Are you in favor of outdoor bans on smoking?

[Phillycat]

Pasadena, CA and North Royalton, OH, recently considered outdoor smoking bans. What say you, DU?

Disclaimer: I am three months smoke free and feel fantastic. At this point, I find others' cigarette smoke unpleasant, but I don't know if I'm in favor of outdoor bans. It would be great if we could discuss this without flaming the crap out of each other, no?

[Ian David]

1. Any place where our tax dollars pay to clean-up the non-biodegradable cigarette butts is fair game.

[Phillycat]

2. But isn't that a different issue? Littering?

We already have laws on the books about littering, that aren't enforced when it comes to cigarette butts.

[Bandit]

15. You think smoke in the air is not littering the air?

What is the difference? Trash on the ground or trash in the air, they are both polluting our Earth.If I were to dump any of the chemicals that are in cigarette smoke into the ocean I would be arrested for polluting the ocean or if I were to dump any of those same chemicals on the ground I would be arrested for polluting the ground but somehow you think the air is different...:crazy:

[Phillycat]

18. I didn't say that.

Please re-read my post. I was addressing the specific issue the poster raised - cigarette butts on the ground.

[NeedleCast]

34. So By Your (il)Logic

We should ban campfires, outside grills, matches, candles...they're all polluting our earth!

[Winterblues]

56. By your logic it is just fine to shoplift just a little

Just because it isn't a bank robbery it should be just fine and dandy. You attack but you don't say whether putting smoke (pollutants) into the air is the same as littering. What is wrong with throwing a gum wrapper onto the ground anyway? How about a burnt match stick? When does it officially become "littering" or "polluting"? when it is a giant factory belching out smoke?

[NeedleCast]

66. Not even close to what I said

the person I responded to suggest that no one should smoke because it is a source of air pollutants. I point out that a lot of sources of air pollutants are perfectly acceptable to society so why should smoking take the burnt of the ill?

[tom_paine]

73. I'm fully with you on this one, NeedleCast. You clearly pointed out the illogic

of the "ban outdoor smoking" side.

What's next, banning outdoor farting? Methane, after all, IS a greenhouse pollutant.

I'm not a smoker. In fact cigarette smoking makes me nauseous in enclosed areas.

But I'll be damned if I am going to try to hassle people who already doing a sort of public service by following the rules/law about indoor public area smoking by taking it outside, by now chasing them down, metaphorically-speaking, and then telling them they can't smoke outside either!

Not only that, if I said that the ghost of the original Tom Paine would return to haunt my ass!

This and other scary left-authoritarian modes of thinking remind me that unchecked power is not to be trusted on either side and in anyone's hands...mine, yours, anyone.

It's the genius of the Founding Fathers' System of Checks and Balances, which is now being destroyed brick-by-brick by the Bushies, who have "disconnected all the Constitutional burglar alarms".

But that is another topic for another day. For today: bravo for a nice couple of posts that said a lot with an economy of words. I'm envious.

[NeedleCast]

99. Thanks Tom

It's a shame that, more often that not, when dealing with members of the ban-brigade that no level of logic will prevail.

If you look downthread, you'll see a number of people complaining about people smoking near food store or restaurant entrances. I find it amusing that the same people who supported kicking smokers outside in the first place are now upset that smokers are smoking outside. It's amusing, but it also makes me want to kick an ice pick into my brain.

[tom_paine]

122. Everything's upside-down and inside out these days, that is why the Old American Republic

has fallen or is in the process of falling.

I know you don't fully agree with that (and I certainly hope it turns out you are right and I wrong about this), and I am not trying to start a fight, just speaking my mind.

Even our own side is infected with the 1/0 yes/no false dichotomies the Bushiganda Machine has laundered into becoming our National Mode of Thinking.

That's the thing about good advertising or good propaganda, it works at the subconscious level where it is impossible to defend against. Bushie gestalt-based propaganda takes that powerful insitution and has evolved it one step further, or maybe ten steps further.

I remember reading about a US State Dept. Official coming back from mid 1930s Nazi Germany, remarking how the propaganda "just sort of seeped in" it was so prevalent and self-referential.

Well, Bushiganda is much much MUCH more powerful than anything the Nazis brought to bear, and much much more subtle. Modern media saturation gives modern-day propagandists much much MUCH more powerful delivery systems for the propaganda.

Anyway, I digress. The thing is that all sides, me, you, all of us, are affected by it one way or another. Even if we are actively resisting it. That's the nature of the psychology of the subconscious.

Sorry to go off on that tangent, I just don't see how such radical psychological national reconstruction, performed over three decades with little opposition or understanding from the people who's job it was to oppose such thing, can be undone.

We Americans, collectively, are now rendered fully unfit to preserve liberty, and even unfit to understand it, the vast majority of us.

I don't want to give in, and I am not advocating giving up or anything even close to it. But to ignore the data is to deceive ourselves.

Things are too far gone to easily repair, the damage is as deep as our deepest national spirit. Maybe it can be turned around, I still have hopes. But if I was a betting man (and could be against my own team, so to speak, which I can't do, in football or life), I would bet on the forces of Bushie Tyranny and against the forces of Liberty and the Old Republic.

I'd give odds of five-to-one and still feel pretty certain I was going to make a bundle.

I only bring all of this up to say that, even our own side is infected with the Bushiganda-driven way of thinking, and it is quite clear in the ludicrous idea to ban outdoor public smoking.

Left, Right, I despair of both sides honestly. Maybe we deserve these last seven years, collectively, though not personally. Maybe we deserve what is almost surely coming.

It seems to me as if the stolen election of 2000 did not happen in a vacuum. It seems to me, as I look back and hindsight being 20/20, that maybe for quite some time We the People have been ready to accept and lick tyrant boot for a couple decades, and only now has it become obvious.

[NeedleCast]

126. Hehe, Well there be another thread soon enough about this subject

and we can bat that ball around some more if you're so inclined.

But yes, you and I do see mostly alike on the subject of liberties I think. I've always said that the agenda and goals of the extreme far right and extreme far left are pretty much the same...control. It's just how one arrives at that goal that's different.

To me the watchwords of being a Democrat, and more, being part of a democracy are tolerance and understanding of those who have different views than us. Far too many democrats, progressives, liberals, whatever you want to label yourself as, have forgotten that.

[tom_paine]

140. I consider myself a Radicalized Moderate, and I think we do mostly agree on the subject of liberties

I've always said that the agenda and goals of the extreme far right and extreme far left are pretty much the same...control. It's just how one arrives at that goal that's different.

THAT I am in 100% complete and total agreement with. 100%.

Here's where we disagree, although it isn't a huge disagreement, I think it is a seminal one.

You said:

To me the watchwords of being a Democrat, and more, being part of a democracy are tolerance and understanding of those who have different views than us. Far too many democrats, progressives, liberals, whatever you want to label yourself as, have forgotten that.

I mostly agree with it, but I believe that in times of extremism triumphant, such as now with the Bushies, that basic "common sense rule" is superseded. Sort of like how Newtonian Physics works to explain how objects move in the universe UNTIL one approaches the extremism of the speed of light, where Newtonian Physics breaks down and Einsteinian Relativity takes over.

Neither do I think that the breakdown of said rule, italicized two paragraphs above, is a good thing, and a symptom of a society becoming terribly sick, terribly off the rails. This is the same that I think about the rise of a growing number of Radicalized Moderates such as myself. Such a thing should be an oxymoron, and IS a nonexistant oxymoron in free societies that are strong and healthy.

Symtpoms. Canaries in a coalmine.

Going back to that rule, I would add the Einsteinian Relativity portion to your Newtonian Physics portion.

