A Smoker's Rant
 

It seems, no its definite, that in North America smokers are the new pariahs.
I find it difficult to accept that this is the worse addiction on the go when obesity rates have sky rocketed and so many social problems come with alcohol abuse and gambling. Yet these addictions do not inspire as much vitriol as smoking.
Why is that?
When was the last time someone was in an accident while "smoking and driving"?
When did someone beat their spouse after a night of smoking?
When did a smoker steal their family's life savings to buy a carton of cigarettes?

I am not saying smoking is good. Its bad. Real bad. But why is it the target for so much disgust and finger pointing? Are the other addictions somehow more acceptable? Are they any less destructive?

I think we need some real perspective on addictions.

Why do smokers have the right to blow their regurgitated smoke into my food and or drink in a public restaurant?

Smoking is disgusting to most people because it isn't a habit you keep to yourself. Smoking affects the environment around you, and all of the people in that environment.

And yes, people do get in car accidents while smoking and driving. People also burn their houses down after falling asleep with cigarettes.

Furthermore, the public health cost of smoking is enormous. We are spending millions of dollars every year through Medicare and Medicaid in the United States for smoking-related illnesses, and the money from the settlement with Big Tobacco will never cover all of the costs incurred by former smokers, especially when we take into the account the amount of uninsured people who need treatment for smoking-related illness. Additionally, thousands of young children in the United States suffer from environmental asthma because they live with smokers.

Smoking is gross, and I sure as heck don't want anyone doing it around me.

We've been pariahs for years. The difference now is the feeling that everyone else has the right to tell us what pariahs we are. I find this in many areas-virtual strangers forcing their POV, their morals on others with the intent of changing that which they don't like.
We know cigs, pipes, cigars, etc., don't smell like Chanel.
We're well aware that our walls, our upper lips, our car interiors will, in time, acquire a yellow tinge and, unless we're complete slobs, we take care of it.
We know smoking is bad for our own health-it's a crap shoot. Some smokers live well into their 80's, some might keel over before 50.
We know it's addictive; nicotine is harder to kick than heroin-that's been 'proven' over and over. We weren't worldly 30 year olds when we started, we were, more than likely, invincible, ignorant 15 year olds.
I don't know any smoker that hasn't tried to quit, wished to quit or doesn't need to quit. I've quit twice and have been trying for 10 months to quit again. My voice is changing, my sinuses, shot.
Smoking is a form of adult thumbsucking. It's a crutch, a security blanket. It's calming, it's something that takes a few minutes in which we relax, an ironic 'breather' from stress or thinking.
I do steal from my family to support smoking-it costs the two of us over $100 a week, money that could cover our credit cards. Anyone who smokes steals from themselves or their family because the fridge might go empty, the Visa bill might be late, but bet there's a few butts sitting in the ashtray.....

You have the right to choose another resturant. There are plenty of them out there with no smoking policies. Let business owners decide who they want to cater to, not the government.

And the smokers are paying for it with the increased taxes they pay.


I quit two weeks ago after 17 years of smoking. If you're serious about quitting go to http://whyquit.com/ and read up. There is a whole science behind the hows and whys of smoking, moreso than I ever imagined. Once I armed myself with the knowledge found there I quit pretty easily. Do yourself a favor and check it out. :thumbsup:

All lies, and lies that I've told myself 1,000 times. Check out that site. :)

That is the such a bullshit troll response to an honest question.

I expect so many more of those in this thread. Please, work on it.

All posters like that: If you can't do better, you need to re-check what the TFP aims for.

I am so SICK of this place turning into a run-of-the-mill shitass forum. Posts like this belong on Fark. Not here.

She asked a legit question about why smoking is such a targeted and socially beat-up addiction. Instead of such a "no thought required" one liner that doesn't even address the question, why don't you try asking yourself:

"Why do I hate smokers so much, that I transcend all normal levels of self righteousness when people even bring this subject up?"

Why don't you do that, and then maybe answer the lady's question in an intelligent manner. Or, hit the back button. Your call.

/takes deep breath.

Snowy, I don't know why people target smoking so much. It's easy to get on two particular bandwagons in today's age. Anti-smoking is one of them. Hating fat people is the other.

All the “fun” categories to hate have been taken away. It’s not cool to be racially bigoted. Most American whites have actually got themselves to the point where they honestly think they harbor no racist tendencies, so it’s not even a subject we can talk about. That level of honesty usually requires admitting some pretty ugly things may live in our heart of hearts. Not happening in today’s culture. We don’t like to scratch the surface. Shit under the first layer of bullshit gets ugly fast, and we’d rather not deal with all that mess. So, no racism.

Religious bigotry is a touchy one. If you make fun of the right religions, you’ll be okay. Making fun of “overly” conservative Christians is cool; Wiccans are easy targets; Catholics are pretty fair game (hey, their priests opened the door on that one – I was raised Catholic); Scientologists (freaks – In this case, I believe they are freaks, so I’m saying what I believe and accepting the consequences of how that causes others to view me.) are okay to make fun of; Muslims - especially you’re one of their extremist’s bomb targets you can make fun of…SO no religious bigotry (with a few exceptions).

You can hop on the "I am disgusted by fatties" wagon pretty easy. More Americans seem to be fat than not, but the common opinion is still that it's okay to look down on the chubbies. Sure, if you're blatant about it someone will say "Hey, save the whales, be nice." Eventually someone will defend outright abuse of chubby people. However, for most purposes bigotry about fat people is socially acceptable. Fat jokes abound, and no one says “enough.” (Ok, a few people do. They’re the good few that actually speak up for their beliefs. Honestly: 3 in 10 Americans. Tops.) Fat kids are bullied to tears on a daily basis, but ask a parent if they think “their kid” would do that. You’ll never ever find a bully’s parent saying “yeah, my kid is a DICK to other kids…especially those fat ones.” No one says shit about fat kids until they bring a gun to school…then it’s all about what video games they played. Fat people are abused every day and it’s cool.

But, like I say, unless you’re really rude about it no one will call you on your fat hate. You’ll be especially safe if you adopt the “it’s soooo unhealthy” tone early. No one can touch what you say if you’re concerned about the lardasses’ health. In that case it’s extra acceptable for you to be disgusted by fat people…after all it’s about HEALTHLY LIVING. Moving on to smokers…

Beating up on smokers is a populist, easy to jump on, bandwagon.

I was a 5 year half pack a day smoker. I stopped. 2 years ago. It. Was. A. Total. Bitch.

Nonsmokers don’t get this, nor do most of them care. In their minds, smoking is just something you can stop doing whenever you want. LOL on that. To add to their pile of smoker-hating-righteousness justification they’re on the “right side” of this debate by simply not smoking. It takes no effort!! “Join now and you too can look down on someone else’s personal choice – BECAUSE IT PERIPHERALLY AFFECTS YOU!!! – instant justification.” And yes, it peripherally affects you. You have to be in the same area as smokers to get secondhand. They’re not invading your homes and lighting up. I promise.

That’s right, go off on your anti-smoker “But bars STINK etc etc etc yammer” nonsense rants. I give a shit. I still have ONE question for all the passive aggressive anti-smokers who vote from behind a curtain to curtail someone else’s rights: If non smoking is SO popular, and EVERYONE agrees that bars, eateries, etc. should be non smoking, how come this change had to come from law?

Why didn’t bar owners have the economic incentive applied to them by their non-smoking clients to ban smoking in their establishments? No law prohibited any bar owner from making his/her place non smoking only.

Why didn’t bar owner say: “Hey, you know what? A majority of my clientele wish this place were non-smoking, and I’m going to cater to their business by making that change? WHY IS THAT????

It’s because the non-smokers are by and far (god knows, a few of you have strength of conviction and I salute you!) passive aggressive motherfarkers who won’t tell an establishment owner they’d like the place better if it were non-smoking. They can’t fill out suggestion slips and make it happen. They can’t avoid their favorite place BECEUASE IT DIDN’T MATTER ENOUGH TO THEM!

If secondhand REALLY bothered so many people so much, they’d have voted with their wallets. They’d have stayed out of bars that allowed smoking, and they’d have some sort of button/bumper sticker movement to make it publicly known that’s why they were doing it.

Instead, the most extreme of them formed a lobby to legislate morality and personal choice. To join that you only have to vote, and to be honest, that’s pretty easy. You register and you push a button. That takes a lot less balls than actually GIVING UP DINNER at a place you like, and going out of your way to tell the owner that’s why you’re doing it.

Very few people cared enough about secondhand to do anything like that. They went to the bars with all the smokers, and they bitched about it to each other. Somehow, they lacked the energy to find a way to use their economic power to affect change, so they lobbied for it.

That’s how change comes to Americans now: Don’t actually do anything, just sign your name to a cause and let a few fanatics do the actual work for you. Let them take time to get petitions signed, let them get something on a ballot, let them convince people, all you have to do is get on the bandwagon. American’s love bandwagons.

It’s a joiner thing. For years people got along with smokers. In fact, most people were smokers. Then we figured out it’ll kill you. Then people stopped smoking so much. However, we didn’t have this social phenomenon of smoker hating until recently. That’s new, maybe only going back to the late 90’s or early 2000’s? What would you say on that? When did it become not only “okay” but actually encouraged to actively hate smokers from afar? It used to be a country of “live and let live.” We used to put up with a few things we didn’t like. Now we’re an over-privileged, over-indulged, over-spoiled, bunch of WHINERS who legislate anything we don’t like. And that’s the best part…the hypocrisy

If I choose to go outside and light up, few of my friends or co workers would say more than “hey dummy, that’s bad for you, and we don’t want you to die.”

However, in a forum or group of fellow smoker haters, the vitriol comes out in spades. Now it’s a campaign to raise the bar on who hates second-hand the most. A game to see how evil and disrespectful one can paint smokers as being. A challenge to get the most self-righteous by virtue of NOT DOING SOMETHING.

People really think that HMO costs are through the roof because of smoking? Of all the possible causes that healthcare is nigh-unaffordable, they think SMOKING is doing enough damage that it’s the one personal choice they’re willing to legislate? It can’t possibly be the incredible complexity involved in the treatments our huge population of aged Americans is receiving. There’s no way it’s insane profiteering by drug companies. Lawyers and HMOs adding parasitical costs to the system, that can’t be part of it. God knows that America’s collective Obesity problem has nothing to do with it. Diabetes is rising at unheard of rates, that can’t have ANYTHING to do with rising costs, nor could the cause of all the Diabetes be out of control caloric intake.

It’s got to be, it HAS to be, the smokers. THOSE BASTARDS!!!


/yeah I understand it’s a huge angry post. At least it’s honest. There’s got to be one or two members left who will appreciate that.

Pre-posting, post-reviewing thought:

I jumped on what’s-his-face fairly hard for the one liner he posted. I feel bad about that. But, not bad enough to apologize for calling a one-line, zero-effort post what it was.

