until now, gone largely unrecognised.

The report, authored by Professor David Wyfman, notes that the bad and boring chat that is chracteristic of non-smokers substantially impacts upon the quality of life enjoyed by smokers as well as those who abstain. Professor Wyfman states that the average non-smoker will initiate 4-5 extremely boring conversations per day – at least 40% of which will be inflicted upon those who do smoke. Furthermore, his research suggests that the exagerrated coughing typically engaged in by non-smokers – to connote displeasure at the experience of cigarettes being lit within 100 yards of their nasal cavaties – generates, over the course of a single day, a level of noise pollution that is equivalent to 2 million aeroplanes landing at heathrow. Meanwhile the tendency of non-smokers to wet the bed has – in particularly health obsessed regions – been sufficient to generate minor floods.

The report contains a number of emotionally challenging interviews with those who have suffered the consequences of passive non-smoking. One respondent told of his experience of living beneath a non-smoker in a block of flats. He explained that his upstairs neighbour wet the bed so much that the urine had come through his ceiling and, in his own words, “made my bedroom smell like my willie.”

A member of the public speaking on condition of anonymity told the researchers:

“I was outside the pub having a cigarette when a non-smoker came up to me and started talking to me about the bus timetables. I was so bored I went to sleep for two days and missed my son’s birthday.”

Meanwhile the rising number of people who abstain from both smoking and drinking is likely to be a drain on government finances. It’s estimated that the current generation of NOFNOBS (No Fags No Booze) will become so old that soon many will be claiming military pensions awarded during the War of the Roses.

The study has renewed calls for the government to take a tougher line on non-smoking. A health spokesman for the opposition was quoted as saying that todays findings make it “clearer than ever that refusing to smoke is not simply a personal lifestyle choice. It is clear that it can seriously harm the wider community, and that it is up to government to limit the pernicious and socially destructive effects of this contemporary social ill.” Plans for a non-smoking tax are predicted in the next queens speech.