To me the watchwords of being a Democrat, and more, being part of a democracy are tolerance and understanding of those who have different views than us. Far too many democrats, progressives, liberals, whatever you want to label yourself as, have forgotten that.

Except in conditions of extremism triumphant, or in the face of the breakdown of the System of Checks and Balances, or both, where that kind of tolerance of lawless tyranny is poison. One does not tolerate extremists when they are in unchecked power or in danger of being allowed to destroy a society.

I am speaking of Bushies here, as the engine of extremism that threatens our society and has gained near-unchecked power.

My Dad, rest his soul, used to say this about bargaining with Arab Extremists, In Western-style negotiating, I give something up, you give something up, we compromise, each of us is a little unhappy with the result. With the Arab Extremists, you give up something and their posiion is unchanged. Give them more. Give up something more and their position is unchanged. Give them more. And so one.

Well change Arabs to Bushpublicans and you see the statement is equally true for both "negotiating" styles.

You don't tolerate that sort of absolutism, you FIGHT IT (and I am not speaking of violence here, but standing up to it in other ways). It is not a choice, because it is the only choice foisted opon us by the authoritarians, be they left or right. Fight them or kneel to them and accept everything they say is right and accept whatever they want to do with you.

Circling all the way back to the beginning, a result of this "hardening of the heart" is that one starts looking at everything and everyone that way. Suddenly, we start looking at people who agree with us 95% and focus on that 5% of disagreement for intolerance. The whole thing is a overreaction brought on, in most cases, by a heightened sensitivity as it were, from the change from Newtonian (as I am using it in this post) to Einsteinian, which is a disorienting thing for liberal types who are not used to being forced to embrace such intolerance as a necessity.

Yes, I know, there plenty who do embrace it, who love it, on left and right. I am not speaking of them, but of myself and those like me.

It's a complex issue, and I am having a hard time putting it into words, though I hope I have at least given you a flavor of what I eman and why I think DU is so "hard" and intolerant in the way you say.

Extreme conditions and pressures fuck with people. It is only human.

For myself, there's nothing I wouldn't give to go back to a pre-2000 or pre-1994 condition. I despise being this way and always much preferred to be the way you state.

But long-term and recent history has shown that ALL authoritarians from Bushies to Nazis to the First Warlord who first bashed his naighbor's head with a club, took his woman and his stuff, them controlled the tribe through intimidation and fear, that to be tolerant is seen by authoritarians as liberal weakness. Compromise is liberal weakness.

And they take advantage of such perceived weakness (which is not weakness but a strength, though tyrants smash through it every time, it seems, I will grant that as historic fact with few exceptions).

Like the Arab Extremists my father was talking about many years ago, give them something and their position is unchanged, they want more. Give them something ese their position is unchanged they want more.

Sometime you have to dig your heels in, BE INTOLERANT and say, "NO MORE!"

That's my take. You are generally right in a "Newtonian" situation, a strong and healthy Republic (1776-2000), but wrong for an "Einsteinian" situation where a small minority of Bushie extremists have hijacked the nation and cut all the burglar alarms.

Sorry if you get hit by blowback from that. That's not right, either. But things are how they are, whether we wished for it or not, whether we embrace it or not. Things are how they are.

And our only hope if we are to save something of the good things we WERE, collectively, is to GET INTOLERANT of Bushie Tyrants.

Unfortunately, as a result of that, we seem to get more intolerant in general, even to our own side, which is not a good thing.

[WildEyedLiberal]

162. Brilliant post

:thumbsup:

[NeedleCast]

154. Send me a PM if you want to talk more about it

Lets not hijack the thread

:)

[Mythsaje]

142. I absolutely agree.

There needs to be limits set on how much we can impose on one another, be it the soul-saving madness of the right, or the feel-good salvation of the left.

[Occulus]

43. Do you drive?

I wonder who pollutes more... a single smoker, over the course of a lifetime, or a single driver, over the course of a lifetime...

[Phillycat]

47. It's been scientifically proven to be the driver, by a lot.

[Indigo Blue]

130. You'd better be ready to ban cars, trucks, planes, trains, etc. that use fossil fuels.

They pollute "our Earth" way more than cigarette smoking does.

Want to be arrested for driving or riding in a vehicle that is polluting "our Earth"?

[noamnety]

4. I read the OP

and thought about that some before scrolling down. The first thing that came to me was a series of photos I took of sidewalks and the grassy area right next to the sidewalks, with a blanket of cigarette butts on them - I walked about a half mile and it was like that the entire way, it wasn't just a smoke area right outside a set of doors to a building.

[Phillycat]

5. Right, but as I said above, there are littering laws for that problem

that have not been enforced when it comes to cigarette butts. In Singapore, thousands (millions?) of people smoke, but you don't see any litter on the streets because the laws against it are so strict. The fines are huge.

[Ian David]

9. I've tried to get the littering law enforced. Not so easy. n/t

[Phillycat]

10. Well, sure. It's not a cultural priority.

But I bet if people started lobbying their local gov't representatives to enforce the littering laws with the same vehemence they use to request a ban on outdoor smoking, it would be a different story. :shrug:

[Midlodemocrat]

147. I'm a non smoker, life long and one thing that totally pisses me off

is someone driving while smoking and then tossing the butt out into the street. What? No ashtray? C'mon. It's gross.

[Spouting Horn]

75. After reding your post

I may have changed my mind.

Go to the beach, any beach, and by far the largest number of litter items are cig butts.

Cigarette smokers should only blame themselves for societal intolerance of their disgusting habits.

[Robb]

3. Indoor vs outdoor doesn't quite cover it

If you're going to ban smoking, you need to ban it in places where it bothers the most people.

There are outdoor situations where smoke will bother a lot of people, and there are indoor situations where a lot of people aren't bothered.

This really should be a self-regulating problem, but that ship's sailed I guess. Sort of like babies in restaurants. :hide:

[Phillycat]

8. It's always a situation where most people are thoughtful but a few aren't.

And those few tend to spoil it for everyone. The Ohio town was considering the ban because people were smoking right next to youth athletic fields during games. I mean, :wtf: Who smokes right next to a little league field during a game??

The other thing I realized being a recent nonsmoker is that smokers don't have any idea how far their smoke travels, with its attendant smell. I can smell someone smoking across the street, down the block. It's amazingly pungent.

[Clark2008]

13. Ok - take your argument to bars and pubs

Many people smoke when they drink and not otherwise. Smokers smoke in bars and pubs, as well.

So... since they're the majority in a good many of pubs and bars, shouldn't the NON-SMOKER have to acquiesce?

I think, too, that it should be self-regulating, but the anti-fair-traders are against this idea.

A smoking ban on restaurants was recently enacted in my state, but bars with 21 or over restrictions are still allowed to allow smoking. Guess what's happening? Restaurants are losing money because no one sits and drinks there after their meal anymore. People eat and leave and head for an over-21 bar.

Now, these same restaurants are lobbying for a forced ban everywhere. :eyes: Or, in the adverse, I've never seen so many outdoor beer gardens pop up in Southern town in my life (every restaurant that has the space is adding one).

My point is that there should be a "safe haven" of some proportion for smokers. Somewhere they can all gather (indoors) where the wait staff doesn't have a problem with it and so forth.

Why can't the business owner choose?

[Phillycat]

16. I too like the idea of letting the market decide.

I think most places would go nonsmoking, and some would always be smoking. The problem is would business owners take the chance of potentially losing business if they had the choice? I live in Philadelphia, we've had the smoking ban for years now in all bars and restaurants. They haven't lost any business - in fact the numbers went up, (until this year - which is attributable to the failing economy, not the years-old smoking ban). But when they were trying to pass the ban, business owners were lobbying hard to defeat it - they were scared about losing the business.