/pre-response comment:

There’s no f’ing way I’ll debate any one of you on that line-for-line rebuttal bullshit that’s incomprehensively still so popular. No one in real life has conversations that way. There’s no way I’ll do it here. I learned that lesson years ago.

You make a comprehensive point with your statement, I’ll respond to that if it’s any good.

Allow me to join you on this, billege. I'm growing increasingly tired of the adolescent semi-trolling we seem to be seeing lately in responses to many posts, regardless of their location. It's as if we're seeing people respond inbetween bites of their cheeseburgers and are therefore incapable of thinking through a response without resorting to said adolescent responses and chuckling to themselves as if they've somehow just posted the funniest thing they've ever seen.

/end threadjack response.

Smokers are pariahs because we've been conditioned to think that way over the course of the past few decades. Changing someone's way of thinking doesn't often happen instantaneously. It takes time to drive a society from "I'd like to eat somewhere smoke-free" to a rabid, "Get your motherfuckin' cigarette smoke away from my SUV!!"

It's like water over a stone. A little bit at a time over a long period of time produces some drastic results.

Alright, so you'd prefer a well thought out sampling of why? Frankly, I thought the one line was just as legitimate a question as the OP posed, but I suppose that's neither here nor there.

1) Because smoking is dangerous for the smoker as well as those around the smoker. If I eat 4000 calories a day, it doesn't affect you because you sit at the next table.

2) Because some of us are non-smokers that have seen family members die (let me reiterate this... DIE, dead, gone, no more, deceased) due to medical complications directly related to smoking.

3) As a semi-aside to the above, smoking is not a job. It is not a dangerous task one takes on in an attempt to provide for others as say, coal mining (which I've also lost families to due to Pneumoconiosis). While I don't support coal mining, the effect is ONLY to those performing the task, and usually under conditions of employment for earnings.

Let me mention now that I do not believe the smoking of tobacco should be illegal... in your own home or on private property. I don't believe marijuana smoking should be either, but... oh well. I made this comment to my mother-in-law today while discussing an Arizona proposition on the current ballot. She said, "why make criminals out of smokers?" which I replied, "Pooping doesn't make you a criminal, but pooping in the park does."

It's true. You can (and do, I imagine) poop daily. But doing so in public places (other than designated restrooms) is a health hazard to those around you and is thusly unlawful. Why is smoking different?

Smokers are the modern pariah in many ways because of the ultra-assertive defensive mechanisms they mostly display. The more defensive you are about a habit others don't like, the more likely you are to spur equal negative reactions. It costs me tax dollars in health care to support your dying ass on a gurney when you go to the hospital. You have health insurance you say? Great, but all those extra dollars spent that aren't profit for the insurance companies are what drive up premiums for everyone else. You DON'T have insurance? I foot the whole goddamned bill, cigarette taxes be damned.

Now, here comes my hypocrit hat. I OCCASIONALLY smoke hookah as a social event. This meaning roughly once per month. Do I still run the risk of bad lung death due to this? Yes. But I also only do it in my home, with my family not around (unless my wife wants to join me) and it's rare (often, months will go by entirely without a lighting of the hookah, so I do consider it significantly different than a pack-a-day habit, sorry).

In the end, the more you fight and bitch about it, the more people are going to be up in arms against you. *shrug* If you can't understand that, I don't know what else to say.

I'll check it out, but that IS what smoking is...thumbsucking. It's not a justification or excusing it, since there really IS no justification for smoking at all. But that's what it is....gotta stick that 'thumb' in there. We light up when stressed, we light up while sitting at a computer, we light up after a meal. Then we get stressed because we don't want to smoke....so we light up again. Mention chocolate to a dieter and you'll see what I mean.
I don't consider them helpful, I don't consider them 'my friend' and sometimes I don't like how they taste(specially after a few in a row), I hate how my car smells....
Ironically, we smoke as a sort of security blanket saying it calms us, but every cig actually raises blood pressure, heart rate and decreases air intake, all of which rob the brain. But it's a drug and just like other drugs, it's that change in metabolism we 'need', thus calling it 'calming'.
Quitting from a half pack a day is commendable, but try quitting from a 2pack a day habit or more...I'm down from 3 to about 1.5(two on an off day).
Smokers mantra: I will quit smoking or die trying!!! We all try to....

The 'thumb sucking' is an excuse. I never sucked my thumb before I smoked and I don't suck it now.

Stress causes our bodies to create acid. Nicotine is an alkaline. The more you get stressed the more your nicotine levels drop, thereby creating the need for a 'calming' cigarette. The calm you experience is the dopomine rush your brain gets from nicotine and the return of a 'normal' nicotine level in your blood stream. 'At the computer' is simply because your blood nicotine levels have dropped. Nothing more. After a meal; same thing.

Smokers crave sweets because each cigarette releases sugar and fats into the blood stream (which also causes appetite supression), and that's where weight gain comes from when you quit. You're no longer getting that little shot of sugar every 20 minutes so you eat a Hershey's bar instead. Most likely this is where the craving for chocolate by a dieter comes from; the lowered amount of sugar in the blood due to dieting. I'm no expert, that's just a theory. Feel free to refute it. :D

Everything I've posted (with the exception of the chocolate thing) can be found on the site I linked above. Smokers have come up with every excuse under the sun to explain their addiction and that site covers them all.

I smoked 2 packs a day. ;)

I don't want to come off like I'm busting your balls though. I don't support banning smoking in bars or resturants. My money is easily spent elsewhere if I should choose to not be around smokers. Hell, I figure with the $200 a month I'm saving on cigarettes I can get an even bigger SUV (than the one I already have) this spring. :thumbsup:

I quit 18 years ago after practicing quitting many times, once for over a year. My decision after finally understanding all the reasons behind my need to smoke. Here's are a few of the ways other smokers still impact me:

- when I'm at a traffic light and I have to change my AC to recirculate because the smoke coming from the car next to me is coming inside my vehicle
- when a butt flicked from the car in front of me bounces off the road and explodes on my windshield
- when I walk pretty much everywhere and the biggest form of littering is butts
- when my health insurance rates go up because I have to insure smokers, and yes, all the other people engaged in non-healthy behaviors. Thank goodness the company I work for now charges a $60 per month surcharge on health insurance if you are a smoker. Perhaps they'll add these charges for overweight and other people that drive up the cost of healthcare
- I can't go into a bar and actually sit at the bar without having smoke in my face - which makes trips to SF nice (and now Marriott Hotels) since they are smoke-free inside
- in order to walk inside a mall I have to walk through a smoke cloud to get through the front door
- when someone comes in from a smoke break at work I have to smell them for at least 30 minutes
- I have seen wrecks caused by smokers that drop their cigs, are trying to light them or bump a lit butt and send ashes flying. I nearly had a wreck years ago doing the same thing

I guess I think there's a time and a place for everything. Everyone has a right to do what they want as long as it doesn't have a negative impact on others. Trashing our parks and roads with litter, making me subsidize your health care costs and making me walk through a gauntlet of smoke just to shop are just a few of the ways I feel my right are being disreagarded by smokers.

Not sure if this goes to the heart of the original question but for what it's worth, those are my thoughts on the subject.

I always try to be gracious to my smoking friends, and you know what? Every Single One of my smoking friends returns the favor.

To answer the question, I think it's simply because the smoke affects everyone in the surrounding area. Now whether those people choose to be self-righteously rude about it, that's a reflection of that individual, and current social conditioning, I think.

I do agree, there are many other problems that could be addressed as well, however, people don't have to buy heinously expensive daily medications to help control the side effects generated by someone at the next table eating 80% more fat then they require for the day--but I do to deal with my asthma, which is certainly affected by second-hand smoke. And before I managed to get a rx for that medication, being around cigarette smoke could make it so that I couldn't breath. Could leave me gasping, fighting to fill my oxygen-starved lungs, and failing. Unable to perform regular daily tasks, much less the dancing I love with all my heart. Because of someone's careless, non-maliciciously intended second hand smoke I had to be exposed to in public places until these laws came about.

I repeat, it's not just cigarette smoke that can hit me like that. But it's one of the more preventable, voluntary things. By the way, now that I have the meds, I can deal with it much better now. But it's great to not have to. I pray the medication works for the rest of my life.

So when someone else's bad habit/addiction makes others ill, makes their hair/clothes/whatever reek, yes. It makes them an easy target. Although I still don't feel AT ALL that it's a carte-blanch for boorish self-righteousness.

Smoke stinks. Period. There's no disagreement about it. If it's bad manners for you to fart at the table next to me, why is it acceptable for you to light up? Before Chicago passed the smoking ban, I made it a point not to go to restaurants or bars that didn't have the ventalation system to handle the smoking. Why is it so hard for you to go outside for your fix? As far as I'm concerned, smoking in a restaurant, bar or other public venue makes you selfish and lazy - there's no reason that you can't go outside considering that's where you came from. Putting aside the health hazards, your choice to smoke indoors in a public venue is tatamount to farting in public. They both stink and its difficult to get away from either one.

Hell I thought he was being nice. He could have said something more along the lines of "what gives you the right to injure me with your habits?" since your second hand smoke wafts into MY lungs and as we learned in kindergarten from the firefighters, smoke is bad for you.

What? Mindless acceptance of everyone's views, even if they're obviously wrong?


Yes, and then used the asinine example of obesity. I can get as fat as I want and it still won't hurt you. You smoke ONE cigarette next to me and it hurts me, not only healthwise, but because now I have to go around for the rest of the day smelling like an ash tray.

Sorry, but you've lost me there. Anti-smoking is not a bandwagon, it's members of society finally trying to take what should be theirs by right - - clean air in public places.

I don't know one single person that gives a damn if you smoke in your own house or in your car unless they know you and don't want to watch you give yourself cancer. You can smoke like a chimney in your own house if you want. Hell have 3 at a time. I really don't care.

But when you light up in a public place that I might not have a choice to be in or not (What if I'm the waiter in that restaurant? I have to be there, inhaling your smoke), then I get pissed.

I've often said that the drug laws in this country are insane. I don't care if you shoot heroin in that restaurant - it's not gonna hurt me, so go for it. I don't understand why drugs that only hurt the user are illegal while drugs that hurt everyone around the user are subsidized by the government. Doesn't make a damn bit of sense to me.



You've lost me here. A person with darker skin than mine is not going to harm me just by being in the room with me. A smoker will. Let's compare apples to apples eh?



What exactly is your point here? Obesity is unhealthy. I don't know where you live but in my town people don't go up to random fat guys on the street and start lecturing about diet. And criticizing fat people is stupid anyway. If you're fat it will not make me fat if I get too close to you. If you smell like an ashtray, I'll smell like one too if I'm anywhere near you. Big difference.

Thanks for speaking for all of us. Too bad you're dead wrong. We know it's hard to quit. Frankly we don't give a damn if you quit or not. Smoke yourself into oblivion for all we care - - just don't do it around US. Stop smoking in public. If you can't make it through a half hour meal without lighting up, then go outside to do it. Keep your unhealthy habits away from my body.


