smoking in public laws

[RitalinKid]

"Your right to swing your fist stops at the other fellow's nose."
-- US Supreme Court Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes

Smoking in public deserves to be illegal. Your right to waft smoke in all directions ends when the smoke goes up my nose. Then my girlfriend and I have to move all the way across the restaurant because she starts coughing. I'm sure that's a familiar situation.

However, it shouldn't be illegal. If health care companies want to make some kind of incentive to stop smoking (i.e., higher prices if you don't), that's fine, but it's your right as a human being to put whatever you want into your body in the privacy of your own home.

 

[Zolipara]

Especially now that there is so much evidence on the destructive effects of secondhand smoke, it really is in everyone's best interest to keep smoke away from those who don't want it.

Actually there isnt any real serious research on secondhand smoking. There is a lot of research on the dangers of smoking and all thats said about secondhand smoke is derived from the research on smoking. But if you say it enough times it "becomes true". I'm not a smoker myself but i think the anti-smoking hysteria is going a bit too far. By all means have a smoking and a non-smoking section, but banning smoking alltogether is going too far.

Its nice to come home from the pub and not have all my clothes stink of smoke but i'd rather have my clothes smell of smoke than go in and out of the pub all the time when i'm talking to a smoker.

One interesting tidbit: Why is always the smoking section of a club packed with people while there is only a few in the non-smoking section?

 

[cajunmama]

... nonsmokers ... die ... everyday.

Yes, we will all die someday, but just because i may get hit by a train tomorrow doesn't mean that I should go park on the tracks today.

 

[cajunmama]

Actually there isnt any real serious research on secondhand smoking.

The asthmatic children of smokers would beg to differ.

 

[cajunmama]

Anybody catch this news artical yet?

http://www.wral.com/news/4126577/detail.html

(hope that goes in as a link) Sorry if you have to cut and paste that address.

Taking things too far?

Absolutely.
Why stop at smokers? Fire all the diabetics, people with high blood pressure, anyone with a family history of cancer, even glasses/contact lenses, or small children. Anyone that requires any health care at all should be immediately fired. How about that for keeping down health care costs?

 

[Zolipara]

The asthmatic children of smokers would beg to differ.

Show me a link to the research report that shows a statistical connection between children with asthma and smoking parents. For it to have any value it must also consider the locations where the children lived etc etc.

Btw did you know that many people die from drinking milk?

 

[RitalinKid]

Actually there isnt any real serious research on secondhand smoking. There is a lot of research on the dangers of smoking and all thats said about secondhand smoke is derived from the research on smoking. But if you say it enough times it "becomes true". I'm not a smoker myself but i think the anti-smoking hysteria is going a bit too far. By all means have a smoking and a non-smoking section, but banning smoking alltogether is going too far.

I've heard that all the second hand smoking research was performed by groups trying to ban smoking, and some use this a reason to discredit it. I don't know anything about the specifics of the research.

I also agree that hysteria is a bad thing. One of the underlying reasons THC is illegal in the US is because in the 1930s a propaganda film was produced with a completely inaccurate portrayal of what people using it do. There was hysteria, and it was outlawed. Would anyone really want to outlaw smoking? I mean, coffee is proven to have "bad" side effects, but the combination of coffee and cigarettes keep the work force efficient. I don't do a lot of either, but everyone I work with does. However, I do have my ritalin.

One interesting tidbit: Why is always the smoking section of a club packed with people while there is only a few in the non-smoking section?

Ah! This is a little bit of a trick! If you and ten of your closest friends go to a club, and ONE of you wants to smoke, will the group choose to ostracize that ONE friend or go over to the "other side" of the club? I used to see that happen all the time. The people that don't smoke will complain, but they stay with the group. Humans! We'll do almost anything for the sake of being part of the troop.

 

[mr_michel]

while at that they should also ban health care on skin cancer, after all who told they to walk at noon or lie on the beach
hearth condition? hell no, if their fault if they decide to eat high cholesterol meals.
diabetis? yeah right, in first place that guy shouldnt be born, everybody knows its an hereditary desease, in any case his father should have set a trust fund to pay for this guy treatment.
and we write, and we write, and we write, and we write, and we write, and we write, and we write, and we write, and we write, and we write, and we write, and we write, and we write, and we write, and we write, and we write, and we write, and we write.........

really this anti-smoking laws sometimes seems (and feels) discriminatory, i can understand no smoking in public buildings and schools, and most high traffic closed areas, like a subway station, ( i remember being in holland smoking next ot a "smoking pole", in an open train station on a very windy day, kinda ridiculous dont you think?) but in bars and restaurants it makes no sense, smoking areas should work, if the problem is that said smoking areas are no enough to contain the smoke, its mostly due to a bad desing or lack of adecuate equipment, in some cities in order to open a bar or restaurant you are force to also have a parking lot for your clients, so the owners could be force (sugested, or give it the choice) to have a properly designed and equiped smoking area, i mean afterall it must be easier and cheaper than building or renting a parking lot in the city's downtown.