[Clark2008]

52. Oh, I do think it depends on where one lives.

I live in the South and more people probably smoke per capita than in other parts of the country (I have no stats on this, it just makes sense given the crops).

But, even the untrained eye can ascertain around here that restaurants are suffering - and that was pre-economic failings. People eat, leave and head for the bars.

And, as I said, more and more restaurants, who have the space, are building outdoor beer gardens to accommodate their smoking patrons and save some of the profits they used to turn on after-dinner drinking.

[Phillycat]

54. One of the things I thought was really smart about the Philadelphia ban

was that it was a blanket ban, all bars, all restaurants. (There is a provision for bars that sell less than 10% of their total income in the form of food, but they are so rare it's a negligible exception). So there was no place else for anyone to go. That way everyone was forced to get used to it all at once. Most people go outside to smoke, a couple people quit smoking because of the inconvenience, and a very few stopped going out entirely.

But I agree, I'm sure there are more smokers in the south. And your demographic may be older too, which also will contain more smokers.

[noamnety]

135. "Why can't the business owner choose?"

Because we regulate employee work conditions in this country. Used to be that employers could have workers in all kinds of toxic environments, and if they didn't like getting cancer from the conditions where they worked, the attitude was "to hell with you, go work someplace else then." Of course there isn't an infinite pool of jobs, so for many it came down to accepting unhealthy work conditions or not being able to support the family. Employers tended to be libertarians - you know, those people who buy into the notion that everyone has "free choice" when in fact some people's choices are severely limited, and some people (aka corporations) have far more power than the people (aka people) they are negotiating with when hiring.

Ditto for child labor, 80 hour work weeks with no overtime pay - or choice in the matter, ditto for having to work 8 hour shifts with no breaks, and so on.

Then we had this thing called unions, that started lobbying for fair and healthy working conditions for all employees. Unions had the radical notion that you should be able to work to support yourself without the job actually killing you.

[Bake]

109. What are you, anyway? A bloodhound????

Let me get this right ... you can smell ONE PERSON SMOKING ONE CIGARETTE, outdoors, from a block away? Is this in a city? Near a street, with cars and buses doing the exhaust thing? Out in the country, perhaps on a farm, with the attendant bouquet of cow/pig/horse/etc. manure?

And you can smell A SINGLE CIGARETTE?

Yer pullin' my leg, right?

:hi:

Bake

[Phillycat]

110. I swear to god!

Not a full city block away. But I'm saying, across the street and down the block aways, I swear to you I can smell the smoke! It may be because I only quit 3 months ago and I have like super smell about it. :rofl:

[noamnety]

138. I'm like that, too.

I was having problems in the classroom where I teach after hours one day, because my room reeked of smoke. To track it down, I had to go out of my room, across the hall, into another classroom, out the external door of that room into a parking lot, where someone was smoking. Once I found them, I was able to close the doors between them and my room, but my room still stank for a while afterwards.

I appreciate that they were enjoying their smoke outside, but the consequence was that they were making me nauseas inside my own work environment.

In my secret fantasy world, smokers would learn how to take a shower and not smoke before going to a grocery store. It's disgusting planning out a menu and buying food when some other person in the aisle has brought their ashtray smell in the store with them. When you all leave that aisle and move onto the next, guess what? Your stink is still there lingering behind you. (ditto for the perfume wearers. If I wanted to smell your favorite chemical, I'd carry a vial of it around.)

[Burma Jones]

6. In some places, like Playgrounds and Ball Fields

or anywhere you're compelled to sit still and watch something. But, in general, like on the streets of Manhattan, go ahead and light up, I'll be gone in a second........

[Phillycat]

11. People complain about smokers being grouped around office building doorways,

subway entrances, etc. Basically creating a cloud of smoke others have to walk through. Just wondering what you thought about that, since nonsmokers can't avoid the doorways to their buildings...

[Burma Jones]

40. You don't have to stand there

You're walking through, so, the irritation is momentary and I can live with that just fine.

[noamnety]

139. The irritation is not necessarily momentary.

Why would you assume that?

[Burma Jones]

153. Because in my experience, it is

and I think I was being asked how I felt about it.

[noamnety]

158. Your use of "you're" threw me off.

"You're walking through, so, the irritation is momentary"

If you meant "when I walk through, the irritation to me is momentary" I can't argue with that. That's not the case for everyone.

I understood the question to be more about how you feel about nonsmokers in general having to walk through smoke to get to work.

[Burma Jones]

163. Ah, OK, I was working on a Government Document yesterday....

so, I was suffering from imprecision.

nonsmokers in general? Smoking stinks, there's no getting around that, it just plain smells bad. Maybe it's time to treat it like defecation, something you absolutely cannot do on the street. Last Saturday night, I took my son to a Washington Nationals baseball game. There is no smoking anywhere inside the stadium, there is a cordoned area outside the stadium where people can smoke and then re-enter the ball game. We were sitting in the second deck of the stadium, and when the wind blew just right, you could smell the smoke. I went out and looked at the area from above and it was kind of pathetic. Made me chew another piece of Nicorette, whose lovely clean nicotine delivery system I have been using for 12 years now.

Facetiousness aside, I guess it is time to regard smoking as a private matter, something you shouldn't do in public. I mean, the smoking bans and the anti-smoking activism has a goal of making smoking something just plain unacceptable, yet still legal - I think we're well on our way there.

[Somawas]

7. Banning smoking is a ludicrous and as ineffective

as out War on Drugs. Fuhgeddaboudit.

[Phillycat]

12. Care to explain?

I can tell you that societally-induced shame about smoking was quite a powerful motivator for me in my quest to quit. Of course I had other reasons, # 1 being my health, but it was a factor.

[Somawas]

164. Sure.

But you are talking about social pressure, not legal inhibition. Smoking bans simply create black markets. And the allure of the forbidden. Tobacco is another drug. And a ban on smoking tobacco is going to be ineffective, divert resources elsewhere, etc. Much like the ban on marijuana.

[Quantess]

14. Speaking as the reasonable, disinterested party,

Bans on outdoor smoking seems extreme, for every scenario I can imagine.

I appreciate smoking bans in restaurants and bars, such as in California and Washington (Oregon, you are missing the boat!)

Please explain the background to the situation in Ohio. Pasadena, we also know that gay couples recently got married there, and there is a little old lady in the Beach Boys' song. Other than that, I am puzzled.

[Phillycat]

17. I don't really understand your comments about Pasadena.

:shrug:

Here's the background on the Ohio town:

http://suealtmeyer.typepad.com/cleveland_law_library_web/2008/04/north-royalton.html

[Dogtown]

19. Another futile battle

in the "War on Drugs".

Recently quit smoking. Repression just feeds denial...

[Phillycat]

22. Congratulations on quitting smoking.

It's a wonderful feeling, isn't it?

I don't consider smoking bans part of the War on Drugs. They are for other people's comfort and health, not the smoker's. :shrug:

[BadgerKid]

20. Outdoor smoking but away from the door.

It's kind of annoying needing to hold my breath entering or leaving a building.

Years ago I remember seeing patients and staff smoking inside a hospital's emergency bay. Eventually the admins learned of this and banned smoking in the bay. A picnic table was set up well away from the entrance. I think at the time the hospital set up smoking rooms inside for patients.

[Phillycat]

24. I work in a hospital.

It's a 20 feet away from the door ban here, and it is enforced. I think it only makes sense, especially because we have immuno-compromised (transplant patients, etc) and people on oxygen coming through those doors!