That's right. We didn't succumb to peer pressure or Marlboro's marketing and decide it would be a good idea to stick burning leaves in our mouths. Your argument is crazy - it's like saying gee, we shouldn't think murder is wrong because all we have to do to be on the right side of the argument is NOT MURDER! That's so easy! We don't have to do anything!

My point exactly. It'd be nice to enjoy a nice dinner/show evening without having to walk through a cloud of smoke.


And with attitudes like that abounding, you wonder why we don't like public smokers?

Yeah, like economic incentive always works. There was an economic incentive to allow black people to eat at lunch counters - you'd have that many more people buying food. But that didn't happen until laws were passed either.

Because if only ONE does it then he'll lose business. if EVERYONE does it then they'll gain business as the non smokers who won't go to a smoky bar start coming. This isn't hard.




So you don't want a debate, you just want to yell for awhile and then run away. Got it.

You should watch Thank You For Smoking. I saw it just the other day--totally hysterical movie, but it puts the whole smoking thing in a totally different context.

According to the film, smoking kills vastly more people than alcohol or firearms. Like orders of magnitude more. I think the number he used was 1300 people a day die from smoking-related illnesses. And that's just the deaths, not the people sick and in treatment.

If you think of all the people in hospitals and undergoing treatment for smoking-related illnesses, and then think of the, what, maybe $1.00/pack tax on cigarettes, it's absurd to think that those taxes cover those medical bills.

You know, it smells bad, and second-hand smoke probably isn't good for those around you. Personally, as an ex-smoker, I'm not too worried about second-hand smoke I might pick up walking down the street or in a bar--I did way worse to myself for many years. I actually like and miss the smell of it.

I smoked a pack a day for ten years. I quit March 1, 2001. I have all kinds of compassion for the nicotine addicts in the world. The thing I noticed immediately when I quit was just how automatic, how robotic I was about it. That first couple days, I was literally having a conversation with myself: "Okay! Time for a smoke! No, dammit, we're not doing that any more. Right, right, fine.... Well, time for a smoke! Damn! No! Stop that! Okay, okay... Whew, sure could go for a smoke right now! Dammit!" So, you know, I've been clean for more than five years now, and I still get waves of cravings.

I think if a bar or restaurant wants to implement a fart free or smoke free environment that should be their choice. Farters and smokers do not have to go there. People can vote with their feet if they do not like the establishment's policies and the government should stay out of it.

Personally, I'd like to have most public places free of cigarette smoke. I think that's pretty close to the case for libraries, other public buildings, schools, etc. When it comes to bars and restaurants, I'd like to have a tobacco license similar to a liquor license. Not really too expensive, but providing a natural way to separate bars and restaurants where one can smoke, from those places one can't.

Unless we are actually going to make cigarettes and other tobacco products illegal, based on their negative health affects, I have a problem with making the use of a legal product illegal in public. One can argue a similarity to public decency laws, or I guess shitting in public, but I'm not sure I see that as a direct analogy. I'm not a regular smoker - mostly an occasional pipe or cigar - but there are some places I would actually miss the cigarette smoke. However, I can understand the situation of people like Sultana, who have asthma which might/will prevent them from going to the shows. I'd be willing to lose the smoke in most places - but I'd like to retain some places where I can have a bourbon and smoke a cigar, maybe shoot a little pool.

In the end, I think certain compromises can be reached other than a complete blanket prohibition of smoking, or having all public places, bars, and restaurants open to smokers. Which I think is linked to the reason that people are so adament in their opposition of cigarettes - it has a substantial affect on what they can do. If someone is allergic or strongly offended by the smell of cigarette smoke, then they simply can't go to bars at night. That would piss me off too - as has been stated, smokers can argue that other people should be more tolerant of their smoke, but in the end a non-smoker can't avoid the second-hand smoke in certain situations. It really isn't up to the smoker to decide what the non-smoker should have to put up with. I think tobacco zones would drastically alleviate the problem for both sides.

I don't understand the point of the license. Aren't the bar/restaurant/ect owners perfectly capable of deciding on and implementing a smoking or non-smoking policy without the assistance of a licensing program? I don't care how small the costs are, why should commercial property owners have to spend time and money in order to allow smoking on their property?

I'm fine with smoking bans in government buildings, though. Or rather, I'm fine with whatever the voters decide.

Same argument could be made for liquor licenses, gambling machine licenses, etc. In the end, I probably agree with you. However, it seems that licensing / special zoning is a way we've come up with to regulate activities that are legal, but not desireable to everyone in the population. I can understand people not wanting to be around cigarette smoke, and I can see how its difficult to get people who run the bars to change. If nothing else, change is frequently inherently difficult. I think it would have the affect that many business which do not explicitly cater to the alchohol / late night crowd would drop smoking at their side bars (places like Ruby Tuesday, for example) and that some bars would adopt no-smoking policies (probably newer establishments trying to cut $$$), and some bars well-known as places to get shitty and so forth will pay a little $$$ to keep their clientele that smokes. Furthermore, places that are explicitly cigar bars will pay the extra $$$, as its the only reason their clientele comes. Seems like a reasonable compromise to me.

Same argument? Maybe. At any rate, I'd prefer that we get rid of the other pointless licensing practices or even that we keep the inconsistency, as opposed to adopting a consistent and unnecessarily stringent licensing standard.

I don't see a compromise as being reasonable in this case. It should be up to the business owner, period.

I'd like to believe the same thing, but it just doesn't seem to work. I've been of the same opinion of you for a long time, in fact - and made the exact same arguments time and again. I guess what does it for me is having many friends who can't go out for a drink or a cup of coffee, because they have allergies or the like. I don't think that left to a majority decision via the wallet vote, most of these businesses will change to a smoke free environment. Some of them may have areas that are "smoke-free", but that little sign doesn't seem to keep the smoke out.

Out of curiousity, are you a general Libertarian / end regulation guy across the board, or is it only in speciic areas?

If you want to use the obesity complaint, the issue is plain as day.

...because if we're sitting in a restaurant and you have a cheeseburger, I don't inhale cholesterol and clog my arteries. I can, however, inhale your smoke and fuck up my lungs and get cancer. I then also smell of your smoke (which is yet another reason not to smoke, is smelling like that all the time).

Having to sit around and breathe the exhaled cancer potion of those around me is not what I call a comfortable or safe environment for my health. This is, of course, not to mention the terrible smell, and how it makes things you eat taste terrible.

Your "right" to pollute your own lungs and do what you want to your body (the "it's my body, i'll do what I want" argument) ends where it infringes on my right to NOT have my lungs polluted by others, plain and simple. Your right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" finds its end where your enjoyment prevents mine; if you want to smell and get cancer, go right ahead... but you have no right to subject me to the same.

And the "restaurants should cater to the smoker if they want, you can eat someplace else that caters to the non-smoker" argument is weak nonsense and you all know it. A business owners' right to run their business how they want ends at the line of preserving public health.

I suppose you'd have preferred that all business owners took it upon themselves to replace their asbestos insulation at their own pace, rather than being mandated by the government to do it right away? Because after all, it's their business, they should decide to run it how they want, right? Nonsense. Public health is more important.

A lot of you have talked about smoking bans in restaurants and bars. Well, I live in a community that has one, and it's been in effect for several years now. While people were initially fearful that business would decline after the institution of the ban, restaurant and bar business here actually INCREASED after the ban because more non-smokers started going out to eat or drink and enjoy themselves. Furthermore, the smokers didn't stop going out--no, they just smoke outside now.

As my SO's uncle told me--and he's a former smoker, and was at the time of the ban--he didn't think it was a good idea when it happened, but after enjoying our smoke-free restaurants so often, he finds it hard to go to other towns to eat or drink. And I have to agree with him--it's hard to go to other cities in Oregon who don't have the ban. Quite frankly, when I smell cigarette smoke while I'm eating, it makes me want to vomit. I had to leave a concert early last year because there was so much cigarette smoke. I paid the $15 for my ticket too, why am I less important than people with a bad habit?

Anyways, I would fully support a total ban on public smoking in Oregon, with similar restrictions to Washington state's ban on public smoking.

Chalk up another reason I need a pool table in my house. snowy, i think that's pretty consistent with everywhere that a complete or partial ban has been imposed on public smoking. the smoke doesn't really bother me personally, but i prefer to err on the side that doesn't limit other people's comfortability unnecessarily. i would like some establishments for the specific pursuit of a smoke-friendly environment.

There's already a total ban on smoking in public restaurants/bars/etc. in Colorado; it took effect 1 July 2006. CO is the 13th U.S. state to pass such a ban. Personally, I would hope that economic incentive is sufficient to keep it out of most decent restaurants/bars I might actually go to. But being a nonsmoker myself, I don't especially care if it is banned; I certainly like not having to smell/inhale smoke. But as the years have passed, I've only had to deal with it occasionally.. and the only time I can remember recently having an unpleasant encounter with smoke clouds is occasionally when I exit/enter public buildings. I'm not sure why they seem to like smoking around doorways. My suspicion is because it's usually the only shelter close enough to where they want to be.

That being said, I get made fun of for being fat and deaf frequently. Both of which are certainly true & both are difficult problems for me that I work on resolving every day. Most of the time it's because people are too immature to be polite about how others are different from themselves. If someone smokes around me, I ask them politely to stop. If they refuse, I go somewhere else or deal with it. Same approach to dealing with jerks or mean drunks etc.

Good call. While we're at it, why don't we make it optional for employees to wash their hands after they go to the bathroom and optional hairnets. Hey, some people don't mind eating off of dirty dishes, so we can make dishwashing optional too!

While we're at it, maybe we can do away with those pesky building codes too.

i smoke.
i dont care about smoking bans: they are fine by me.
smoking bans seem most coherently about worker health.
the public health arguments i find infinitely less compelling, simply because the fact is that you are not going to die from passing through clouds of second hand smoke--you are not trapped in them, they do not follow you around--there are no little demons in clouds of smoke that will poke at you until something Horrible happens.

but protecting worker health (folk who work in a pub and are exposed all the time)--that makes sense.

so i am fine with the bans.

in places where there are no bans, i respect what an actual human being who i was interacting with request---and certainly would not smoke around anyone with asthma if i knew about it.
when i go to a pub, i go to pubs with belgian beer and people who smoke . just my preference.
i hate bad beer.

if i am in a public space and feel like having a smoke and there are folk around me who aren't smoking, i generally ask if it would bother them.

and i roll my smokes, so they dont sit in the ashtray burning away while i am not paying attention.
and they dont smell *as* bad.

none of this seems to be rocket science.

if i am going to be polite or considerate of others concering when and where i smoke, i expect that to be reciprocated.

i am not moved by the righteous lather.
if anything, i am far more inclined than i otherwise would be to tell very righteous people to go fuck themselves.
preferably through a cloud of smoke.
that you do to like cigarettes does not mean you get to be an asshole.

I smoke and I have for 16 years, off and on. I managed to quit once for two years. Nonsmokers almost universally ask me why I would go back after two years off. Not one day got easier. NEVER. It was like the first day without a smoke every single day for 2 years. In order to fail all that ever had to happen was one day when my craving was stronger than my disgust at the habit.

