Ban Smoking

[CJofWolfcreek]

If it's so god awful and evil ban it completely. No growing, no harvesting, no manufacturing, no shipping, no sales, no smoking and not a single penny of taxes from any of those activities. While we're at it, lets ban driving fuel burning vehicles and shut down all those drive through windows where the bank teller or kid handing you your burger has to suck in your fumes.

Bans are BS and only the property owner should have a say of whether or not a legal activity can occure on their property. Restruants, bars, stores should all be able to allow what they want. If their customers don't like it they can vote with their feet and dollars and go elsewhere.

 

[Onomea]

Well, I'm on board with most of the stuff said here except that part about the skunk butt in the face...

I'd much rather have a good looking gal smoking in my face than a skunk's butt, but hey! Maybe that's just me...

 

[mkk41]

President Reagan once said that marijuana was a 'gateway drug' , which started people on a path to harder drugs. BULL!

Everyone I know that tried smoking pot , already smoked cigarettes.

Ever see a smoker that was denied their next 'fix'? They get all ansy and irritated and even violent.
We went non-smoking in the building at work , and I wish they'd go no smoking on the entire premisis. Can't find half my workers , usually outside smoking. They sneak out for one about every hour , then someone else comes out , so they might as well have one more.

If cigs ain't an addictive drug , I don't know what is.

 

[cp1969]

Nobody would care if other people smoked, if the tobacco companies could come up with a hybrid tobacco that didn't stink so BAD!

I think whatever today's tobacco is is the problem.

I grew up in a household with two parents who smoked unfiltered Camels. I do not recall anybody's clothes stinking or finding the smoke objectionable.

But today, I can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke. Something has changed, I don't know what. Maybe me.

Regardless, it is none of the government's business who smokes in any business. Let the business owner decide. If he allows smoking and enough people won't go because of that, he'll change his ways. The market is a wonderful thing.

 

[Marksman]

I agree with the above poster, I grew up with both parents smoking unfiltered chesterfield cigarettes and don't remember the smoke stinking like the smoke from today's cigarettes. Today's light brand smoke is absolutely putrid and repulsive, my opinion is that is a result of something cigarette manufacturers have added to the tobacco to make cigarettes more addictive than they were years ago. Back in 1987 there was research discovered in Germany that indicated American cigarette companies were working on tobacco that would make cigarettes more addictive. The plants were grown in South America, the covert offshore research work was stumbled upon by reporters doing research on the Iran/Contra affair. I believe it resulted in the congressional investigations of big tobacco companies. It kills me to see young people lighting up at almost $5.00 a pack when the danger associated with smoking and second hand smoke are so well known.

 

[Bullet Bob]

I don't care if somebody smokes outside, but I'm so tired of seeing smokers flinging their butt on the ground I could scream. I often watch them getting ready to go in the office I work in; there's a receptacle near the door, but it's evidently so much more fun to just flick them away as they walk toward the door. It's the same when I'm driving - don't want that nasty thing in their car, so out the window it goes. Self-centered slobs who don't have any respect for others.

 

[JcMack]

I smoked cigars for a few years. During that period I came down with the flu or something, and was laid up for about a week with no craving for a cigar. When I got back in my truck after a week I was overwhelmed by the smell. I quit smoking cigars, and tried a pipe. One winter I'm in the truck puffing on the pipe, and looked to the left. My pipe hit the side window and a shower of sparks erupted. The sparks burned several small holes in my polyester suit pants. The whole pipe thing was a ridiculous chore trying to keep it lit anyway, so I gave it up. I haven't smoked in 35 yrs.. I don't know what the domestic tobacco/cigarette production represents in the way of jobs and dollars produced for the U.S. economy. I'd like to know that figure. When I was a teen I was the only one that didn't smoke. My father smoked four packs a day for 45 years, he died at 64 of emphysema. Smokers do need to police up their butts. Smoking is banned on the campus grounds of the school across the street. The kids were walking across the street to smoke and lining the curbs over here on this side with butts. Neighbors must have complained as that practice has stopped. Everyone my age I know has quit smoking. The evidence of smoking's ill effects are overwhelming.