I can't believe how much the smell clings to my hair when I walk through a cloud of someone else's smoke.

[flvegan]

21. No, but I'm all for a ban on inconsiderate activity.

Like gathering 12 in a group and smoking outside the door in to and out of the office building. Waving that lit cig around not watching what or whom you burn with it. Flicking the butt on the ground like a moron. Be mindful of that smoke discharge, please.

See? Simple.

[Phillycat]

25. Yes, it would be great if it was self-regulated as someone said above.

Unfortunately, we haven't enacted a ban on douchebags in this country. Yet.

[fasttense]

23. As a former smoker and recent non-smoker all the bans are ridiculous

to me. Just a tactic to appease the people so Legislatures don't have to address real problems like the economy, increasing natural disasters, medical costs, hunger and the mass politicization of a once fair justice system. Instead, they pass silly little laws claiming that poorly researched studies indicate smoking outside causes cancer to others. Just a bunch of crap to appease the sheep.

Every time I see someone smoking I want to shake them and scream, it will kill you. But of course I can't. But outlawing it to ever decreasing zones is not the solution.

Here are some fact for you:

Numerous health insurance companies Will Not pay for quit smoking aides.

A one month supply of Chantix cost $178 here in TN and that's for the starter kit, it's more for the refill.

To get 110 pieces of nicotine gum costs and average of $45 here in TN and that will last you about 12 days, if you chew it like you are suppose to.

If these ignorant legislatures truly wanted people to quit smoking and stop littering, then they would provide quit smoking aides for FREE or subsidize the cost. Otherwise all the dwindling smoking zones are nothing but show.

[Phillycat]

26. They should definitely subsidize the cost.

I believe the profits from fines on violators of the smoking ban here in Philly went toward cessation programs. It seems most cities that enact the ban are doing that. :shrug: They could certainly do more!

I think the indoor bans are a good thing. I enjoyed them even as a smoker, because I can't stand when someone is smoking right next to where I'm eating. :puke:

[seaglass]

157. THAT should have been how the money was spent from the tobacco

co. lawsuits and how cigarette tax money should be spent - but that would be too logicial.

I'm glad my insurance covered the Chantix ($20 for the starter kit) - if I had to pay $178 out of pocket, doubt I would have even tried.

[sinkingfeeling]

27. Sure, ban smoking outdoors on people's on property. Then you can really breathe exhaust fumes!

[Phillycat]

28. Wha?

[sinkingfeeling]

29. You can suck in more car exhaust and industrial pollution if there's less cigarette smoke.

[Phillycat]

30. I am really not following you.

How do you mean?

[sinkingfeeling]

74. If you're so worried that people exhaling smoke into the air is bad for you, then

if you take away the cigarette smoke, you can breathe in all the car/truck exhaust fumes and industrial air polluants that fill our air. Will you feel healthier? Will you be healthier?

[Phillycat]

78. I don't think anyone is arguing that car exhaust isn't a pollutant.

But what do you mean by "if you take away the cigarette smoke, you can breath in all the exhaust"? You make it sound like there's a finite amount of room in the lungs for pollutants, and removing one makes more room for the other. ?? Your lungs can be polluted by both second hand smoke and car exhaust, even at the same time!

[sinkingfeeling]

141. Absolutely, so how does one know if it was second hand smoke or something else in the air itself

that caused the poor lungs to have health issues? I'm saying, that with all the other pollutants in the air that haven't been 'banned', what's the point of banning people from smoking outside?

[NeedleCast]

31. BAN MORE THINGS!

It's the only way all of us can be happy all of the time!

[Phillycat]

32. Did you want to address the smoking bans in particular?

Since that's what the thread is about?

[NeedleCast]

37. Sure, but it's not really the issue

I vote that I'm a non-smoker (mostly) and against an outdoor ban, since an outdoor ban is, essentially, a complete ban. Banned indoors, banned outdoors...that's not a ban, that's making smoking illegal. Yeah, they can stipulate that it's okay to smoke outdoors as long as there are no other people within two nautical miles, no passing aircraft that might fly into the cigarette fumes and no manned or unmanned space objects scheduled to over-fly the region for 24 hours, but essentially, it's a ban.

However, the more far reaching issue here is banning things. The has been, for about 20 years now (and maybe longer) this sense that if something bothers you, that no one should do it in your presence or, extending that, no one should do it at all. We mock people on the right when they suggest banning things like Harry Potter books in school libraries, but we often celebrate when the left manages to ban something that some of us deem inappropriate or worthy of censor.

This is, in effect, part of what a Democracy is supposed to protect - the rights of individuals. Further it is supposed to protect the rights of minorities over the majority if the majority tries to violate their rights. However, this often gets taken to an extreme where a very, very tiny minority (say on particular religious nutter who spazes out about Harry Potter books and tries to get them banned or the folks who got a Florida school teacher fired for "whichcraft" when he did a minor magic trick in class) forces the capitulation of the vast majority because their feelings got hurt or because they take issue with one small thing.

This sense of entitlement that everything around you should be perfect all the time fosters a "ban" culture. It's a highly irresponsible sense of entitlement that says "if I don't like something, neither should you!" or worse "if I don't like something, no one should!"

[Phillycat]

39. Do you not believe in the medical community's conclusions about second hand smoke?

The only way your argument is germane to the discussion of smoking bans (and here I'm restricting myself to indoor bans, since you are including all bans in your post) is to say that people's health isn't threatened by other's cigarette smoke. Because someone reading Harry Potter books can't kill someone else, but science says second hand smoke can.

[ProfessorGAC]

44. Which Conclusions?

There are contradictory conclusions. Look up the CDC's peer reviewed study. (I was on the peer committee.) The conclusion there was smoke is a Class III irritant and has no verifiable carcinogenic, mutagenic, or teratogenic effects. Other studies say otherwise.

So, which studies should we believe and which should we not?
GAC

[Phillycat]

46. So I guess your answer would be no, then.

Either you believe second hand smoke is harmful to people's health, or you don't. I believe it is. :shrug: And I say that as a long-time smoker (quit now) who had smoking parents.

[ProfessorGAC]

51. When Did I Say That?

Way to put words in my mouth.

GAC

[Phillycat]

55. Uh, your previous post?

You said you were on the peer-review study that said second hand smoke was an irritant, not a carcinogen. Unless you were secretly trying to say that you didn't agree with your own study's results, I think it would be pretty natural for a reader to conclude that you don't believe second hand smoke is harmful. :shrug:

[ProfessorGAC]

59. An Irritant Is Not Unhealthy?

And, it wasn't MY study. I said i was on the peer review committee. I supported their methodology and their statistics. They are the CDC's conclusions not mine.

I said the study calls it a Class III irritant. Class III irritants are, you know, IRRITATING to the respiratory system. To the average healthy person, there would be no IDLH and the TWA's or TLV's would be extraordinarily high. But, to someone with a chronic respiratory ailment, even something as relatively benign as sinusitis, it would be a problem.

So, like i said, you put words in my mouth. And now you've done it twice.

All i did was ask a question. Which studies should we believe and which shouldn't we? You never answered that. You just started a fight by putting words in my mouth.
The Professor

[Phillycat]

60. Okay, you're being ridiculous.

Since I have no desire to have a flame war on this thread, and most people are being reasonable, I'm going to stop responding to you. :eyes:

[ProfessorGAC]

64. How Convenient?

I ask a question, you accuse me of something i never said, and i'm starting a flame war?

I would suggest that you are the one being ridiculous. I just asked a simple question.