I try to respect other people. I really do. I don't smoke indoors, even when it's not banned. I don't smoke around nonsmokers without first asking if it's all right with them. When businesses put up signs that I can't smoke inside my vehicle on their parking lot I take that personally. Thats just discrimination. That is not protecting innocent people from my bad habits, that protecting innocent people from SEEING my bad habits. You will not get cancer because you saw me with a smoke in my own damn car.

There are three businesses in my very small town that have rules like this. I will now repeat the original question: why is smoking the target of so much finger pointing?

I would also like to know why there can't be a "smokers haven" bar or restaraunt that was specifically designed just for smokers? If the majority of restraunts and bars were smoke free, and there were only certain places that bought a license like piglet suggested, then wouldn't that give smokers and non smokers alike the benifit of being comfortable where they are at? I'm all about compromise, and this seems like a compromise to me. I dislike being told that I have to do all the giving, so I imagine nonsmokers do too.

So it's all or nothing?

If a business has a smoking policy they should at least have a sign to warn people so those offended by smoking know not to go there. I guess one could say the same for the other restrictions you mention (except for building code violations) but I doubt if anyone would ever go there once they put the signs up.

When the state wide smoking ban was passed here in GA they gave bars etc the option to still have smoking if the establishment only allowed 18+ as patrons

Holy shit, I went to that site and its pretty freaky. I am not a smoker and I will be showing that to my future kids when they are 12 or so (old enough to understand it and may want to start smoking). I sent that link to my girlfriend who is currently trying to quit smoking

Don't you need to be 18 to buy cigarettes? And don't most bars and nightclubs already require their patrons to be 18 or 21? I don't really see what that would accomplish.

there are a lot of "bars" around here that allow any age, you just have to be 21 to drink

Personally I find smoking distasteful, but I really don't care if people smoke. I do appreciate that smoking has been banned in restaurants in Florida though, since I didn't like having to change my clothes after going to certain restaurants. It doesn't bother me to be around people who smoke though, and I hardly think I'm going to die from inhaling the small amount of smoke that comes my way, so I don't really care that much about smoking.

Some people just feel the need to get fanatical about anything though. If it wasn't smoke, it would be something else.

In addition to what Shani's saying, the bars in Atlanta used to allow under 18 for daytime hours, and would become 18+ or 21+ after dinner time. I had friends at the Vortex when all this hit, and it affected some of them that would bring their kids to have lunch and whatnot.

/end threadjack

*sigh* I LOVE the Vortex

They were very vocal in the media when the smoking ban was going into effect. They very publically stated they would go to 18+ only to keep allowing smokers

yep, the Vortex is a great bar. Grab a few decent brews (and they a nice little selection of decent brews at that) then head over to the Star Bar and catch some tunes. Highlander up the street, man...good times. When in Atlanta, that's where I usually hang my hat - but that's more a function of my friends down there than anything else. I'm always the guy that none of the locals can figure out, because I don't have a plethora of obvious tattoos and piercings. It's just that all my friends in the area do. I need a good Yule Log show, but I guess that's out of season right now ;)

Without me going on and on, I'll just focus on this one little tidbit

I'm a little confused by this statement. If we reverse this.. I could say that your right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" finds its end where you decide I shouldn't be smoking. If I don't smoke, it increases your "enjoyment" yet decreases mine. Sounds like a stalemate to me.

Which is why for the most part I am a polite smoker. If I know you don't like smoke I go to the smoking section or outside. I try to keep it out of your face. Now if I'm in a bar, (which is most of the time) I don't care because most people there are smoking and unless for some reason you are dying because of *my* cig, you can go outside to drink.

Most issues, I think... notable exception being stuff like abortion, embryonic stem cell research, certain birth control methods... undecided on euthanasia.

Agreed. But I don't see anyone subjecting anyone who didn't implicitly agree to the possibility of being subjected.

What should be mandated is full disclosure of all health risks associated with any particular building. But as long as the building poses no health risks to those outside of it, NO, public health is NOT more important. Or rather, public health and respecting the right to property are not mutually exclusive - the public can go elsewhere. The public doesn't have a right to entrance. If the owner offers entrance, the public doesn't have a right to demand that the invitation conform to their expectations - they can either take it or leave it.

Weak nonsense is pretending that bar patrons are being forced against their will to inhale cigarette smoke - they aren't and never were.

I think that the old adage is that the right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.

We're not saying you shouldn't be smoking. As we've said many times, as long as you smoke where it's not going to harm or effect us negatively, we don't care.

Trouble with smoking sections is that they're generally open to the nonsmoking sections. Air does move, so your smoke comes over to me even if I'm in nonsmoking. I was at a restaurant once where they had a seperate smoking room that was only accessible via this weird airlock-like thing with double sliding doors. Smoke basically couldn't get out of the smoking section. Had no problem with that. Would eat there again.

As I've said, if you want to kill yourself with your cigarette smoke, that's your lookout. Just don't take me with you.

Ahh yes, but you're forgetting the less well-known corollary that you're right to swing your nose ends at my fist... ;)

I understand how smoke does navigate.. hence the reason restaurants should have a good ventilation system installed if they have a smoking section. I just love how everyone talks about how breathing my cig smoke is harming them so much when the air they breathe without my cig smoke is just as bad.

My views are this.... I pay more in life insurance than non-smokers, I pay more taxes than non-smokers in my tax bracket, because of my "nasty habit" and the others like me cities are able to have "sin taxes" that tax me even more to build stadiums and public arenas that they tell me I can't enter if I partake of the very habit/addiction that they used for money to build these things.

I also truly believe that it is not the government's place to dictate to me what nor where I can partake. It is up to the owner. Once you have government dictating where a person can smoke, they will find new things to start regulating in the name "of others good health".

What happens when all the smokers stop smoking or buying their cigarettes tax free on the black market?

You want to bankrupt a government fast? Get everyone who smokes to stop buying cigarettes through normal channels for one month. 1 month of no tax revenue from smokers and the system will crumble.

Then what are you self-righteous people going to want to tax to make up for that revenue?

Smoking is bad, but it is not up to the government to dictate to privately owned places who they can or cannot serve. As the public we have the right to shop and patronize where and what we choose to.

If the owner finds his clientele doesn't want smokers he'll go non-smoking. If an owner finds his clientele wants to smoke he'll have smoking and if the owner sees it is a split clientele he'll work out ways to appease both.

IT IS NOT GOVERNMENT'S BUSINESS TO DICTATE..... ESPECIALLY WHEN THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT FUNCTION WITHOUT THOSE TAXES.

Oh come on, that doesn't even make sense. Sure the air's polluted. If you ADD cigarette smoke to that polluted air, it makes the air worse. The original air therefore can't be just as bad.

The ones that I love are the nonsmokers that say this and then jump into their Hummers to drive 5 blocks to the grocery store for a loaf of bread. Not that anyone here would do that, but my Spanish teacher from about 3 years ago DID. Since I wanted the good grade i did not bother telling her how hypocritical she was in her statement, but I really wanted to.

I know in Tempe Arizona after they had passed the law that banned public smoking, this was about 10 years ago, the first concert after the law was in place the police searched peoples bags and bodies for cigarettes before the concert. As I understood the law possession of cigarettes was never illegal. Only smoking them in the concert was illegal. It was a big deal because what they were specifically looking for was not illegal, making the search illegal. dunno why I'm mentioning that, but it seems to fit the question of how fair the actual treatment of smokers is.

I agree smoking in areas where nonsmokers who were smart enough to either never start of committed enough to quit and stay that way will be present is rude, dangerous, and should be highly discouraged. But this kind of treatment (searching for possession of a legal substance) is extreme and should not be tolerated.

Sure it makes sense. I mean does the air really get that polluted from cigarette smoke? Does it hang around like car fumes and jet fuel?? I highly doubt it. If people are so worried about what they are breathing in, they shouldn't walk by a running car. They shouldn't go near airports or factories. In fact, they should just live in bubbles. The air you breathe is full of junk no matter how you try to slice the pie. Get rid of the cigarette smoke and guess what? You're still breathing in crap.

I can understand how my argument wouldn't make that much sense if you are talking about an enclosed environment, but even then, there are plenty of germs, allergens and harmful things floating in the air at your neighborhood restaraunt that a little cigarette smoke isn't really going to make a difference one way or the other. You just happen to notice the cigarette smoke because you can actually smell it.

This is the second time I've seen you make reference to jet fuel that supposedly "hangs around" in the air. Explain yourself.

Do you have any evidence for this? I don't think i've read any studies concluding that smoke-free enclosed environments contribute directly to the development of cancer, or that adding pollutants to air that is already polluted doesn't increase the risks involved with breathing that air.

Would you let someone piss in your drinking water? Why not? I mean, it's not like the water is sterile, and unless the person who is peeing is sick, you probably won't get sick from drinking their urine. Even if the pee-er was sick, whatever you were exposed to couldn't be any worse than what was in the water already, right?

I'd stick to this part of the argument. The previous part is simply impossible to defend. If I take 1000, and I add 1, then I've still 1001. I might argue that the extra 1 is marginal, but its still there. Period.

Yes, if you're sitting anywhere near me smoking a cigarette that extra pollution gets into my lungs and onto my clothes.

You don't get out to bars much do you?

Running cars do not have the concentration of carcinogens and tar that cigarettes do, and you know it. Hell a running car in LA is actually putting cleaner air out the tailpipe than it took in. You can't say that for a cigarette smoker. Additionally, cars are outside where the exhaust can dissipate. Cigarettes that I object to are inside, where it stays around. If you brought a running car into a restaurant I guarantee you'd have a room full of pissed off people.

And that makes it ok for you to put more junk into it? Great line of logic there.

That IS what we're talking about.

Just about every doctor on the planet, except those on the payroll of the cigarette companies, will disagree with you there. The germs and allergens might give me a cold or some hay fever. The cigarette smoke can give me cancer, and reduce the efficiency of my lungs for decades. There's a big difference, and pretending there isn't weakens every other argument you might come up with.

I just don't understand the mentality of people who want to make this tax rich legal action, illegal in PRIVATELY owned places.

Again, let the marketplace decide. If a person owns a bar and is dictated to by the government who he can admit and whom he can't (provided they are of legal age) then the government by this action can hurt that owner's business.

If you don't personally like smoke, then go to places that don't allow smoking. Talk to business owners and see if it is profitable for them to close the smoking sections or perhaps seperate them better.

I don't understand why people cannot fucking just work out compromises.

I don't understand how you can sit there and beg the government to interfere and regulate and dictate when this can be handled in the marketplace itself.

Some people in this country worry more about fucking cigarette smoke getting near them than they do with what else is being put into the air, water and very foods we partake of.

Some people complain about smoke, as they pop another xanax, prozac, Zyprexa whatever, so they can get through the day and some of those people get behind the wheels of cars, teach your kids at school, make laws.

