There are too many posts to quote, but this one stood out to me.
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Originally Posted by Infinite_Loser
I don't understand the large amount of debate here.
If you want to smoke on your own property, then more power to you. However, as far as public property is concerned, no one has the right to infringe upon another person's health. Currently, second hand smoke is the third leading cause of preventable deaths a year in the United States.
If you want to slowly kill yourself off, that's great! But to expect people to change their living style to keep themselves from being killed off by your bad habit is BS.
What do you lose is you're not allowed to smoke in public? Nothing.
What could I lose if you're allowed to smoke in public? My life.
It's as simple as that.
PS> I know for a fact that the taxes generated from the sale of cigarettes don't come anywhere near the costs of caring for those suffering from smoking-related illnesses.
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If you're a non-smoker, chances are that you live in a non-smoking house and are generally in a non-smoking environment majority of the time. So if you think that by being around a smoker lets say in a restaurant, or standing beside one at a bus stop, that you are going to inhale enough second hand smoke in your lifetime to kill you, I'd say you have some paranoia issues.
What can you say about the people who have never smoked a day in their life, but end up with some form of cancer? Are you immediately going to blame it on 2nd hand smoke? A family friend of mine is a health nut, ate only organic foods, never smoked, always excersised, and now only has 1-2 years to live because of lymphoma. Are you going to tell me that is somehow related to her being in our "smoke filled" house at Christmas a couple of years in a row? Sure it's not a cardiac disease, but who can be so sure that it's not caused by something else in the environment. Lung cancer isn't caused ONLY by smoke, although I'm aware it's the leading contributor.
What about the 85 year old man that has smoked since he was 13 and dies only from old age, compared to a 45 year old who develops COPD from smoking only 10 years?
I'm not saying that smoking is a good thing, or that we should all just take a shot at it, since it's hit and miss whether or not you'll die from it, I'm just saying that there are so many different environmental factors that play into getting a disease, that to pin point it on second hand smoke is and easy target and pretty ignorant.