A bit cowardly on your part.
GAC

[NeedleCast]

53. Of Course I Believe It

Second hand smoke is dangerous and can kill.

So can driving a car irresponsibly or operating a chainsaw or parachuting near volcanoes but no one is suggesting we ban these things. Indoor bans should be the right of the business owner to decide. Now the argument to this is that all the things I listed are done with user choice be it driving, operating a chainsaw or risking being immolated in liquid hot mag-ma (please read with best Dr. Evil voice). If smoking is allowed indoors in an establishment you often don't have a choice about being located near smokers (besides the obvious choice of not frequenting the establishment). Outdoors it's usually a matter of taking a few steps to set yourself up-wind from a smoker. However, the ban brigade thinks that they shouldn't have to be inconvenienced to walk ten steps when they could just ban smoking altogether.

But getting back to the issue at hand, in outdoor settings, cigarette smoke would disperse to a harmless level nearly instantly but perhaps more importantly, out doors you have a choice to take five steps in any given direction and be clear of the offender unless they are hand-cuffed or otherwise secured to you in some fashion (in which you case you have larger issues to deal with).

This outdoor smoking ban essentially makes smoking illegal, as I said above. It's takes "ban laws" from a level of "I don't like smoking and you shouldn't do it near me" to "I don't like smoking and you shouldn't do it anywhere, ever."

[Phillycat]

57. This post of yours addresses the thread's subject. Finally. :)

Re: letting the market decide, please read what I wrote above about that subject; specifically, that business owners may not be willing to take the risk, fearing losing business, when in fact if all places become nonsmoking at the same time, no one loses business (actually, business increases).

As far as the outdoor bans are concerned, I basically agree with you. I did think it was interesting that the Ohio town was considering the ban because people were smoking next to youth athletic fields during games. Okay, first of all, what kind of douche do you have to be to smoke right next to a little league game?? And second, should kids have to breathe smoke even if it's not necessarily harmful to their health?

[NeedleCast]

65. But it's legal to smoke

That, to me is the issue here. I have strong objections to "banning" anything that is otherwise legal. I'm a big boy and I know smoking is bad for me but sometimes I choose to do it in social settings, especially when I'm drinking. As an adult, I am capable of factoring the risk vs my enjoyment. If tobacco companies were smart, they'd come right out and list everything harmful about their product. Then, when they got sued they could turn around and say "look, we told you this shit was bad for you and you did it anyway." Instead, by covering it up they left themselves open to massive lawsuits.

Anywho, I know that's off topic.

As far as people smoking next to kids on athletic fields - yeah, it's a douchebag thing to do but at the same time if a kid gets a few random puffs of air-dispersed cigarette smoke sent in their general direction that's just part of being a participant in our society. A society that sometimes imposes things we might not like on our sensory organs. Until we ban everything all the time, it will continue to be an imperfect world.

[Phillycat]

69. I understand your point and agree to some extent...

but I do wonder if society has a right or even a responsibility to do everything in its power to get rid of something that is objectively bad for all of that society's inhabitants. No one is arguing that smoking isn't shitty for smokers and everyone else, right? Across the board, no exceptions. You certainly can't say that about drinking - a glass of red wine at night, etc. I just wonder at what point the culture should stand up and say, "We are removing this thing because it's bad for all of us." Or should that never happen? :shrug:

[NeedleCast]

72. the problem with what you're saying is in who we let decide

what is "bad for all of society's inhabitants." Believe me, there are plenty of religious nutters and other extremists out there who will have a laundry list of what is "bad for society."

I prefer to err on the side of EXTREME caution when we start talking about what is bad for society.

[Phillycat]

81. Well, you are right about that.

I have to agree. I suppose in the end this reason is why I would come down against the idea of an outdoor smoking ban. Thanks for the civil discussion. :hi: Wish everyone could talk about things without getting all pissy. :D

[NeedleCast]

94. No Problem

One thing I found interesting in this thread (below) is the couple of people who have come along to decry people smoking out doors near building entrances. These are the sort of people I'm talking about when I use the word ban-brigade. Now it's not enough that you can't smoke indoors, they're being "irritated" by the people smoking outside because their perfect world is being shattered when they have to be inconvenienced with a few seconds at most of something they don't like.

These bans were, for the most part, a knee-jerk reaction to a small minority of busy-bodies who are so fragile that being near smoke sends them into spasms of poutrage and indignation that they're otherwise pristine environment is being invaded by something they don't like, no matter how minuscule. In the end, most of these problems could have been easily settle with a little common courtesy. Asking the person lighting up next to you in a restaurant to not do it usually worked in the past but that's never enough for the ban-brigade.

An example I love to use is MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). In it's inception, MADD was a good idea. It forced us to take a long look at alcohol related driving accidents and can take some share of the pie for it's role in getting tougher drunk-driving laws passed. MADD succeeded in it's mission. Having done so, it should have gone away, but instead, it mutated into something completely different. Now MADD doesn't just want you to watch your alcohol intake before driving, it wants to ban driving after consuming alcohol period. Going to a party, having a single glass of wine and driving home would warrant a DUI. MADD is still around because it's most extreme members gained control of the organization which had either outlived its usefulness or at least met it's goal because they couldn't let go. Same thing with the smoking ban-brigade. Anti-smokers (not to be confused with non-smokers) got their way and then, when getting their way wasn't enough, are now trying to see just how far they can go.

[Phillycat]

101. "Poutrage."

:rofl: I love that!

I think because the United States is so big, and people are so spread out (outside of the major cities) somewhere along the way we've gotten it into our heads that we shouldn't even be inconvenienced/bothered/annoyed/grossed out/pissed off by another person, ever. In other, more populous countries, and in big cities, people learn tolerance. You learn to deal with other people's cooking smells, body odor, whatever. :shrug: It's the price of living on earth with other hoomans. :D

[NeedleCast]

106. Yeah, ti's a solid word

I actually picked it up on a computer game forum many years ago and I saw it being used here a bit. It's a great word that applies so well to all those people who are constantly morally outraged and huffing and puffing about something.

I think because the United States is so big, and people are so spread out (outside of the major cities) somewhere along the way we've gotten it into our heads that we shouldn't even be inconvenienced/bothered/annoyed/grossed out/pissed off by another person, ever.

That's it in a nutshell. I'm not sure at what point (but I think it's a fairly recent phenomenon) a lot of people began to think that the world should cater to them, but it certainly happened. It just goes to show how spoiled we are in the US. As a person who's been to quite a few impoverished or "2nd world" countries, I can promise you without a doubt that shit like this isn't an issue. When you're struggling to get food or water, second hand smoke is not anywhere near your list of priorities. This is shit you ONLY find in the west.

You know what I hate? Old, smelly people on my subway. Being old does not give you license to stop practicing basic hygiene. But you know what? I suck it up, because I'm strong enough to realize that things aren't always going to be exactly how I want them to be and at the end of the day, a minor inconvenience like 15 minutes of old person body funk isn't going to ruin my day.

[Carnea]

129. That ban on parachuting near volcanoes seems like a no-brainer.

:evilgrin:

[Carnea]

128. Actually the science is inconclusive at best.

The reason people want outdoor smoking banned is because it smells and poor people do it.

[ProfessorGAC]

33. Good One! (eom)

GAC

[LeftishBrit]

35. Nonsmoker; in favour of bans in enclosed places; but outdoor bans are going much too far!

I don't want my nose and throat and lungs filled with other people's smoke; but this isn't going to happen to any serious degree in the open air. Fumes from cars are much more of a problem outdoors; and we don't ban cars.