If you want to ban smoking in public places..... THEN GET YOUR FATASSES OUT AND TELL THE POLITICIANS TO STOP TAXING CIGARETTES.

There's fucking compromise ok...... you stop taxing my cigarettes, telling me how much of a whatever I am and using the places the tax money made possible through "sin taxes" and I'll stop smoking in public?????

Deal? Until then, take your selfish, "we need government involvement" (yet you complain gov't is too big), cry me a river, petty little bitch ass, and go shove your smoking laws up your ass. Because you are fucking hypocritical, until you stop living off the taxes, you are leeches.

Shakran,

Yeah I go to bars all the time. The point is that if you go to a bar, expect smoke. Deal with it. If you don't like that a bar has smokers.. then drink at home or go to a bar that doesn't or start your own bar.

You can say that cars put out cleaner air than what came in. Big deal. There's still harmful products in it. But since you were talking about just inside we'll go with that. I was going with the blanket approach.


You walk into a restaraunt that you know has a smoking section.. why? If you hate it so damn much why would you bother to go? Oh it's your right to go and you shouldn't be limited by what people do right? I shouldn't be limited to what I do either just because you don't like the "risk" or smell. You take risks in everything you do. That's life. My only gripe with nonsmokers is when they do enter into an establishment that they know has smoking and they complain. This is where I agree with Pan that the business owners should be able to decide since they write the checks.

What if I work there? My employer is allowed to expose me to noxious carcinogens without providing proper safety equipment? Someone should tell OSHA, because they're not aware of that.

You're not. go outside to smoke. Problem solved.

Well hell then let the market decide! Business owner doesn't want black people in his restaurant? Cool! The market will correct him. Maybe. Sure worked in the 50's didn't it!

1-800-356-4674

Well, you go to the employer and you tell them you wish not to work in the smoking section.

1 of 4 things will happen:

- the employer will not be able to find enough people to work the smoking section, thus he'll have to close it down,

- he'll have to run the risk of breaking EEOC laws by hiring smokers only for those sections,

- he'll tell you to go elsewhere for work,

- or he'll give higher pay to those that work the smoking sections.


Really where outside? The nonsmokers will soon complain that the smokers are polluting the air by the door, on the sidewalk they can't walk by without having to breathe smoke.... and so on..... Oh wait they already have and now there are some places with laws that say you cannot smoke 50 feet near a doorway, or on the sidewalk or in any public open air area.

So again, where exactly are we going to go?

:lol: :lol: :lol: You're kidding right? You really aren't comparing this argument to racial discrimination. Shakran, I agree a lot with you but now you are just grasping at straws here.

Yes the market will correct the owner. And in all honesty private owners still can "reserve the right to refuse service".

You cannot by law dictate how an owner will serve his clientele.

So, here in Ohio where a lot of places paid a lot of money for separate ventilation, walls between smoking areas, and so on...... they need to just turn all those areas into non-smoking.... forget the fact they spent 1,000's to make sure they separated the populations. The government has the right to DICTATE.

And you want to talk about discrimination:

I FUCKING PAY TAXES TO PARTAKE IN THIS..... YOU USE MY TAXES IN ONE FORM OR ANOTHER..... YET YOU WISH TO TAKE MY RIGHTS AWAY FROM ME????

AGAIN, YOU AND THE GOVERNMENT STOP TAXING THIS PRODUCT AND I'LL STOP SMOKING IN HIGHLY VENTILATED SMOKING SECTIONS OF RESTAURANTS. REFUND THE TAX MONEY THAT WAS USED TO BUILD PLACES LIKE JACOBS FIELD AND THE "Q" AND I'LL STOP SMOKING IN THOSE PLACES....

Sorry for the caps but I have yet to see a non-smoker who is demanding to make laws against smoking, acknowledge they need and use the taxes but will fight as hard to repeal taxes and will make sure the taxes get repealed.

Ok...enough of this tennis match. My neck is starting hurt.

Let's focus, for awhile, on pan's assertion that the taxation of tobacco products, in today's hostile "anti-smoker" climate, is tantamount to basically...Taxation Without Representation.

Thought?

Are anti-smokers willing to do without the income generated by taxes collected from the sale of tobacco product?

Actually, I do go outside quite often to smoke. In fact, I won't even stand close to the door and I still have to hear self righteous non-smokers complain that they caught a wiff of smoke. If you are going to a place that you know will have smoke and you don't like smoke.. then don't go. Problem solved.

Sorry Bill, didn't mean to give you tennis neck.:p

Smokers do have representation; they can vote like the rest of us.

And pan, i don't understand how you can have faith in the mechanics of the free market concerning smoking, but not the minimum wage.

Furthermore, the idea the we should leave the market to its own devices as a matter of principle presupposes that a free market actually exists, and also that the interests of profit line up with the interests of humanity. Anyone who believes these things is deluding themselves.

Now, i smoke 8 months out of the year, but i like the bans, and i live in one of the coldest states in the union. The majority of people think smoking is gross, the majority of people support smoking bans, there is no constitutional right to smoke. These are all facts.

Finding yourself on the side opposite the majority of a public health issue sucks, but really, your rights haven't been violated, and neither have the rights of private business owners.

first, you might take note i'm not a huge anti-public smoking nazi. however, is this question an isolated question, or part of a larger fiscal reform? for instance, if we're playing house here, i'd rather reduce (not remove entirely, but drastically reduce the taxes on cigarettes...its freaking robbery as it is) the taxes on smokes, legalize/decriminalize marajuana, and tax that.

in my little licensing scenario above, i also think it makes sense that the bar owner might charge a very small membership fee to gain entrance to the bar. (in lieu of the taxes on smokes. charge people extra to actually smoke in public, but not to purchase the cigarettes themselves) the reason i say this is that it already happens in sc, only its "private club" memberships on saturday nights to get around blue laws. it's something like $1 at the door, or an annual membership of $50 or so, but it pays for the special license some bars have to stay open late on saturday nights. everyone wins. some bars don't get the license, and they close at 1 or 2 am. some bars get the license, and they stay open all night. another side affect of these things is that the people who smoke get to be around poeple who either smoke or don't care about it, and those who don't smoke don't have to worry about it.

edit: the other thing i was going to say is that pan is making a great case for what happens when you threaten to take away a smoker's smokes :D

Fisrt Issue 5 in Ohio tomorrow DICTATES: NO SMOKING IN ANY PUBLIC PLACES. Owners no longer have a choice.

2 totally different subjects and I care not to change the subject right now.

and again, you ignore this:

I'm serious you stop using the taxes, fight to repeal them and refund the smokers taxes that built public arenas that are non-smoking...... and I won't fight. But as long as I pay heavy taxes on my smoking and it is a legal substance, I will fight for my right to enjoy it and for there to be smoking areas in restaurants where the owner wants them.

But you do have representation, for whatever little that's worth.

That sucks, but them's the breaks.


So you only have conditional support in the ability of the market to allow the right thing to happen? That's all i'm getting at. You're a conditional liberatarian and that's fine. I guess i just don't think the market is necessarily that capable of making the right decision on its own.

We all use the taxes, though i assume that you're talking specifically about nonsmokers. And we all pay taxes on things that we'd rather not pay taxes on. Those taxes are then used for things that many of us would prefer they not be used for. Some of the taxes collected from tobacco are used to pay the healthcare costs of those who use tobacco.

You do know that smoking isn't a right, right? That your rights aren't being violated? Smoking is a regulated activity. The rights of business owners aren't being violated either.

:D :thumbsup: Damn right. I may be vocal and show my disgust towards other issues but I'll give up the right to smoke when you pull my smoking pack out of my dead, cancer, emphysema riddled body.

Be happy someone is standing up now...... because someday, something you do and love to do will be coinsidered harmful to others and the government and society will call you names, tax your item and then make sure what you do is never done in public.... even though you pay exoritant taxes on it and the people complaining about it live off your taxes.... you are supposed to smile, nod and comply with the government.

My God if we went after poverty. education, healthcare reform and bettering society as a whole the way this government and society is going after us smokers, this country would be in great shape. Instead we focus on bullshit, demand more government dictates and believe we are doing it for the betterment of society.... when in actuality.... it is as self serving and as egotistical and self righteous as it is just wrong to ask government to start passing laws on a taxed base minority.

I understand that the majority can quite often dictate what the minority does. However I just don't understand why the non-smoking majority should insist on banning smoking in bars where the owner, the patrons and the employees do not mind. If everybody in the place smokes why should we force them to go outside?

I get the impression that many non-smokers really just want to ban smoking in all places in case they happen to want to go there. Either that or they are disgusted by the habit and want to force everyone to quit. Why else would they care about smoking in places they can easily avoid?

I enjoy the whining about the high price of tobacco due to all the high taxes. Tough luck. Quit. You want a product, that's what the product costs. Your voice is not lost, smokers just can't seem to gather a big enough breath of air to make a voice for themselves to change anything. You vote, that's how change happens.

Maybe it's because you're not in the majority as smokers, and "breathing clean air and not getting cancer when you don't even smoke" seems to be a hot-button issue these days. Go figure.

And yes, cig smoke not only "hangs around", but it permeates and coats its surroundings like any smoke does, leaving the area to smell of cigarette even once you're gone, unless you're outside and it has someplace to go. Once inside your nose (and to a lesser degree, your mouth), it also alters the way you perceive taste, leaving you to consume food with the taste of smoke. You may want to suck on cigs all day and enjoy that taste, but I sure as hell don't.

Do you think anyone would appreciate if I found a group of smokers in a room and lit up a bong, blowing marijuana smoke all around, making everyone high against their will? Some won't care, some will thank you for it, but the point is that just because you want to do something, and you feel justified in doing it, does not make it right to force on others- and yes, when you smoke around others in public, you are forcing them to breathe your cig smoke.

And who the hell can say that public health is not more important? Public health is more important than ANY individual's right to do what they want with their body. You can't infect yourself with a terrible communicable disease because you want to and "it's your body", and then walk around the mall breathing near people.

Public health is more important, and it's ridiculous to assert otherwise.

Are you standing up now because you know that given only a few more years, you'll have to remain seated for fear of getting winded with the effort to stand?

And, they already do. It's called marijuana. You don't hear pro-marijuana people bitching and moaning like children, many of them actually campaign and TRY to make change. All cig smokers do is bitch about the high taxes and where they can't smoke. So yeah, some people already know what it's like, and don't cry about it. Hopefully smokers will stop crying about it, too, some day.

Yeah, i don't know. I'm sure that there are a lot of reasons, more than you distill down into a two-sentence paragraph. I'm sure it would be pretty easy to claim that smokers just want to smoke inside, and that all this high falutin talk of the rights of private businesses is just a smoke screen(heh.) put up to avoid sounding like scorned addicts. I'm not going to claim that this is true for all smokers, to do so would be presumptuous and self serving in the context of my position.

In other words, people want what they want for all different reasons. The majority of people don't want to deal with smoke when they go to the bar. It sucks to be on the wrong side of public opinion, but the fact that nobody's rights are being violated means you kind've just have to deal with it.

