Tendo City

Boooooooooooooooo.

Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Cigarettes are taxed enough as it is and smoking is banned inside virtually every public building (as well as inside many condos and apartment complexes) - but a lot of people still smoke and it's generally considered socially acceptable to do so. I'm not an advocate of banning smoking, the decision to allow or disallow it in a building should be made by the manager. If second-hand smoke bothers you, don't breathe.

I remember seeing on CNN a few months ago an interest group that was trying to ban smoking in the military. What a bunch of bullshit.

I remember before the ban, They had divided the sections by putting up a glass air sealed wall at Tim Horton's, There was virtually no chance of 2nd hand smoke crossing over into the non-smoking side .

Apparently it was the EU that started the public smoking bans.

I've always been torn on the issue, due to the fact that I

a: hate the idea of the government forcing this issue, and
b: really hate cigarette smoke.

Fittisize Wrote:Boooooooooooooooo.

Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Cigarettes are taxed enough as it is and smoking is banned inside virtually every public building (as well as inside many condos and apartment complexes) - but a lot of people still smoke and it's generally considered socially acceptable to do so. I'm not an advocate of banning smoking, the decision to allow or disallow it in a building should be made by the manager. If second-hand smoke bothers you, don't breathe.

I remember seeing on CNN a few months ago an interest group that was trying to ban smoking in the military. What a bunch of bullshit.

Did you read the article? It's about how cities that ban smoking see dramatic drops in heart attack rates versus ones that do not, and those drops happen immediately. That's because of the removal of second-hand smoke, mostly. If cigarettes did not emit toxic fumes you'd have a point, defending people's right to do bad things to themselves is reasonable... but because that isn't true and cigarettes DO hurt everyone else around them, in a scientifically measurable way as this study shows, you don't.

I don't mind cigarette smoke. In fact, when I was 19 I even took up smoking for four days. I smoked a total of 10 cigarettes before I gave it up. My real habit is chewing tobacco and, given the fact that I spend $88 a week on it ($22/tin) I am very much against laws that try and prohibit and prevent tobacco consumption. I mean come on, let me ingest any cancer-causing products I damn well feel and stop trying to make me feel bad for doing so. BAGH. Last year I found a gas station in the hills of Arkansas that was selling chew tins for $3 a pop. If you've seen the scene in Sicko where a woman finds the same medication for sale in Cuba for literally pennies when it was costing her hundreds of dollars to fill her prescription in America, you can picture my reaction to such a sight. I bought fifty of those fuckers and then a humidor in which to store them and every time I go to the States I always load up. Government measures against tobacco consumption are complete bullshit. They're not trying to eliminate a habit that I and hundreds of millions of others don't think is bad or dirty or sinful in any way - they're just cashing in on it. There will always be nicotine addicts, and over-taxing and banning it in public establishments won't do anything to stop it. It's like a crack dealer forcing an addict to suck his cock, man. Nicotine addicts get fucked in the ass by the government and they don't even give you a courtesy spit. The government is completely taking advantage of nicotene users for economic gain. I don't buy the public health aspect. If there's a bar where people are smoking and you don't like it, then don't go inside, dammit. Go to a different bar where people aren't smoking or an establishment where it's prohibited by the owner. Recently I was in a friend of mine's house, his own private dwelling, and he started smoking a cigarette. He was asked by another guest (a GUEST in my friend's house) to "take it outside." What an asshole! YOU go outside! I love nicotine and I hope that every Josh Beckett fan who sees him with a giant dip in his lip (I have yet to see him without one) buys a tin and picks up the glorious habit. And then maybe buys a pack of Marlbros.

I also take solace in the fact that in the unlikely event I get lip cancer my treatments are fully taken care of and I have no problems with people who get lung cancer from smoking cigarettes receiving total government coverage. That's probably a contradiction on my views of government involvement in public matters concerning healthcare and freedom of choice.

A Black Falcon Wrote:Did you read the article? It's about how cities that ban smoking see dramatic drops in heart attack rates versus ones that do not, and those drops happen immediately. That's because of the removal of second-hand smoke, mostly. If cigarettes did not emit toxic fumes you'd have a point, defending people's right to do bad things to themselves is reasonable... but because that isn't true and cigarettes DO hurt everyone else around them, in a scientifically measurable way as this study shows, you don't.