[Phillycat]

36. I tend to agree with you...

What say you to the information that the Ohio town was considering the bans because people were smoking next to youth athletic fields during games?

[L0oniX]

38. The least they can do is ban smokers from smoking in front of food stores and restaurants.

Nothing like getting a wiff of pewtred smoke just before you go in to get food. How would you like to walk thru a cloud of fart gas as you go in to eat somewhere; at least that wouldn't be as harmful.

[Phillycat]

42. Yes, well, people are disgusting.

But that's not generally against the law. We can't prevent people from having terrible body odor, or wearing too much perfume, or just generally being assholes, and all of those things infringe on our pleasure. Indoor smoking bans make sense to me because other people's health is at stake. But outdoor bans seem more like punishment, a lot of the time...

[hogwyld]

132. We'll ban that next

All disgusting, smelly, and different people will be summarily banned. We are in the process of changing our fascism on the right, for dictatorship of the left.

[goddess40]

58. I agree, it's only common courtesy

Why should anyone have to walk through a gauntlet of smoke to enter a building. It's like setting up porta-potties by the entrance.

[NeedleCast]

67. Why?

Because smoking bans forced them out there in the first place.

Hahaha, I love this logic!! I'm really sitting here in my chair laughing right now. The anti-smoking brigade forced to reap what it sows.

Come, reap.

Hey! You guys are in my restaurant smoking and I don't like it!

Okay, we'll go outside.

Hey! You guys are outside my restaurant, smoking and I don't like it!

Tough shit, you put us here.

[Phillycat]

70. Well, because you live on earth.

There are always going to be things that suck about other people. We haven't outlawed them yet. :D

[L0oniX]

159. Exactly !

[NeedleCast]

68. Why Do you think those people are outside smoking

Because the anti-smoking brigade put them there by imposing indoor bans.

[L0oniX]

71. Well they don't need to be by the doors forcing people to smell the shit.

[NeedleCast]

77. Where do you expect them to go?

The ban brigade (which I assume you suppor(ed)) are the people who put them there. The ban brigade forced them out of the "smoking" section of restaurants and bars so they went to the next most convenient place...near the doors. Usually the door areas are the only areas that offer shelter in inclement weather.

Smokers populating doorways are the RESULT of poorly thought out ban-brigade bans. It is the RESULT of poorly thought out legislation in the name of protecting non-smokers.

Bitch and moan all you want about having to deal with, at most, a few seconds of a smell you don't like, but understand, you put them there.

[Name removed]

82. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Phillycat]

85. Ridiculous. You sound like a five year old.

[L0oniX]

89. Oh snap ...you won ...now go choke on yer cig.

[Name removed]

90. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[L0oniX]

92. Also alerted

[NeedleCast]

96. You're not a non-smoker

you're an anti-smoker.

Just sayin'. Sorry you're so fragile that a small amount of cigarette smoke introduced into your environment causes you such pain and suffering. I recommend staying inside your home. All the time.

[csziggy]

131. I'm one who welcomed the smoking bans

I'm am allergic to smoke, fragrances, and perfumes. Between smoking bans and liberal use of prescription allergy drugs, in the last several years for the first time in my life I can go out in public to a limited extent.. Until then, I DID stay in my home and on my own property nearly all the time. Still, even with all the drugs, I react to smoke that is blown directly on me and to butts left laying on the ground. So I STILL spend 90% of my time in my own house and on my own property.

And although I banned smoking in my house and on my property, smokers ignore my wishes. That is offensive. I am tired of banning the rude people who don't care enough about my to pay attention to my needs.

But for public areas, while I would appreciate a clear path to building entrances and no smoking inside the buildings, I have never advocated smoking bans in laws. I may cheer when they are passed, but I do not push for them - I think they are infringing on people's rights, even if it is the smokers' right to destroy their health and the health of those around them.

[NeedleCast]

134. Bummer

Sucks that you're that fragile.

I am unsure of why you are unable to stop people from smoking in your house and on your property. Where I come from, if someone I don't wish to be present is on my property, we call it trespassing and the cops show up and remove the offender. I would recommend you try this recourse as well.

While I am a sarcastic bastard I am not unsympathetic to your needs, but at the same time, if I were in your shoes it would be hard for me to ask others to stop what they're doing because of my reaction to it.

[csziggy]

145. People do stop when I ask,

but when I have signs up at the entrance to the house and at the barns and other locations, why do I have to police their actions?

I guess part of my frustration is in all the years of living with alcoholic parents, I never once saw them drink outside their own house. Yes, they had their problems which affected the family, but inflicting their addiction to booze on the public was not one of them. Ironically, they detested smoking and did not allow that inside their home.

If other addicts kept their addictions in the privacy of their own spaces, I don't think people would feel the need for bans.

[rucky]

152. Most municipal indoor bans include a certain distance from a door.

Ohio is 15 feet.

[truebrit71]

41. A) Last time I checked this was a legal product B) As long as there are fossil-fuel burning autos on

..the road, outdoor ciggies should be allowed...

The anti-smoking nazis need to back the fuck off on this one....and I say that as a recent quitter...

[Phillycat]

45. What say you to the information that the Ohio town was considering

the ban because people were smoking next to youth athletic fields during games? I think that's an interesting piece of information...disclaimer: for the most part, I totally agree with you about outside bans.

[Luminous Animal]

84. Yes! Let's ban outdoor driving!

I notice that no one wants to touch car exhaust.

[Phillycat]

87. Untrue; it's been brought up several times on this thread.

The argument doesn't really hold up, though. Car exhaust is without question a pollutant...and so is cigarette smoke. They're both bad for humans.

[Luminous Animal]

160. Then where is the hue and cry to ban driving?

I've never seen a post on this board seriously advocating for a ban on driving. But the habit is just as filthy and bad for folks health. From my point of view, it is a wholly manufactured "problem" to continue the pattern of citizen against citizen. I predicted many many years ago that they would go after fat people next, and lo, fat people are becoming the new pariahs to the point where government agencies and representatives are considering fat taxes.

Yes, smoking is a health problem second hand smoke is a health issue. But a few whiffs picked up on the street has a mere impact compared to breathing in exhaust day in and day out. Not to mention the thousands of poorly regulated chemicals we are exposed to every day.

Yes, over-eating is a health problem. But individual fat folks are no match for the billions of dollars in agribusinesses and food manufacturers who employ every psychological trick in the book to get us and our kids hooked on their products.

Yes, drug and alcohol abuse can be a health problem, but individuals are no match against the industrial-prison complex and law enforcement budgets that have a voracious appetite to restrict our liberty and freedom.

Picking on smokers, over-eaters, addicts, and alcoholics obscures the gazillion pound gorillas on our backs. I.e., corporations. If individuals would pressure local governments to wrangle with that, we'd live in a much cleaner and healthier society.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, until the anti-smoking yahoos start a campaign to ban cars, I'll continue to treat them with contempt.

[Iggo]

48. Outdoor bans are stupid.

If they institute the outdoor ban, all the cool people would have to stay in the restaurant with all the uncool people, instead of excusing themselves for a smoke.

[Phillycat]

61. Do you know, I don't know anyone who smokes anymore.

I don't have a single friend who smokes. I'm amazed by that! There were periods in my life when I didn't have a single friend who DIDN'T smoke. :D

[Bake]

115. And all this time I thought *I* was your friend ... sniff, sniff

:rofl:

I gotta go burn one now.

Bake

[Phillycat]

119. Okay, a single friend that I could, you know, pick out of a lineup.

:rofl:

[Bake]

137. You'd know me! I'd be the one with the Marlboro dangling from my lip

:rofl:

Bake

[sammythecat]

49. While it's still unspoiled and pristine,

The government should take steps right now to ban smoking in outer space.