Yes, I believe that paying exorbitant taxes gives me the RIGHT to smoke.

It boils down to this..... you can dig deep and justify no smoking in public even though the owner has seperate rooms and ventilations..... you dig deep and can find excuses for my not smoking in the privacy of my own car..... just as someone can dig deep and find reasons why Howard Stern couldn't be on public airwaves, just like some mother can dictate to a school that she doesn't want Tom Sawyer in the library......

In any situation like that you are not in any way bettering society YOU ARE SIMPLY TAKING AWAY CHOICES AND OTHER PEOPLE'S RIGHTS..... and once you start giving any government that ability, that power, you need to see the whole picture because in the end.... the government will eventually get rid of any choice and just dictate.

I understand, but like I asked before, why do those who do not want to deal with smoke care about smoking in places they can easily avoid?

If you look at my stances on things you will see my stance on this isn't much different (if at all) concerning any social/moral issue.

If smoking is that offensive, just make it totally illegal.

BTW Analog, your example is not a good one considering weed is illegal. Now, Canada or some other areas where weed is legal and there are bars where people go there to smoke it.... then I would know what I was walking into or walked into (if I didn't know until I entered)..... and I have the choice to go there or not. My choice to enter the place or not....

Why do I need the government dictating my choices to me?

And again, like I said if a non-smoker who wants a ban stated they would be for eliminating the taxes on cigarettes, then I would listen and perhaps agree with his plans.

If a place at their own expense put in separate ventilation and rooms to separate smokers then who and what gives you the right to void all that and tell the owner he can't allow any smoking at all?

Why sould we have to avoid places? What if we want to eat at a certain place that's known for great food? Just don't go there? Take the smoke outside or quit, that's all you have to do.
These laws are coming your way sooner or later, so get ready for it. It's doom and gloom for the smokers, but sweet fresh air for the rest of us.:thumbsup:

So why is the choice of the owner who has separate ventilation and rooms still unacceptable??????? Who and what gave you the right to say that compromise, that expense the owner went through is wrong and needs to have government step in?

Unlike the non-smoker militants I see compromise..... it's sad you would rather have government dictate and make the choice rather than try to compromise.

But then again, everyone is right, everyone knows what is best and everyone expects the government to take choices they don't agree with away from the people.

well the tax thing is easy---roll your own.

and the smoking ban thing is not a big deal. like i said before, i prefer pubs that have good beer and permit smoking and there are such and in likelihood there would be after smoking bans--there are generally loopholes and folk find them.

and like most folk who smoke, i am ambivalent about it and imagine myself quitting soon and so maybe at some point none of this will matter to me.

what is annoying about this issue is the conversations---well more the tiresome shouting matches--like this thread.
the only reason it has unfolded as it has is because no-one is addressing actual human beings in it--they are addressing little messages with pseudonyms attached.

i think lots of people like little waves of hysteria.
they enjoy them.
they enjoy being terribly righteous and feeling like that connects them to some larger identity---protectors of some imaginary public interest or some such--it is fun, it is gratifiying ----but most of all it is easy peasy--you can use self-righteousness as an excuse to ignore your usual restraint of tone, which is built around functional communication in complex social situations---
but which for some folk must be frustrating as hell--because you give em an excuse to ditch it and it is not even a memory thereafter.

a messageboard---now this is a VERY SIMPLE social situation, no matter how you use it to project a sense of community at other moments---it is simple because it is abstract---and its simplicity is enabling in a problematic manner when little waves of righteous hysteria blow across the land--and the do all the time---this is the land of endless hysterias---they are a big compensation for the fracturing of collective identity, we love em, we need em---and they SUCH fun.

these little waves of bourgeois hysteria wrap up in a veneer of self-righteousness access to this crude and tedious version of yourself, which is among the most primitive and least socially adjusted of them.

let's call him your inner shithead.

everyone has one.
you know: your inward insufferable bore.
your inward, infantile, insufferable little bore.
everyone has one.

that is most of what i see from the antismoking mounties: posts that enable them to take their inner shithead out for a little walk.

none of this is about persuading anyone of anything about smoking either way.
none of this even presents a pretense of an actual interaction.
and if you addressed 3-d smokers as you address them here, the outcomes would be a donnybrook.
and that is what you want--at least what you want here, when there is no danger of it actually happening--here where the stakes are minimal.
nice work.

no wonder the serious issues at the core of questions to do with smoking, where it should happen etc get buried---this kind of debate is not about that--it is not even a debate--it is a kind of park where people go to let their inner shitheads run around.

maybe this kind of conversation would be better if everyone acted more like rational human beings.

i hope there is such a therapeutic function to the snippy "i dont like smoking harumph harumph" posts above.
because they sure as fuck are not about changing anyone's mind or habits.
if you want to do that, you need at least to address others as human beings.
but what fun is that?

I suppose that you have conceded to the mode of interaction you describe. Your post seems to exemplify it. Insensitivity and an absence of actual discussion seems to be present on both sides of the debate. You spend much of your post attacking the non-smokers - letting their inner shitheads out for a walk, etc.

Back on topic: There was recently a referendum on a measure to ban smoking in bars where I live. I don't go to bars. It didn't affect me. So, I didn't vote.

it is good to know that irony recognition is not dead, sapiens.
thanks.
i feel better now.

i mean, i post alot in politics and am certainly not above or outside what i talked about.
i just know what it is.
that's all.

This is definitely an issue that hits a lot of people's buttons. I can understand the argument that smoker's smoke causes lung cancer. But honestly, you would have to be around it a lot to be put in that situation. I don't see that as a viable argument unless you live with someone that smokes or are a waitress in a bar where you can still smoke. However, if you are a waitress just quit. If it is a loved one that is smoking around you preach to them. You may have an impact...possibly not. I haven't with anyone I spoke to.

I am a former smoker. I hate the smell of smoke...I did when I smoked to. I've been the obnoxious smoker of blowing smoke in people's faces. I've been the courteous smoker. What I have found though is that what I thought was courteous, really wasn't. That smoke lingers and spreads and gets into everything. Even when JJ is outside on the balcony I can still smell it in here. So, I can understand that people have an issue with that. But cars, busses, and planes also stink and put off pollution.

I don't know...this is a topic that is going to be argued around and around and never be solved. Smokers are one of the most shunned groups around. They get the accused of a lot and really don't deserve the "Better than you" attitude. It is an addiction, it does kill, it has harmful second-hand smoke. We know this...all you can do is surround yourself with non-smoker friends and avoid it as much as possible.

People have mentioned that smokers whine and complain. But, from my experiences, the non-smokers are the loudest and rudest. It can be found in this thread and as another example. When I did wait tables, I loved the smoking section. The smokers were more relaxed, complained less, and tipped more. They weren't fidgeting and bitching to me about where there food was and could they please move because *insert whine here*. Just saying...

I'm not one way or the other...I've been on both sides, but really people need to give it a rest and get over it because it's an issue that I don't think will ever be solved. If people want to smoke more power to them. I really haven't found it a problem avoiding smokers since I quit. In fact, the smell is the only thing that I have to endure and that won't kill you. People need to understand that the lingering aroma of cigarettes is not dangerous...it's the actual smoke that you can see floating through the air. Now, the aroma is annoying, but so is BO and bus fumes...rub some scented lotion on your upper lip and you'll be ok.

yes. And before that, non-smokers were the buts of ridicule. we were un-cool, non-mainstream. All the advertising had it that we were on the social margins. All movies had the Bogarts lighting their joints. Ultra suave, ultra-Deneuve...

Even in the '70's, the fact that I didn't smoke (on the city bus! FFS) subjected me to ridicule.

Oh well, mores change, and the great wheel turns. The shoe has been put on the other foot, and it causing blisters.

Actually Roach, I thought you were addressing the pro-smoking militants ;) . It goes both ways. It seems most of the tirades are coming from shouting militant smokers.

Someone keeps mentioning the taxes. Well, please cite the source and indicate where all the tax money from cigarettes are going. The claim that the govt needs the tax money from cigarettes needs some elaboration. I was under the impression that the tax money on cigarettes went to pay for the rising health costs associated with smoking. In any case, I quit smoking soon after the last tax increase.

I think letting the market decide is a good idea. Also, a tobacco license doesn't bother me too much, same as a liquor license right? As for worker's health (a good point), then there presumably would be a hazard pay (like in other industries such as entertainment where they pay you extra for exposure to cigarette smoke). Presumably, there should also be choice in work places too then. So, workers can choose to work where they please and if they don't like smoke they can work somewhere else.

If there are more smoking places than smoke free places then presumably wages can go down at the smoke free places provided more people don't like smoke. I would definitely open a smoke-free establishment with good Belgian ales on tap and live jazz while enjoying low wages cause all the other places are smoking. I would also offer full-health benefits to my employees (the non-smoking ones) because I can afford to due to the low wages. I would still try and attract smokers with a smoking zone away from the entrances so as not to disturb the non-smokers. Heck, maybe even install speakers so they can still enjoy the music.

Everyone benefits cause we then have more choice and cheaper prices due to the competition, at least in theory.

Rights aren't supposed to be connected to the amount of taxes one pays. Can you imagine how fucked up that would be? Just because i pay the gas tax doesn't mean i can do whatever the fuck i want with my car. The ability to assert that you have a right has no bearing on whether you actually do have that right. You should admit that you have no legally protected right to smoke. You should admit that it is a stretch to even think that you have a legally implied right to smoke.

And one day they came for the smokers, but i wasn't a smoker so i did nothing... I could see your slippery slope being valid if we lived in a monarchy of some sort, but we don't. These bans quite often are approved directly by your fellow citizens via referendum. This isn't generally a case of "big government" squashing the little guy, in many places this is grassroots politics.

I think most people would disagree with the notion that smoking bans don't better society, that's why most people support them. Frankly i don't see what the big deal is. Even when i smoked a lot, i still hated coming home from a club or a bar smelling like ass with bright red eyes.

It's not that difficult a question to answer. Maybe nonsmokers feel they have some sort of "right" to go to a bar and not leave smelling like burnt tobacco. Surely all the smokers whose made up "rights" have been violated can relate to that notion.

Maybe it's just a matter of a lack of smoke-free options. See, i don't know about where you live, but i don't think that there were any bars in my city that prohibited smoking before the ban so if i wanted to go to a bar, i had to put up with the smoke. That sucked, but you know what? It doesn't anymore because it isn't a problem.

Maybe it's harsh, but in the same way that you think that nonsmokers should just stay away from smoke-filled bars if they don't like it, maybe smokers who don't like smoking bans should stay away from communities that don't allow smoking in restaurants. I mean, why do those who do not want to deal with smoking bans care about not being able to smoke in cities and counties they can easily avoid? Let the smokers vote with their choice of residencies.