Yes, I read the article. I also read this part:

Quote:Opponents have argued that smoking bans drive away customers. Study results have been mixed, with most indicating that the impact on bars and restaurants is neutral or may actually improve business, says Schroeder. However, some businesses, particularly casinos, are still concerned that smoking bans may cause their customers to choose locations that will allow them to light up freely.

Very ambigious about smoking bans. "Mixed" studies with "most" saying the impact is neutral - that doesn't do much for me. For casinos particularly, of which I am a frequent customer, I can tell you that in my personal experiences casinos that allow smoking (ones run by First Nations and are thus not under provincial jurisdictions regarding cigarette smoking in public establishments) receive far more business, and saw a massive increase when cigarette smoking was banned provincially in public establishments a few years ago. And on campus every day I see hundreds, nay THOUSANDS of smokers. Big cash money can be made on tobacco. And I hate to bring my own province into this once again but at the start of 2009 it was made illegal to even have tobacco products out in the open in stores - they have to be kept behind a curtain or something of that nature. You can't even advertise the prices of tobacco products. This, combined with surgeon generals warnings, banning advertising, massive taxing, and endless studies on how bad tobacco is still hasn't stopped people from lighting up. People like it.

Chewing tobacco isn't hurting anyone but yourself. I'd be against outlawing that.

Smoking does otherwise. I'll be the first to point out that corrolation doesn't equal causation, in one case. But repeated and controlled for it, that's something else.

All the same, I want to see the exact studies listed and the methods they used. There's such a thing as data mining, and lots of other ways to get poor data. It's not that I have any doubts that second hand smoking can hurt one's health, it's just that in the pursuit of science to back it up, one can't get caught up in one's own beliefs, lest you end up, say, with evidence that goes exactly against what you think.

Fitts, it's not about you. Just thought I'd point that out. Think about traffic laws. When do you hear people arguing that they should be able to risk their own lives as they please on the roads? I'd say almost never, because the majority of people recognize that the point is that you can't risk OTHER people's lives at the same time.

For example, if someone owns their own private track, they should be free to drive on it as they want. The second they put someone else in the seat though, they are legally liable, and should be, if that person is hurt as a result of their wreckless driving, even on their own private course.

Whatever one's feelings on gun control may be, I'm sure we can all agree there's no inherit harm in firing on a private firing range into lifeless targets. That's a far cry from firing into targets set up in a suburban backyard, where a miss could kill a neighbor, which is why that's illegal.

Personally, I'd rather smokers all switch to chewing tobacco if they can't muster up the will to quit. Sorry if it makes you "feel opressed" or whatever. It's not you everyone hates, just the smoke. Take that mess all up outta heres and you're golden.

If there's a restaurant or bar that allows free public smoking, I'm not going to go up to the proprietor and demand that he kick the smokers out. I'm simply not going to go. What right do I have to make such demands? I have the right to choose whether or not I wish to give him my business, as do all his other customers, and every last one of his employees works there because they want to. It should, therefore, be the proprietor's decision whether or not to allow smoking under the roof of his own establishment.

How long before we're federally audited for the balance of our exercise levels versus our caloric intake?

I think that's a bit of a non-sequiter there, a "slippery slope" argument with no real merit. I mean, yes, there is PE class, and I have my own grievances with the very existance of that as a mandatory thing in school (as well as the silly amount of money a school spends on a gymnasum relative to soemthing that might actually help their education), but that's still a far cry from mandating excercize and diet.

Having certain requirements of basic safety in resteraunts is the only thing here. It's the same reason there's a limit on the amount of rat feces one can cook into food.

Many restaurants, and all bars, serve alcoholic beverages. Why is there no regulation on the limit and potency of these beverages that can be served to a patron? As long as you are of the federally-mandated (and entirely arbitrary) age of 21, you can have twenty screwdrivers if your wallet and redundant biological systems can support it. You can, of course, also have six beers, walk out without looking too bad, get behind the wheel of your car and end up killing six people when it turns out you weren't quite as sober as you felt.