Take preventative action before it even starts. Don't wait until the precedent of smoking in outer space is already established. This ban would, of course, also include the surfaces of Mars and the Moon.

[Phillycat]

62. Can you even smoke in space?

Do cigarettes burn? :D

[sammythecat]

102. You'd have to do it inside your space suit.

They need oxygen. A gun will fire in space however. Gunpowder has it's own supply of oxygen chemically locked into it's ingredients. It will ignite in a zero oxygen environment. Rocket fuel is the same way. Half of that big orange tank the space shuttle rides into space is filled with liquid oxygen that enables the hydrogen to burn.

I suppose Philip Morris could figure out a way to include an oxidizer in with the tobacco so smokers could step outside the space ship to light up. The only problem I see is that every exhale would set you spinning like a pinwheel. Maybe it would be more trouble than it's worth.

[Phillycat]

104. You've clearly never been a smoker.

:rofl: More trouble than it's worth, they don't know the meaning of the words!

/former smoker

[sammythecat]

107. I actually had the very same thought as I wrote that.

I'm a long time smoker and you're absolutely right. Few people are as persistent and ingenious as a frustrated smoker. I don't know who invented fire, but I bet it was a smoker.

[mdmc]

50. I support prohabition

Ban everything. Then we can have super fun speakeasies.

For the record, I support a ban on litter. For some reason smokers think others enjoy walking over their butts.

[Phillycat]

63. Is "prohabition" a combination of "prohibition" and "cohabitation"?

:D

[mdmc]

86. I spell creatively my friend

peace and low stress!

[bobbert]

76. So are these bans outdoor everywhere or within 100ft or so of a public building

Such as laws that are already in effect around schools and hospitals. I would be glad if it was also that way at restaurants and other businesses, but don't think it's necessary to make it a law because I have few interactions where smokers annoy me anymore.

[Phillycat]

80. The one in Ohio was being considered for all outdoor venues where

people gather - like outdoor sports arenas, parks, etc.

The one for Pasadena I believe was city-wide, but that wouldn't be the first town in California to do that, not by a long shot. It was quite a while ago that Carmel passed the complete outdoor ban.

[Mountainman]

79. Where I work we have no smoking areas outside. We have designated smoking areas outside.

Smokers have to go away from buildings to open spaces to smoke while on county property.

[Phillycat]

83. Is one of those "outside"s supposed to be "inside"?

Your post isn't clear to me.

[Mountainman]

97. I work for the County of Santa Barbara, Smoking outside on county property is only permitted in

designated smoking areas which are away from buildings. You can't smoke on county property outside unless it is in one of the designated areas which are small areas some with picnic tables etc. In other words you can't smoke outside on county property anywhere you like only in the smoking areas.

[L0oniX]

88. It's sad to see all these smokers defending it. Not only do they defend it...

but they try to annoy non-smokers by smoking by food store and restaurant entrances ...like they are too lazy to walk a few yards away from the doors.

[Phillycat]

91. Oh, I see. You're just trying to start a flamefest.

Bored, are you?

[L0oniX]

93. IBTL

:popcorn:

[backscatter712]

95. No. Outside's fair game.

I understand that in confined spaces where the smoke builds up, it's a health hazard. Outside, let them have all the cancer they want - I'd like to think we still live in a free country.

Proposals like this are french for tobacco prohibition, which will work about as well as alcohol prohibition in the '20s, and about as well as the War On Recreational Pharmaceuticals works today.

In other words, let's not go there.

And no, I don't smoke.

For that matter, certain indoor places where smoking is established part of the culture, like, say, bars, should be allowed to let people smoke. It's pretty much clear that you don't walk in there at all if you don't want to breathe secondhand smoke.

[Nye Bevan]

98. I don't like people urinating in public

because I have to step away from them to avoid getting urine on my shoes.

And I don't like people smoking in public because I have to step away from them to avoid breathing in unpleasant toxic fumes.

I am in favor of banning public urination *and* public smoking.

[Rainbowreflect]

100. A complete outdoor ban is silly, but I hate walking into work or a

business and having to pass a group of smokers with a cloud hanging over them. I am very allergic to cigarette smoke and it makes me ill.
I would like to see there be a ban on smoking within 5 yards of an entrance to a building.

[Phillycat]

105. This seems like it might be problematic.

On city streets, 5 yards away from a building's entrance is in the street. Also, would you also have the building provide shelter for smokers if they're not allowed to be near the door? (That's why most smokers huddle around doorways in the rain.)

I say this as someone who really really doesn't like the smell of smoke anymore - it sort of makes me retch, to be honest.

[GirlieQ]

133. Actually, if you provide a shelter

the area becomes 'indoors'...

[blues90]

103. I think it's insane

I smoke but even if I did not banning smoking outdoors is taking things to an extreme.

If this is how people think then stop driving your damn cars and stop with your outdoor BBQ's and leave to overdose of perfume and other crap at home.

Are people going insane?

It's not really even about smoking what it is about is allowing people some sort of personal right to shoot their mouths off giving them what they think is some power trip over others.

People love to tell others what to do and all that is needed is to offer them a reason.

I have had idiots where I am standing down wind in 30 MPH Santa Ana winds and they are waving their arms with this distorted wrenched face and there was no way in hell the smoke could possibly reach them.

I don't like babies screaming in stores so ban them , I don't like people chomping with their mouth open with food rotating and rolling around like clothes in a drier , it makes me sick and I need to gain weight so they are killing me so ban them and fine them . I don't like people who chew gum and toss it on the ground , I step in it and get stuck , it's a hazzard to ban them or they stick it on the bottom of a desk and the bacteria produces illness , shoot them.

I don't some sweat hog using my phone with greasy hand cream and ear wax and spit so they also should be banned.

I don't like poeple who don't wash their hands after wiping their ass , think about that! The people who eat near your keyboard and then type and leave behind god knows what, so ban them too .

I don't like close talkers while I have to dodge spit and food particals, that stuff can kill you and i could step in front of a car backing away from them so they too pose a heath hazzard.

With all the crap pumped into the air from every source one can imagine and most people never even consider or even know what most of this is , they pick on what is most talked about filling their empty heads with fear which is the easiest think on earth to do and direct it all at one thing , that is the insanity and ignorance people display. As long as it is not them who are being sought out then it's all fine.

Here is tne new law , you don't people smoking then when you point them out to the cops for the fine then you pay for them to quit smoking or shut the hell up and go breath somewhere else, and quit farting , it's destroying the air we breath and contributes to global warming.


What's that youn say you hate bugs so you go out and buy bug insecticide and spray it near where I breath , do you know you are killing me and that crap hangs around a lot longer than smoke.

[underpants]

108. outdoor Smoking bands???

[Bake]

111. I think we should also ban alcohol, fast food, red meat ...

Oh wait. I like all those things, too. Nevermind.

It's Marlboro time for me!!!!

Bake

[ProfessorGAC]

114. Hey Bake!

I think we should place a ban on bans! Whaddaya think?
The Professor

[Bake]

118. Dammit, ProfG, that's a great idea!!

I'll get right on it after I get back from my smoke break!

A BAN ON BANS!!! Next we can make lists of all the lists we don't like.

Bake

[jespwrs]

112. I voted "other: explain"

I am a smoker. I do not mind at all if establishments ban smoking inside or outside. In fact I don't like to smoke inside much. I do at home about half the time, the other half I sit on the porch. At my job, you can smoke outside in designated areas. These areas are far away from any entrances or exits to the building-places where no has to go unless they want to smoke. It used to be that the smoking area was right outside the back door, so everybody had to walk through it, so I understand why they moved it.