I'm sure everyone has said this already, but the only reason smoking gets on my nerves is because it affects me as well. Not only my lungs, which I admit would take a lot of second-hand smoke to truly affect - but my clothes and my breathing as well. I happen to have bad allergies and my sinus cavities are clogged a lot; whenever I am around cigarette smoke I can literally barely breathe; I have to breathe through my mouth to even get air in. And it's smoke-filled air.

I didn't use to care at all about smoking and smokers. I snapped one day when I went into a gas station with a bunch of old guys smoking one morning. I went in, paid for gas, and left. When I got in the car, the people riding with me said I smelled like a cigarette and BO mixed together. That is truly disgusting. I waited for it to go away, but ended up having to wash the clothes I wore. Anything that others are allowed to do in public that affects me in that way should be regulated much heavier than it is now. Make them smoke outside - EVERYWHERE. Anything that KILLS other people and makes me gasp for breathe and makes my clothes stink needs to stay away from me and others that don't want it.

Obesity and snack food isn't tackled because it doesn't kill other people if YOU eat a jelly donut. If you smoke, do it in your house, car, away from others who aren't smoking. It's disrespectful for that shit to be around others.


I do truly feel sorry for smokers. I have an entire family of smokers. But I have no sympathy because of its effects. Something that affects you, is one thing - but when I get affected by it with no choice, that's another thing.

I realize I can "just go to another gas station" or "just go to another bar or restaurant." But we shouldn't have to. Why should non-smokers have to go out of their way to accomodate for others? Why do smokers get the privelage of dominating territory which isn't theirs? They shouldn't. The only reason they do today is because smoking was at one time considered harmless; it was ingrained into society as a meaningless and harmless form of enjoyment, and it is still here today because the removal of a huge habit like this from a country will take a looooooong time.

It is a lot harder to move to another city, state or country than it is to just choose which bar to go to for a beer.:) I imagine many non-smokers would choose to go to bars where smoking is not permitted and visa versa. The market would probably shake out with a lot more non-smoking places if people were allowed to choose.

I live out in the country and about once a month I stop in to a local village tavern for a beer or two. This is a small place with about 12 stools and is usually frequented by a few old retired WWII and Vietnam vets. The times I have been there, the owner bartender and the guys were all smoking. I can't imagine why we would want to pass a law making them all go outside.

Uh, yeahhhhh. . . you try that in a restaurant. Option 3 is all you'll get.


OUT. . .side. . . ;)

Yeah, you have a point there. Oh wait, you drove to that restaurant didn't you. Good, go smoke in your car. No one will complain there! Look I'm sorry that you choose to fill your lungs with cancer causing smoke and tar, but that's YOUR choice. Sometimes you have to do things you choose to do in restricted areas. I can't legally have sex with my wife in the restaurant, or on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, even though sex with my wife is something I enjoy. Same thing for smoking, except that sex with my wife does not create a public health hazard for you.


Your car or your house. If you can't deal with that, may I suggest chewing tobacco?

No, I'm pointing out that market forces do not always result in the best decisions. If the market forces argument had been used during the civil rights movement we'd still have whites-only fountains. Sometimes in the interest of the public good you have to go against the market. (and really every restaurant/bar smoking ban I've EVER heard of has resulted in INCREASED business, so this is helpful to the market anyway)



Yes, you absolutely can. I'm not allowed to run a car wash that uses carbon tetrachloride in the soap because carbon tet is a carcinogen. I'm not allowed to run a barber shop where I reuse the same dirty razor all day long. Why should I be allowed to expose my customers to cigarette smoke?

I appreciate that they tried to preserve the health of their customers, but unless they make the smoking section vending machine only, they cannot preserve the health of their staff no matter how elaborate they get.

That's right. The government passes laws. If you don't like the laws, elect people who will pass laws you do like. But since smokers are now in the minority, I doubt that will happen. this is a REPUBLIC, not a dictatorship, which means the few do not get to order the many around.

Good point. I fucking pay taxes on my car, so why the hell should I have to maintain its emissions equipment? Why should i have to obey the speed limits? I pay TAXES on it!

Paying taxes does not give you carte blanche to do what you want. Otherwise I could run a whorehouse out of my home because I pay property taxes.


We don't need the damn taxes. If the government would stop subsidizing the tobacco farmers then losing the taxes would probably be fairly close to revenue neutral.

No one is forcing non smokers to go into these bars and restaurants. It's your choice to go into them if you don't like the smoke then stay out. I don't go into gay bars because of what's going on in them. Who am I to complain about what gay people do in a gay bar?

It takes 10s of thousands of cigarettes to signifcantly harm your health (in an adult). Please stop whining about having to breathe in two seconds of smoke at some random place that you chose to go to. Breathing in emmisions from vehicles will kill you too if you suck on the exuast pipe.Those emmisions are in the air all around you. They are smogging up the air every where. When you are at the mall you are breathing in emmisions from cars from all over. It is very unhealthy for you. I don't see you whiney hypocondriacs aren't complaining about that.

I'm a non smoker but not an anti smoker (yay for labels.) Please stop WHINING like little children about smoking. Let's strip people of their rights because you don't like that they practice their formerly free right of personal choice (smoking) where you choose to be. GOOD PLAN

No one is forcing smokers to go into these bars and restaurants instead of staying outside to finish their cigarette first.

This has already been addressed several times in this thread. Read it very carefully. Employees of the smoking establishments do not have a choice. They are being harmed.

Fine. But if the gays start going into every other establishment and lighting up their cigarettes, I'll be the first in line to complain. About the smoking.



Well there's an outlandish claim that's just BEGGING for a citation of source. hint: If it's from a tobacco industry-funded paper, it's bullshit.

Please stop whining about having to go 20 whole minutes without lighting up.

You're right. That's why I don't suck on the exhaust pipe, and it's why anyone who tries to make me suck on the exhaust pipe should be arrested. By the same token, I don't want to be sucking on your cigarette.


well this is a SMOKING thread, not a vehicle emissions thread. We're not complaining about the number of rapes nationwide or global warming or STD's either. See, we're trying to stay on topic here.

BTW us "whiny hypochondriacs" (that's how you spell those two words BTW) are not whiny, nor are we hypochondriacs. I strongly suspect you don't know what hypochondriac means.

We're not whining. Please stop trolling with your idiotic accusations. We're registering a legitimate complaint. If you or someone else wants to smoke, that's fine, as long as they don't do it around those of us who don't want to smoke.

Please tell me where in the constitution it says you have a right to smoke. Tell me where in the constitution it says you have the right to harm my health so you can get a nic fix.


There is not nor was there ever a "right of personal choice." If there were, suicide would not be illegal.

And even the Personal Choice party, which claims that there should be a right to personal choice, qualifies it with "as long as it doesn't hurt other people" so even under their umbrella smoking around nonsmokers would be out.

I did mention that in my city, preban, there were no bars that were smoke free.

People have been allowed to choose for a long time. Like i said, no smoke free bars that i was aware of in a city with nearly 400,000 people. How long have people been smoking and drinking in bars? How long do you want to wait to see if the market will shake out more nonsmoking places?

I'm sorry, the market had its say, and it amounted to a clear rejection of smoke-free drinking establishments.

The reasons why these laws are passed have been done to death in this thread. If you don't understand the reasoning behind the bans, you need only to scroll up the page.

One nice thing about smoking bans is that they essentially become a nonissue if no one around cares about enforcing it or complaining to whatever regulatory agency oversees its enforcement.

[QUOTE=shakran]No one is forcing smokers to go into these bars and restaurants instead of staying outside to finish their cigarette first.

The bar it self is a smoking establishment. You don't have to go there. It has nothing to do with the smokers inside.



They don't have to work there. Working there is a choice. Just like you don't have to work at a coal mine and get black lung.


If you complained that a smoker smoked where the owner of the property said he can not then I would have no problem with complaint. Anyway what I said was a like comparision.





I don't have a source.It's speaking from personal experience. Next time you walk through a cloud of cigarette smoke then hack up blood. Take a picture and let us all know I'm wrong.



I don't smoke so I don't/can't whine about it.



Ah but you are forced to breathe the exaust just as you are forced to breathe second hand smoke and once again I don't smoke.




Once again a like comparision. Your not being forced in the same way to get raped or get STD's as you are being forced with emissions. You are being forced to breathe those emmisions just are you are forced to breathe smoke or deal with global warming. People should stop driving cars if we're going to be so health concious. Anti smokers are focusing on a small and feeble issue. Hey and I'll remember that for grammar class thanks bud.



No you are whining. Definition of whining is a feeble, peevish complaint. You already admitted you were complaining and I see your complaining as peevish and like I said before feeble. So you can stop trolling with your idiotic accusaions.

It's fine if you don't smoke as long as you don't go around smokers you should be fine.



Where in the constitution does it say you have a right not to breathe second hand smoke.




I don't think smokers should be able to smoke in non smoking places. Non smokers should not tell smokers in smoking places what to do.

2 things and then I am done with this thread because I have spoken my piece:

1) As much as non-smokers cry about the smoker, I believe I pointed out compromise to which the non smoker still bitched and moaned..... society is based on compromises, you lose compromise you lose freedoms.

Whic takes me to #2...... it amazes me how some on here in other threads talk about how big and powerful government is and how we are losing rights, yet they are begging and demanding rights be taken away. They offer no compromise, they want things their way and fuck everyone who doesn't agree..... like I said, it's the same with censorship, gun control, religion etc.

Some lady in Michigan starts writing letters saying Howard Stern is vile and they fine him off the free airwaves..... even though she never heard him.

A mother demands that Tom Sawyer and other books be banned from the school library because she doesn't want her son subjected to it.... even though he doesn't even know what section of the library the book is in.

Loss of freedoms is just that loss of freedoms..... it's wrong you know it is wrong and you will cry about it when they come and take a freedom away from you....

Freedom is compromise.... again, compromise was offered, separate rooms, ventilations and yet, people demand for all or nothing..... fuck everyone else, we know better, we are the majority..... we know what's best..... but what happens when the smoking issue is dead and buried and these people filled with hate and control and demands for what's best for the people decide to come after something you enjoy, do, a way you live your life and endlessly attack you, to the point where no one dares speak out?

Trust me the day will come.

All the fucking problems in this country and people worry more about smoking than anything else........ no wonder our country is falling apart.

I use the word you a lot in this post. I don't mean a specific person; I am using it more as, "everyone that is not me."

Again I want to know why the police are allowed to search people for possession of cigarettes. Why in the hell is that ok? Why are there restrictions saying that I can not smoke in my CAR in the parking lot of a business.

I want to reiterate here, I do not believe that my smoking gives me the right to force non smokers to breathe my cancer causing second hand smoke. I just don't believe that when there are already laws in place to protect you from that second hand smoke in public places, what I do IN MY OWN CAR is any of your damn business. I can promise you this, if it's happening in redneck acres (as I affectionately refer to my home town); it’s coming to yours soon.