Yet, there is no regulation on this public safety matter. It is left to the proprietor to determine when enough is too much without any empirical methods available to them to determine just how intoxicated a person really is. In the case of alcohol, you not only have the chronic issues of substance abuse, as I've experienced firsthand being the son of an alcoholic, but the acute danger of drunken driving.

Yet, for some reason, public tobacco use is considered a far greater public safety risk?

The standard defense would probably be "well, we tried banning alcohol in the 1920s and it didn't work out so well", but yeah, that is a good point. Alcohol does more damage than any illegal drug because it's legal (without a permit or prescription or anything) and strong. Legal drugs are going to be used more than illegal ones... and yes, many people die because of alcohol, with drunk driving being one of the primary ways. Should it be more regulated? It WOULD be in the public good, yes, but it'd never pass and is pushing into slightly harder to defend territory because of how alcohol hurts others.

I mean, with smoking as I said it's direct -- that second or third hand smoke floats over there and hurts other peoples' health. Every person who is smoking is hurting others if anyone else is around. But alcohol... that's not so direct. It's only if the person is stupid or irresponsible that bad things happen. Of course when drunk people are GOING to be stupid and irresponsible, but still, it IS a different situation...

Still, yeah of course it would be great to find a way to keep drunk people from driving anywhere near as much as they do. It would help the country a lot. But is there such a way, short of a ban on alcohol that probably wouldn't work well enough and wouldn't pass?

With smoking, it is indeed direct, but the difference is, it's not acute. Smoke-related cancers almost always require years of heavy exposure to develop. If I sit and have dinner at Smooky's Corn Blaster Shack one night, and there's smoke in the air, the worst that's going to happen is that my clothes will stink of it. The effect on my overall physical health will be no worse than what the corn blasters did to my upper GI.

Alcohol is another matter entirely. It can make anyone into a killer overnight.

Fittisize Wrote:If second-hand smoke bothers you, don't breathe.

Sorry, but I like oxygen to much to take that piece of advice.

As far as the issue is concerned, I think all cigarettes and cigars should only be allowed in a 45 mile wide hole 4,000 feet below San Francisco. Also, the government should throw people who chew tobacco in their with them, watching a guy spit black tar into a cup in a public place is probably the most fucking disgusting thing I can think of. To me, it's right up there with 2 girls 1 cup.

Weltall Wrote:With smoking, it is indeed direct, but the difference is, it's not acute. Smoke-related cancers almost always require years of heavy exposure to develop. If I sit and have dinner at Smooky's Corn Blaster Shack one night, and there's smoke in the air, the worst that's going to happen is that my clothes will stink of it. The effect on my overall physical health will be no worse than what the corn blasters did to my upper GI.

Alcohol is another matter entirely. It can make anyone into a killer overnight.

Studies like the one I linked to in the first post of this thread disprove this. So do things like how people who work in businesses where there's lots of smoke in the air are more likely to get cancer. Second-hand smoke DOES cause cancer. And heart attacks too, it seems, going by this study.

These studies disprove what, exactly? I know secondhand smoke causes cancer (and murders your heart) if you're exposed to it frequently. I did, in fact, say that. It's not likely to cause cancer in me if I'm exposed to it for an hour every other week. My whole point was that it doesn't happen in a day, or a week or a month. In most cases, it takes years of exposure before things start going bad. Of course, working on a restaurant staff is voluntary work. If you're concerned about the effects of smoke, you don't have to work there any more than you are required to eat there. It's not as though you get a four-year degree to bus tables or take short-orders.

In states where smoking in restaurants is legal though, most restaurants DO have it. You often don't have a choice, so you can't pretend that you do... few restaurants ban smoking in places where it's legal! Most just maybe put up a half-wall and put smokers on one side and nonsmokers on the other, but the smoke just drifts over so really it's all smoking. In Maine smoking has been banned in all restaurants for like 15 years now, and in bars and clubs for a few years as well, and it's made a huge difference. Huge improvement!

Oh, and as in most places, the mythical "economic damages" caused by banning smoking never materialized.

No, it hasn't. And, I love being in a place, personally, without having to deal with the stench of it.

But, my principles remain as they are: It should be the proprietor's decision to make.