 

[LHS]

Where I work (a nationwide company) they have decided to give us a $6.00 a week break on our insurance if we do not smoke. Never have so I'm happy. Thing is if you do smoke, they will give you FREE gum/help/whatever it takes to get you to quit. I told our HR I wanted about 10 packs of nicorete gum to help me quit. She said no as I don't smoke. I said "They get it for free, why can't I?". Never hear back from her.

 

[BarbC]

The building I manage became "smoke-free" a few years ago after a heavily smoking tenant (on oxygen too) left behind a heavy residue of nicotine in every crack and cranny.

We have two smokers left. The man goes outside whenever he wants a cigarette and the woman sneaks them at her bedroom window once in a while. Personally, I don't care or mind that she does this but there is another tenant that is driven crazy by it. They put me in the position of being the smoking police. I really don't believe that the other tenant can be bothered by this smoke when they are separated by another apartment. When she smells cigarette smoke in the hall, it could be from the male tenant's clothing as he walks by (he lives on the other side of her).

Meanwhile, on my wait list is another tenant from another company building who says she is being driven crazy by the surreptitious smoking from her downstairs neighbor. I just hope the vacancy comes up on the other side of the building.

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

I still cherish the freedom to kill ourselves with smoking overeating and drinking (not drinking and driving mind you-just drinking). The government needs to understand that freedom means freedom to make bad choices as well as good. Government has become a wealth re distribution tool as well as the primary economic engine that runs the country. Read Bastiat's "The Law" if you can find it and you'll see what I am saying. The government doesn't care about smoking on any type of altruistic sense whatsoever-it cares cause it costs money-and that should NOT be a government concern-but because we have allowed it, it has.
Just my opinion-but I'm right on this one.

 

[dmar]

I still cherish the freedom to kill ourselves with smoking overeating and drinking (not drinking and driving mind you-just drinking). The government needs to understand that freedom means freedom to make bad choices as well as good. Government has become a wealth re distribution tool as well as the primary economic engine that runs the country. Read Bastiat's "The Law" if you can find it and you'll see what I am saying. The government doesn't care about smoking on any type of altruistic sense whatsoever-it cares cause it costs money-and that should NOT be a government concern-but because we have allowed it, it has.
Just my opinion-but I'm right on this one.

Not that you need it, but I'll agree 100% with you on these comments! This is America, it's all about the money...

The smoking bans are always a tough one for me, as I do not want any of these foolish government regulations to be allowed. However, I do believe that it is hideous to be subjected to a cloud of noxious smoke inside a restaurant. It's even worse for my children to have to deal with it... I know the argument is that we could go to another place, but come on, you really should be able to go where you want without this type of problem. I've lived in states where indoor bans have been enacted, and it really is a much better living experience.

Let's face it, no matter what some hard-headed people have to say, smoking causes a lot of serious health problems/death. No, not everyone that smokes, just many/most of them... I shoot trap with a guy that smokes like a chimney. He's 86 years old, and doing great; he's the exception, not the rule.

As for outdoor/public smoking bans, it does seem like much more of a government intrusion/stretch to me. Especially in open venue areas like parks.

I do agree with the 'what's next' comments, as it is the general nature of government to continue down the 'slippery slope' and continue to invade our freedoms to gain more power and control. I saw where NY was trying to put in sin taxes for candy, soda, sugar products! Candy, sin, come on! And why do people in NY, and everywhere else for that matter, put up with this type of government? Do they just feel un-empowered, are people just not willing to take the action necessary for their representatives to hear them, or do they deep down really just want somebody else thinking for them...?

So, this brings me back to my having a problem with these types of government restrictions, even when I, and my family, may benefit from not having to endure horrible cigarette smoke in restaurants anymore. Overall, I would think that it's best to not have the government making our decisions for us, but that's just me. But hey, these issues are not as easy as they seem, or are they...?

 

[blujax01]

I quit 11 months ago. I will not put up with the odor in a closed environment. I will not place myself in that position. My choice. My consequences. My responsibility.
Outdoors, I do think cigarette smoke stinks but no worse than bus fumes. Interestingly enough though, if I'm standing on a corner with a group and a bus pulls up, even though my eyes water and my throat constricts as I'm sure others do, no one reacts. At all. Ever.
However if someone sparks a Camel in that same group, all Hell breaks loose.