I have one truly horrible allergy. It makes me very sick to be around people wearing cologne or perfume. Even slightly scented deodorants can get me on a bad day. These scents are triggers for my migraines. They are very horrible. If you have never had migraines before you cannot possibly understand. I have done some looking into this. There is NOTHING that can be done for a perfume allergy of this sort. There is some limited help for skin allergies but not for inhaled allergies. And I am not alone here . There is no need for people to wear perfume. NONE. No one is even so much as addicted to it. They just chose to go around smelling like lemons and making me and others like me sick. 72% of asthmatics list perfumes as a trigger .

So what are you going to do when we decide that we're sick of you making us sick with your smelly, stinking perfumes? There is a serious health problem associated with you getting all smelly. I don't know that you like to wear perfumes, but many many people do. How will you feel when its you we decide has to shower and remove your stinking smells before you come into public places because it makes so many people sick?

You're right, smoking is not a right. There is no constitutional guarantee of the right to smoke. Nor is there a guarantee of the right to drive a car, get a library membership, or wear make-up. We just get to do these things because we live in a "free" society, where, for the most part, we get to make our own minds about whether or not to participate in legal activities.

You think that no one’s rights are being denied here. You think that there is a little more needless hysteria because of what is being said by those of us that are not as supportive of anti smoking laws as you are. You think you are safe from these laws because you don't smoke. When you give away another persons right to choose what he or she will do, you open the door for your rights to choose what legal activities you will participate in to be whittled away.

There is no government conspiracy to take away or limit our rights. I believe that. I also believe that the only people that can take our rights from us are US. And we will; one good idea at a time.

I agree with you pan. The seat belt law is just the start of eventual required blue overalls and the 2 minutes of hate. I was trying to express that through my comments on this topic.

Pan, how can you possibly go on about compromise when you can't even stand to be forced to smoke outside? That, sir, is compromise. It may not be the kind of compromise you wanted, but it is the kind of compromise that the majority of people wanted.

And as for nonsmokers becoming emotional, well, you're the only person in this thread to write whole paragraphs in upper case letters. It is clear to me that you are quite emotional on this given subject, more emotional than any of the nonsmokers.

All your talk of censorship is irrelevant; the right to express yourself is not the same as the right to smoke cigarettes in bars and restaurants, and frankly, you have to be delusional not to see that. I mean shit, how self important do you have to be to think that you being mildly inconvenienced in the practice of 1 habit is an obvious precursor to broad, government sanctioned repression?

If you think the ability to smoke in a bar is related to the ability to speak without fear of persecution you need to start sprinkling a little "reality" dust on those cigarettes of yours.

If you were refering to me as the emotional one. I don't see my all caps
paragraph.

Compromise was reached when the owner of any establishment could say "you can't smoke in here" even if they wanted to extend that out onto their property that would be fine like say 25'.

It's not that smokers can't go outside. There wasn't a big hoopla about this until the legislature of a few states forced establishment owners to not allow smoking. The goverment forcing the owners of the business to not allow smoking is the problem. The public does NOT have to go into these places. That is the goverment making a choice for you.

No, that is the government taking public health into account, and disallowing the habits of individuals in public places that are a detriment to the health of those around them.

Was it "the government making a choice for us" when they forced all asbestos to be removed and replaced in buildings, when it was found out to be so harmful? I guess business owners should have been given the right to choose to replace it or not- after all, we all can choose to go there or not, right?

Is it the government making a choice for us by insisting that all restuarants pass minimum food storage and preparation safety requirements? After all, we can choose to eat at whatever restaurant we want. Phooey on public health, I don't want the government telling private businesses how to run their shops!

Oh, certainly it's the government pushing us around by requiring frequent and thorough inspections of airplanes! After all, we can choose the airlines whose planes we wish to board- why should the government step in and demand things are safe and not endangering the health and lives of its citizens? Those assholes.

I can keep going.

The main point is that despite what you believe to be the big, bad government putting you down, they are simply removing YOUR unhealthy habit from the lungs of those people in the public with whom you happen to coexist.

If I breathe in your smoke, I am being forced to sacrifice my personal health because of your personal decisions. Do whatever you want to your own lungs, but anyone who insists they have a "right" to smoke in public places, polluting the lungs of those around them, is being ridiculous.

This is honestly a truly asinine conversation. I can't believe people are actually trying to tell us that it's their right to fuck up other people's lungs because of their personal addiction. Un-freakin'-believable.

It's not, and if someone had challenged it on constitutional grounds, things would have (hopefully) gone very badly for the cops.

Unless it's the business's own restriction (they can make whatever rules they want about not smoking on their property) then there shouldn't be. I don't know of any non smoker who would have a problem with you smoking in your car.


And I'll be at the head of the line fighting it if my town/state's government tries to ban smoking in your own car.



Several workplaces have already banned perfumes/colognes because of problems like yours. If it became a general public health issue, the government might step in. However, much as your condition is unfortunate for you, most people do not have it and it is therefore not a public health issue. A similar issue would be the government shutting down all Dairy Queens because they use peanuts, and someone might be allergic. If the general population were allergic to peanuts, then there'd be an argument there.

However since cigarettes, unlike perfumes, universally harm everyone who comes in contact with their smoke, that IS a public health issue.


Like I said. When the majority of the population develops perfume/cologne allergies, we'll talk. Until then, keep in mind that inhaling one irritant, cigarette smoke, often makes other allergic irritants much worse.

And when participating in those legal activities hurts everyone else, that's when that "freedom" dissolves.

You're not. You can still smoke.

Well. .. yeah. But if I did smoke I wouldn't WANT to be safe from those laws. Those laws are keeping me from messing up everyone else's lungs. I have no problem with that. I'd smoke in the car or in my house.



That's an argument against ALL laws. A law by definition takes away your right to choose what you want to do. I want to speed, for instance. How far do you think I'll get with the cop who's writing me a ticket for 110 in a 55 if I try to tell him that I have the right to speed because otherwise he's taking my freedom away from me?

Because people what what they want and damn everyone else. They want to smoke, and their enjoyment of burning leaves and tar takes precedence in their minds over the health of everyone else on the planet. That's what it comes down to - just another example of people being people. No one but me matters.

Absolutely right. I'm serious. I liken it to something I remember another poster saying a while back about the FDA: "If someone tries to sell snake oil, the FDA's only role should be to make sure it's 100% snake oil." What argument can you make against "we can choose to go there or not" anyway? Seems pretty airtight to me.

And on the other hand, I'm fine with the government mandating HUGE can't-miss-em signs indicating the prescence of asbestos/smoke/trans fat. People should certainly have the opportunity to understand fully the cost of setting foot in a particular building. You let those allergic to peanut butter know that "this may contain peanuts", you don't mandate the removal of the peanuts.

Bit different there. 9/11 pretty clearly demonstrated an external cost to poor airport security.

Go ahead.

The hell you are. There's no force. You can leave. You don't have a right to occupy someone else's private property and you don't have a right to modify an invitation to your liking.

Un-freakin'-believable that you keep misstating the situation. It's the smoker's right to smoke in places where the owner approves. It's the non-smoker's right to leave places where the owner approves of smoking. No one is arguing for the right "to fuck up other people's lungs".

Let's go through this again very slowly. Employees of the establishment cannot leave. I can't leave when I'm sent to cover a story in a smoke-filled building. Don't pull the "get another job" crap. That's a moronic argument. Many cant' get another job, and even if they could, they shouldn't have to. Do we tell sewage workers "we're not gonna give you any protective equipment - just get another job if you don't like it?" No, we don't. So until you figure out a way to safeguard the lungs of people who do NOT have a choice whether or not to be there, then go smoke in your own property, and stay the hell away from me and my lungs when you light up.

Okay, I'll go even more slowly, since the obvious response is already in your post:

They. DO. have. a. choice. They. can. leave.

They shouldn't have to? They don't have to. It's up to them whether they value the job enough to assume its costs. They DON'T have a right to that job and they DON'T have a right to modify it to their liking.

"then go smoke in your own property"

That's actually exactly what I'm arguing for. The owners decide whether smoke is allowed on their own property.

You're still not getting this, sport, and I'm having trouble figuring out if you're being purposely obtuse about it or not. If you're worried about feeding your family you sometimes do things that are detrimental to your own health because you have an asshole employer who insists on exposing you to dangerous conditions in the name of profit. It is the job of government to protect its citizens from conditions like that. People should not have to make the choice between eating and getting cancer. You are arguing that they should. That indicates a complete lack of concern for your fellow human beings. Fuck 'em all, as long as I get my nicotine. Well, some of us have evolved beyond such selfish attitudes.


I didn't pull a stupid and decide to start smoking. it's YOUR habit, YOUR addiction, and if YOU make idiotic choices despite knowing the risks, that's your lookout. Don't drag ME down with you.

The restaurant is not YOUR private property. It is a public place, whether you like it or not. Public places have to maintain certain healthy conditions. They don't get to serve you rotting meat, they don't get to mince up the rat with the hamburger, and they don't get to masturbate into the pasta. If they do, they're severely punished, even though it was the diner's choice to eat there.

FoolThemAll you can't win you know. They have already decided what is "in the public's best interest" and demand government do something.

They refuse to see that they are taking away rights, they refuse to even debate civilly, they want it all.

So when the smoking is a dead issue and these power hungry hate filled people decide they need to control something else.... they know exactly how to get the rights taken away.

Oh yeah and by the way Shakran I guess you must have missed the part where I stated it is getting to the point I have to smoke in my car.

Good you say?

Yeah, except then I have my son, so he has to walk to the car with me, and if he stands outside by himself while I smoke, I get into trouble, if I put him in the car while I smoke it's child endangering...... so exactly where am I to smoke?

Waiting........ 3.....2.....1...... your answer will prove beyond doubt this debate is solely about power over others and not, not smoking...... unless of course you change the hardline stance you have had this whole thread, in which case.....

You cannot take away a right that never existed in the first place. You do not have the right to harm me in any way. That is the right you claim we are trying to take away.

You're reading a bit much into this don't you think? It's not about hate, it's about not wanting to inhale the detrius of YOUR bad habit.


Nope, I didn't. I applaud it getting to that point. . .

Well I honestly don't have a problem with you standing next to your car while you smoke either. I don't LIKE smelling cigarettes outside, but it's fleeting and not concentrated so I'm not gonna get my feathers ruffled about it. It's when you take it INSIDE a PUBLIC AREA that I object.

Frankly, preferably nowhere. Smoking is stupid, and you know it. Yes, it's hard to quit. It's hard to do a lot of things. It was hard when I lost weight several years ago (food is every bit as addicting as cigarettes, btw), but I did it anyway and I'm much better off for it. But if you absolutely can't quit, that's your call. Just figure out a way to smoke where I don't have to inhale it too.

I don't think it did, and I don't think my stance is particularly hardline. I'm not trying to outlaw cigarettes (although it is illogical that cigarettes which hurt more than just the smoker are legal while cocaine which hurts only the snorter is illegal). If you want to kill yourself slowly with cigarettes, that's a shame, but it's your lookout. My objection is when you try to take me with you. Smoke all you want, I don't care. Don't do it around me.

how about this?

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29...elmets5010.jpg