shakran

I can argue from the "ought" perspective too. I "ought" to be able to enjoy a meal at a restaurant without some dimwit exposing me to carcinogens. The majority of Americans, who are non smokers, "ought" to be able to dictate that they want publicly accessible places to be smoke free, even if the petulant minority doesn't like it.



Employee gets sick from inhaling too much cigarette smoke. Restaurant employees generally don't have much, if any, health insurance, so he has to go to the public hospital and get treatment that's paid for by the taxpayers. There's your external cost.




The external cost is the drain on public healthcare dollars from people who are sick because of their smoking habit.


So am I. The only drugs that should be illegal are the ones that effect more than the user when they are used as intended. Example, snorting cocaine only hurts the person snorting it. Smoking marijuana effects everyone around the doper. And as the legalize-it crowd loves to point out, cigarette smoke is a lot worse than pot.


If you really want to smoke, do as I would and go somewhere where you won't bother everyone else with your habit.


Correct, because it's already true. The hope is that if we repeat it in just the right way, you'll figure that out


You make this sound so easy. Take someone on the very low end of the economic ladder and tell him "hey quit your job right now, then go find another" - - because finding another while you're a waiter is very difficult since so much of your time is taken up at the restaurant - and finding a job period can be difficult. If your only qualification is that you've been a waiter for 10 years, that's not exactly gonna get you into very many jobs other than more waiter jobs. It's very easy to dismiss the working poor as being victims of their own laziness, but that concept does not fit the facts.

Well yeah, actually it does cut it. If the public is invited to be somewhere, that place needs to be a safe place for the public to be.


Or we could just make the environment safe to begin with and not have to worry about it. Again, you're in the less-than-25% minority and you are trying to dictate against the wishes of the majority.

I think yesterday's nationwide voting on various gay marriage bans is atrocious but I'm apparently in the minority. I have to accept that and move on, even though that really IS a human rights issue, whereas yours is a minority convenience issue. You don't want to get up and walk all the way to the door to have a cigarette. You're not BANNED from having a cigarette. You can smoke all you want. Just not where you will harm others.

Analog called it at the beginning. This argument is a bunch of smokers who want to smoke in public despite knowing they are hurting everyone around them with their habit. It's not only an indefensible argument, it's inexcusable as well.