 

[bobbyburns]

breathing in all that fucking perfume at the mall can't be healthy, either.

 

[Rogue]

I think that's rather harsh. Surely just about everybody does things that are detrimental to their health? Some people eat fatty, unhealthy foods, clog their arteries and have a heart attack. Other people drink like a fish and end up with liver disease. And others smoke and get lung cancer. I would say it's very few people that don't do something that is bad for them and increases their risk of ill-health.

All these people should pay there hospital bills themself. It's there fault so why not? It's not that they did it once or twice => they did it all there life and they knew the risks.

Why stop at smokers? Fire all the diabetics, people with high blood pressure, anyone with a family history of cancer, even glasses/contact lenses, or small children. Anyone that requires any health care at all should be immediately fired. How about that for keeping down health care costs?

If you get cancer because of smoking it is your fault, if your family has a history of tumors it isn't. People who are destroying their health deliberatley should bear the consequences.

 

[mr_michel]

Absolutely.
Why stop at smokers? Fire all the diabetics, people with high blood pressure, anyone with a family history of cancer, even glasses/contact lenses, or small children. Anyone that requires any health care at all should be immediately fired. How about that for keeping down health care costs?

hey dont forget women there its always the posibility of getting pregnant and taking a medical absensce (or whatever its called in english)

 

[mr_michel]

If you get cancer because of smoking it is your fault, if your family has a history of tumors it isn't. People who are destroying their health deliberatley should bear the consequences.

and can you asure that everyone who gets a lung desease and its a smoker, got it due to smoking, its not so easily to link one thing to another (medically talking), after all there are not smokers who had die of lung cancer or not drinkers who has died of cirrosis (or whatever its called in english)

 

[Rogue]

Show me a link to the research report that shows a statistical connection between children with asthma and smoking parents. For it to have any value it must also consider the locations where the children lived etc etc.

Btw did you know that many people die from drinking milk?

Yeah peopel die from drinking milk. But do their kids die because their parents drink milk?

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/secondhandsmoke.html
http://www.ash.org.uk/html/factsheets/html/fact08.html
http://www7.health.gov.au/nhmrc/advice/nhmrc/foreword.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2925633.stm
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2005/01/28/eline/links/20050128elin004.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4998
.....

 

[RitalinKid]

There are risks involved in everything you do. If you open your eyes in the morning, you take a risk that something's about to happen to you. Smoking is a high risk activity, but so is drinking alcohol or driving to work. For some people, work itself is a high risk activity. Can you really cut someone out of a healthcare system because they were involved in a high risk activity?

 

[mr_michel]

Yeah peopel die from drinking milk. But do their kids die because their parents drink milk?

you are right if i get bald im suiting my dad
(i kinda acepted the diabetes thing, but baldness änd diabetes its too much)

 

[Rogue]

There are risks involved in everything you do. If you open your eyes in the morning, you take a risk that something's about to happen to you. Smoking is a high risk activity, but so is drinking alcohol or driving to work. For some people, work itself is a high risk activity. Can you really cut someone out of a healthcare system because they were involved in a high risk activity?

Do you really compare smoking to working? How desperate are you?

 

[Zolipara]

All these people should pay there hospital bills themself. It's there fault so why not?

There is no way to determine the cause of cancer. You can only determine factors that increase the risk.

How do you propose counting the amount of cigarettes and drinks etc person x consumes during a year to determine if he should pay the bill himself or not?

 

[Rogue]

There is no way to determine the cause of cancer. You can only determine factors that increase the risk.

How do you propose counting the amount of cigarettes and drinks etc person x consumes during a year to determine if he should pay the bill himself or not?

Smoking is the number one cause of lung cancer. Lung cancer may also be the most tragic cancer because in most cases, it might have been prevented -- 87% of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking.
http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=35427#what

They seem to know.

 

[Zolipara]

Yes they know that smoking increases the chance of lung cancer. They dont know if a specific person got lung cancer directly from smoking or another cause.

 

[cajunmama]

Do you really compare smoking to working? How desperate are you?

Some jobs are high risk, like Alaskan crab fishing, by the end of each season, there will be an average of one man dead for every week of the season, or working on the deck of an air-craft carrier,where one mis-step can get you blown overboard or your head taken off. Some jobs are simply dangerous.