A smoking diver is somewhere down the continuum of unfit divers, exactly where I don't know, but of much greater concern to me is that smokers, almost by definition, don't understand how to manage risk and believe themselves invulnerable, both traits are very, very bad juju in a buddy.
It's ofcourse your choice to dive (or not to dive) with smokers, but the above is a such an over-simplification, that it's simply nonsense. There is no denying, that smoking reduces CV fitness. That does not make a smoker automatically unfit, though. While all other factors being the same, two persons of which one smokes and one doesn't, the smoker could (and probably should) be expected to be "less fit", that does not render him "unfit" (or even significantly "unfitter" than the non-smoker). Simultaneously, a smoker, who exercises regularly, builds up/maintains CV fitness, and leads and otherwise healthy lifestyle, could be considerably fitter than a non-smoker, who pays less attention to maintaining physical fitness. Reducing the question of "fit or not fit" to the question of "smoker or non-smoker" is just naive.
Smokers don't know how to manage risk? Smokers believe themselves to be invulnerable? That makes my BS meter peak.
Most (if not all) smokers know, that smoking is bad for your health, and is a risk. They accept the risk, just as another person would accept the risk involved by routinely driving too fast, extreme free climbing, parachuting, or a number of other things that increase the risk of injury or death. Most of these people would not consider themselves invulnerable, and have decided that the risk they take is within their personal comfort zone/acceptable to them.
There's no doubt that smoking is bad. If you don't want to dive with smokers - fine. Your dive, your rules. However, your above statement is way too generalized, degrading smokers in general to "loose guns" and unfit, and just plain polemic.
There is nothing wrong with GUE excluding smokers from their courses -- it's their training, and if they want certain standards to be upheld, kudos to them; their game, their rules.
I'd still be interested in an answer to the original question.