As for restaurants and places with outdoor seating, if they want to ban smoking, that's fine with me, I'll respect their wishes. As for places like public parks and what not, this shit wouldn't be a problem if people would be courteous. Like if I go to a park that's crowded and there's loads of kids around, I'm not going to throw down my blanket between two families and smoke it up. I can understand that irritating people.

What I don't understand is the law forcing a business to do any of this. If a bar wants to allow smoking or ban smoking, they should be able to do either without interference.

[Phillycat]

113. But that's the problem right there, people AREN'T courteous like you are.

There are lots of people who would throw their blanket down next to a bunch of kids and light up. And then there are uncourteous people on the other side, who will hunt a smoker down who's huddled as far away as possible and scream at them for smoking. Because people can't self-regulate, laws are passed. :shrug:

[jespwrs]

123. True

Idiots always ruin shit.
I'm cool with designated smoking areas in public zones. In private zones, I think it's up to the proprietor. I don't think there should be an outright ban in outdoor public areas though. It's when people want a ban just out of sheer annoyance from the odor that I get annoyed. I am very sensitive to strong perfume-it gives me awful headaches and makes me sneeze a lot, but I can't expect a ban on perfume. I know perfume isn't universally harmful though, so here's another example that happened to me once: I'm at the bus stop and I step away a few yards to smoke, away from the enclosed bus shelter. Someone complains just as a giant city maintenance truck goes by and unleashes a huge cloud of diesel exhaust on all of us. Cigarette smoke is an easy target to pick on when the pollution from an everyday convenience like driving is causing more pollution and problems that effect everyone than a whiff of cigarette odor.

[jus_the_facts]

116. It has to be said....

:P

[GirlieQ]

117. Surprised no one's brought up the higher incidence of drunk driving

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080521120216.htm

I live in a town that banned smoking, but the county and state did not enact a ban. The numerous bars that sprang up at the city line (one of them is even called The City Line Bar and advertises the fact that you can still smoke there) are actually causing more drunk driving. We're not a large city and don't really have a transit system (busses stop running at 10 PM). We don't have many taxi's, and most of the cab companies won't pick people up or take them to certain zones of town because it's one of those terrible suburban sprawl cities. Parking in the bar district is a tow-able offense between the hours of 4 and 5 am, so you can't just leave the car and walk home. I'm sure that my city is

Also in the city's ban is a 20 foot 'smoke free' zone around all public building entrances. Totally unenforceable, unless cops want people smoking in the middle of the main drag in town, which happens to be the street all of the brownstone bars are on. The city finally got around to putting in some cigarette recepticles for the buts that they generated outside due to the ban, but the little tiny holes in the top are always clogged up. Oh, did I mention that these trash things just came about 6 months ago, and the ban was enacted nearly 4 years ago? Also, due to the historic nature of the bar buildings, companies aren't allowed to put up trash cans/cigarette bins.

The only argument here besides 'I don't like where the smokers went after I banned them from smoke-friendly areas' seems to be 'Won't someone think of the Children?!?' Cigarette smoke from the bleachers or sidelines of a peewee game isn't going to harm your precious snowflake any more than anything else on earth. If anything, all of the NIMBY's and banners and anti-'s can use the smokers as an object lesson for their precious child when they're back in the SUV on the way home, perferably at the expense of the cyclists trying to share the road. Everyone wins.

[Phillycat]

120. Direct quote from the article you cited:

"It still appears that the positive health effects of smoking bans outweigh the negative, he says, but the real conclusion is that a universal smoking ban would eliminate the danger of people trying to avoid the individual bans."

So that article's probably not a good one to prove your point. :D

[GirlieQ]

127. My point is that there are unintended consequences to everything

and that 'banning' legal things, ignoring property rights, and reactionary laws are dumb.

Theoretically, if the bar owners and workers aren't smokers (which from my limited set isn't typically the case), they will be healthier because they're working in a safer environment. There's one marginal gain from all of the hassle, litter, loss of business, and drunk driving. Whooptie do.

Even before I was a smoker, I was fighting the indoor ban here. I didn't like the smell of smoke, but I could choose to go to a place where the owners didn't, either. There were several bars, and about 50% of restaurants in town (and these were published in the paper while the ban was being argued) that were already non-smoking. All the ban did was push business outside of town (reducing revenue), create litter, and make the sidewalks harder to walk through. Banning legal actions on private property is a mindbogglingly bad precedent, even without the added problems that the other posters have mentioned.

Banning smoking outdoors on private property has the same legal problems as the bans indoors, with none of the supposed health benefits.

I somehow didn't get my proofed post in that first post... stupid posting at work.

[NeedleCast]

136. I think I'm in love

and that 'banning' legal things, ignoring property rights, and reactionary laws are dumb.

That sort of logic is dead sexy.

[NeedleCast]

121. Great Post!

Welcome to DU!

[NeedleCast]

124. This poll indicates that 80% of DU is sane

That sounds about right.

:evilgrin:

[question everything]

125. Thank you, DUers, for the sanity of this poll

Most of us - smokers and non-smokers object to the idea.

(Heck, I even object to force all bars and restaurant to be completely smoke free, preferring to make my own choice of which establishment to patronize - and that was a very heated debate back then).

[Mythsaje]

143. As a friend once said

"I'll stop smoking in your air when you quit driving in mine."

[RamboLiberal]

144. My answer is not on your poll

I'd ban smoking only in certain outdoor settings. Beach since inconsiderate smokers think the beach is one giant ashtray and leave their icky butts in the sand.

Outdoor stadiums since there are times it blows back on the other spectators.

Amusement parks and playgrounds. I don't think smoking belongs around kids.

Otherwise I have no problem with outdoor smoking.

[Evoman]

146. I have an answer to whole problem.

Okay, so car pollution is bad, right? Smokers keep telling me this. And smoke pollution is equally bad, or so the nonsmokers tell me.

The perfect idea: cut out the car pollution by having cars run on smokers. No, I'm not advocating smokers be turned into fuel. I'm saying that we create cars with a big hamster ball in the back. The smoker runs in it, creating electricity and making the car run. Also, the smoker gets good lung excercise as well as smoke.

It's win win.

[taterguy]

150. There's more drivers than smokers

Unfortunately

[Evoman]

156. It's the tobacco companies, for god's sakes. A little relaxtion of all those unfair

advertising rule, and we can change this dangerous trend. Imagine....endless fuel, decreases in population.

Like I said..win win.

[taterguy]

161. Do you work for a funeral home?

[Sheets of Easter]

148. As an ex-smoker, anything that keeps me from being tempted helps.

With that in mind, I'm not too keen on outdoor public smoking bans.

[silverweb]

149. Other.

It depends on the outdoor area and how dense it is with other people who may be bothered by smoke. Of course, if people these days were actually sensitive to each other and used common courtesy, this wouldn't be quite such a big problem.

As for me, I smoked two packs a day for nearly 25 years and quit cold turkey almost 12 years ago, so I've been on both sides of the fence.

The thing that astonished me most was how sensitive I became to cigarette smoke mere months after I quit. As a smoker, I had really believed that nonsmokers were exaggerating their claims of sensitivity and being obnoxiously melodramatic, but I was wrong.

[johnnie]

151. I think they should take us smokers out back and shoot us all

Then the rest of ya all can spend the rest of eternity looking for something else to blame for death.

[readmoreoften]

155. Yes. You nailed it. It's second-hand outdoor smoke that we should spend our time fighting.

Total idiocy.