Should tobacco be made illegal?

[Droopy]

I've been on the wagon for 9 days and I'm still pissed at the world. I say we ban tobacco. We can put all of the displaced tobacco workers to work in chewing gum and sunflower seed factories. Lord knows there will be an increased demand for those products. We can put all of the tobacco executives in jail for crimes against humanity.

God this is making me crazy. Part of the reason for that is that I have to ride in the same truck for 7 hours with a guy who smokes. I never understood how infuriating second hand smoke could be until I quit smoking. I find myself holding my breath when a little cloud of smoke comes my way now. There is nothing I can do to stop the guy from smoking, but to his credit he cut it down to 2 an hour when he learned I was quitting instead of chain smoking like he usually does. I've seen that guy smoke 5 cigarettes in a row one after the other so the current situation is an improvement.

[terrya]

1. No.

That didn't work during Prohibition. It sure as hell isn't working in our "War on Drugs".

I understand what you're saying. I'm sorry you're going through...that must be incredibly tough being with that guy who smokes.

But making something illegal never works. People who want to get their hands on it will always find a way to do it. And it usually involves crime.

[Ellen Forradalom]

2. God I wish

If the world made any sense, I'd say ban it and be done with it. Unfortunately, the world makes no sense, so we're stuck with it.

[LynneSin]

3. I'm an anti-smoker and even I'll say "no"

But it should be left to the private homes. I don't think I'll ever get 2nd hand smoke just from being near someone who smokes because it happens so rarely in life anymore. But the smell just sticks with you when you pass by or are near it.

And for privacy of home there's not much I can to keep smokers from smoking near their kids, but I wish they would. My dad was a smoker (and he died from lung cancer at age 42 so please don't give me any shit about 'it's my rights') and my mother forced him into the basement if he wanted to smoke and never in the family car (he had his own he would take to work).

[SteppingRazor]

4. Oh, HELL no.

The illegal tobacco trade would make the drug war look like a goddamn pillow fight.

[Deep13]

5. Present.

:eyes:

Well, we could start at least by removing subsidies, raising taxes on it to pay for the damage it causes, removing corporate personal immunity from those who controll the production, making possession by a minor similar to under-age drinking for delingency purposes and selling tobacco to minors to the same degree of crime as providing alcohol. Also, the smoking age should be 21.

[LeftinOH]

6. Who *in. the. hell.* would answer 'yes'? Prohibition (1919-1933) was the

greatest gift that the American people ever gave to organized crime..and by the time it was over, they were so well organized that they easily branched out into other illegal trades. Would it ever be worth it to make tobacco illegal, when -even occasionally- law enforcement personnel or someone who saw something they shouldn't get 'rubbed out'? That's a rhetorical question, of course.

[Droopy]

8. I know a ban on tobacco would never happen

Most of the post is just me goofing on myself for the withdrawl symptoms that I'm going through right now. That's how I deal with stress sometimes. I wish I never heard of tobacco let alone was a smoker for 20 years.

[siligut]

7. I abstained. Though I understand where you are coming from.

Smokers who have become non-smokers tend to be more adamant than those who have never smoked.

I am not for bringing the law into things. However, education regarding health should begin in kindergarten.

I agree with taking the tobacco industry out of business though. Stop the manufacturing of pre-rolled convenient lung disease and easy money.

[sakabatou]

9. I think quitting products should be much cheaper

[Droopy]

11. I agree with that. In some states they are giving away quitting products

I live in Ohio and there is a quit hotline set up and manned by counselors. I just got done talking to one. I called the quit line a couple of days after I quit to get some positive reinforcement and they offered to call me again in a week to see how I was doing. And I just got off the phone with them. They are offering at least a two week supply of the patch for free to Ohio residents who want to quit smoking. I've heard you can get up to 8 weeks worth of patches for free, but I'm not sure how. Maybe they base it on your income.

Anyway, that's what Ohio is spending their money on from the tobacco lawsuit.

[flvegan]

10. Nah, I'm a "legalize everything" (almost) type.

I wouldn't do any of it, but I won't be happy until I'm buying Lotto tix behind someone buying $20 in gas on pump 4, an ounce of pot and a liter of absinthe.

Hell in a handbasket or bust.

[Chan790]

13. $20? That'll be like 2 gallons.

and if you think that anybody needs a liter of Le Vert Fee...wow. That'd fuck you up permanently...or at least most of a week.

[flvegan]

14. Yeah, but 2 gallons gets you home

Where you can enjoy your other two purchases.

[meow2u3]

12. We'd have a prison full of smokers

All those nicotine fits erupting in one place at the same time--I don't think so!

Ex-smoker logic: I quit, so everyone else has to quit under penalty of law.

[Droopy]

15. Damn straight. You must bow to my authority.

Shine my boots while you're down there.

[Deep13]

19. No, we'd have a prison full of former-smokers...

...as is the case in this and many other states.

[bigwillq]

16. No

People should have the right to smoke if they choose to. Plus, a lot of drugs are illegal but that doesn't stop people from using them. Smokers will find a way to get the product if it were made illegal.

[johnnie]

17. If they made everything that was bad for us illegal...

...life would suck. :)

I applaud your quitting there Droopy, keep it up.

I know I should quit too, but I really don't want to. Of course I know it's bad for me, but so are many other things I do. If I were to live in a bubble so I can live for 120 years, I would be more bored than I am now for sure.

I roll my own so I only pay about a buck a pack, I mainly smoke in my own home in which I live alone and I hardly ever go out because I basically feel like the scourge of the earth these days, so I don't feel I am killing off civilization with my second-hand smoke. Life is good.

[pitohui]

18. no it shouldn't be illegal

btw just so you know chewing gum and sunflower seed don't grow in the same habitat as tobacco

tobacco is one of the few legal crops that my relatives can grow and earn a living wage, and i am not talking about living well, but at least to have a lower middle or middle middle class lifestyle

i think sunflower seed is grown by big ag on big fields, in any case it is not grown in the mountains where my people have land


i don't remember any more where chewing gum comes from, some tropical tree i think

can't you leave the little guy ANYTHING, raising tobacco is one of the few farm crops left where you can actually have income without being a multi million corporation to begin with (and without doing something illegal, such as raising marijuana)

[billyskank]

20. No. Prohibition is stupid. It would make more people smoke.

And the cigarettes would be even more dangerous than they are now since you would hand criminals a monopoly on their manufacture.

This fucking puritan tendency on the US government has to stop. It doesn't achieve its aims and makes the situation far worse. What's more, the bastards have foisted their fucked-up drug policies on the rest of the world. Heroin was legal in the UK until 1971, when it was criminalised at the urging of the US government. Before then heroin addicts numbered in the hundreds nationwide. Now there are tens of thousands.

It is madness. Make it stop. Please.