There should be some common sense employed. If a person owns a bar and wants to allow smoking, so be it. There are lots of other bars. And to anyone who says: "Well what if I want to go to that bar? I can't because of the smoke." You're not welcome there. You don't want to be there any more than they want you there. You know it, they know it. Go fight for something of substance.

 

[ChattanoogaPhil]

I know a hospital around here makes smokers go quite a distance away from the hospital to smoke.

Memorial Hospital here in Chattanooga will not hire anyone who smokes or uses tobacco products.

 

[mtgianni]

If 2nd hand smoke is a real issue, why do companies confine their smokers to tiny "butt huts" and make all smokers take their smoke breaks in there? Where I work, they won't even let smokers stand one foot outside the butt hutt. There is no ventilation, other than what the wind provides.

Either smoking is addictive or it isn't. If it is, many of these people are presumably unable to quit. Yet, they are forced to feed their habit in an environment in which they cannot draw a breath of fresh air for all the second hand smoke of the other people confined with them.

Why don't they just quit? Big Government tells us that Big Tobacco has laced the cigs with chemicals to enhance addiction, therefore they CAN'T quit. That was the whole point of shaking down Big Tobacco for all the billion$ they've paid in extortion to Big Government lately.
r.

Why do smokers get a break any time they want and the rest of us get a 15 minute coffee break no more than once every morning and afternoon?
I like the shirt that says "Respect tobacco, Native ceremonial use only".

 

[Mike1957]

If we just have to ban something, why not ban government. It`s far more destructive and dangerous than anything else ever created by the human race so far.

 

[Wayne02]

BTW, all you plus size guys and gals better read up on what they have done to those filthy smokers, your turn in the barrel is coming up real soon.

Yep, be careful what you wish for, because you may be the next target. The writing is on the wall and the fat people are next.

Employers and public places have little 'smoke shacks' on the premises where the smokers gather, plenty of room next to them to install the forth coming 'fat shacks' where the fat people will gather.

 

[therevjay]

Why do smokers get a break any time they want and the rest of us get a 15 minute coffee break no more than once every morning and afternoon?
I like the shirt that says "Respect tobacco, Native ceremonial use only".

Like Kriss Kristofferson sang "Everybodys gotta have somebody to look down on, thats when they feel better then at any time at all".

Beware, you coffee drinkers could be next.

 

[loutent]

Sad story....I know a family of four.. A man, his wife and two daughters. He had smoked for years. He is close to 60, one daughter is mid 30s, the other is lower 30s. The wife died of breast cancer a few years back. Both girls had / have breast cancer. The man has throat cancer. He quit smoking, but sadly too late.. Research has shown second hand smoke greatly increases the chances of getting breast cancer.

That is a sad story.

When you say "research has shown...." could you provide a link to what research you are referring to? As I said earlier, I have done quite a bit of my own research on second hand smoke and most of the sensational conclusions are just that - repeated and quoted so often that everyone just accepts it - I see it repeated over and over on the "news".

Not to be argumentative here and of course we all agree that second hand smoke smells bad and the butts are worse, but most if not all of the studies that were done over many, many years to thousands and thousands of adults have shown no adverse medical effect. I would like to read a real research report that does.

 

[LHS]

Why do smokers get a break any time they want and the rest of us get a 15 minute coffee break no more than once every morning and afternoon?

I agree. I usually do not even get a second break as I'm covering for those who are on their 6th or 7th smoke break. Thing is, they are NOT allowed to smoke on company proerty, but they go to their cars. Top mgr said it was okay, but I think he will get bit in the "butt" by allowing that.

 

[JcMack]

Why do smokers get a break any time they want and the rest of us get a 15 minute coffee break no more than once every morning and afternoon?
I like the shirt that says "Respect tobacco, Native ceremonial use only".

Until about 3 months ago I was employed at just such a place. Smoke breaks anytime outside of building was standard practice. In this case the boss was a smoker. In the winter during the coldest periods the smokers hid out in the shop area where I worked. The smoke never really bothered me, the smoke break condoning certainly did.