Quit nagging the smokers, will ya?

PhillyBurbs.com ^ | 11-18-04 | J.D. Mullane

[SheLion]

Today is the day we set aside each year to badger, harass and pester that marginalized subculture of Americans, the Doorway People.

You know the Doorway People. They stand in doorways at work or at the mall smoking cigarettes because lighting up in mixed company has become as distasteful as nose-picking.

Yes, today marks the 27th anniversary of the Great American Smokeout, sponsored by the American Cancer Society, where modern incarnates of pinch-mouthed prohibitionists attempt to further ghettoize smokers.

Now, it's not that I think smoking is good. I have friends who smoke. I wish they didn't. On average, they will trade 10 years of their lives to enjoy their habit. But we're all grownups. Smoking is their demon and I have enough of my own demons to wrestle with.

But, unlike anti-smoking zealots, I sympathize with smokers.

That's because I was a smoker. When I quit for good in 1996, I was burning through 2 1/2 packs a day. I ditched the habit because each time I coughed, my lungs rattled as if someone had backed into metal trash cans.

Still, I loved every puff. I still miss it. In fact, I still have nicotine cravings.

So I'm sympathetic to smokers and believe they should be free to enjoy their addiction, which, last I checked, remains legal. Which is why I dislike the anti-smoking scolds. They are trying to criminalize smoking.

From New York City to Dallas, from Toledo, Ohio, to Eugene, Ore., anti-smoking zealots have racked up successful campaigns to ban smoking in bars and restaurants, the last bastion of peace and acceptance for smokers.

Eventually, the anti-smoking "movement" will have won enough smoking bans in enough cities in enough states to introduce national no-smoking legislation, said Zoe Mitchell, co-founder of Ban the Ban, which recently defeated efforts to enact similar no-smoking legislation in Washington, D.C.

"Ultimately, their goal is to make it a national issue based on their success at the local level," she said.

Anti-smokers say they're acting in the best interest of public health.

They say all those smokers burden the healthcare system with their cigarette-related maladies. It costs all of us more in healthcare premiums, they say.

Nonsense. Smokers die sooner than most of us nonsmokers, never collecting a cent from Social Security, which they've paid for decades.

Also, smokers pay outrageous cigarette taxes on each pack of smokes, which pours billions of dollars annually into government coffers.

At best, the money argument is a wash.

When an anti-smoking nut steps into a place like the Puss N' Boots Tavern in Fairless Hills, all they see is the blue-gray cloud of smoke hovering over the patrons crowded around the bar.

When I walk into the Boot, I see it differently.

I see a local cop who's seen more than his fair share of tragedy.

Or an emergency room nurse who was up to her elbows in blood just a few hours before.

Or a construction guy who's sacrificed years of Saturdays to work overtime so he could save for his kid's college tuition.

Or a middle-aged father worried about his son, who's fighting the war.

These are the good people the anti-smoking zealots want to stigmatize as public health leeches.

And if they accomplish their goal, they won't go away.

They will persecute the overweight, stigmatize SUV drivers and haul into court those who don't recycle.

They've got the money and the time and the lawyers.

[Gabz]

Your premise is wrong - many things may cause cancer - that is, increase one's risk. not just smoking.

However the point of this article/thread is more about second hand smoke and not so much directly smoking.

[Just another Joe]

Smoking in public is not a right, it's a liberty. Allowing the consumption of a legal product on private property is a property owner's right.
Amendment 9 and 10 -
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Bill of Rights

[Protagoras]

Why is that, I wonder?

Because I like you and I think that your health has been negatively impacted by smoking cigarettes. In fact, I know that to be true even if you don't agree with it. The truth is, your health would be relatively better if you didn't smoke, and even better if you never had. The chemicals in smoke have deleterious effects on the human body.

I said I wish, not that I have any standing to make such a suggestion, but that's what the thread is about.

Why do you want to take something away from me that I enjoy and is still a legal commodity to buy?

You need to take off your boxing gloves, I don't want to take anything away from you. And legality has nothing whatsoever to do with it, you would have the right to do it even if it was illegal. Laws don't change rights.

You have the right to smoke, but no right to have people wish you didn't.

[SheLion]

Time to get out and vote. Bottom line.

We tried to get it on the ballot last year, but couldn't get enough signatures in time.

The trouble with voting is: when only 25-30% of the people smoke in a state, and it's put up for a vote and or survey and or poll, the smokers lose everytime. Because we are outnumbered.

We need to alert the non-smoking general public to this violation of rights to the business owner in order to get any help with this war.

If the non-smoking general public could realize that business's are suffering and going out of business, they might reconsider their stand.

And I can't say this enough: the air purifiers are the way to go. Everyone is happy.

[Gabz]

I have no problelm with you carrying a gun where ever you go - provided the owner of a private business says you can. Remember you do not have the right to enter his private property without his permission and abiding by his rules.

[iconoclast]

you shouldn't have to walk through a gauntlet of smokers who are outside having their cigarettes.

I agree.

They should be inside smoking, where smokers had been for the previous several hundred years.

BTW, I don't smoke, neither does my wife. We used to ask for "first available" when there were still smoking sections. Smokers don't bother us as nearly as much as diners that are making so much noise that we can't comfortably converse.

[Smokin' Joe]

It sounds a lot like our weather. I have seen -60F (static air temp) with a 40 mile per hour wind, wind chill of -146 That was cold. Normally, though November through March are fair game for temps of -20 or -30. Snow here is almost always dry powder, not the wet kind (shame we don't have many hills, or it'd be good skiing). We definitely don't get as much. Not many trees out here on the prairie to slow the wind down, so the snow we do get mostly goes sideways and elsewhere.

[SheLion]

But you can almost eliminate the risk of lung cancer by not smoking.

Not really. Millions grew up living with asbestos. Many died of lung cancer.

How about the men who work in coal mines? Not all of them smoke, but many died from Black Lung.

[Freedom Dignity n Honor]

HA! Most of the Founding Fathers used tobacco in one way or another! Cigarettes have only been around 300 years.

To them it probably never crossed their minds that we'd come to a point in our country where they'd be so many wimps afraid of their own shadows.

It's not mentioned in the Constitution, for or against smoking. Therefore, it is left to the local communities and States to each decide for themselves via our legally elected representatives in our Constitutional Republic.

A Constitutional Republic means we elect people to represent us. A Democracy is mob rule.

I believe each town/city should decide for itself whether it wishes to take away property owners' rights and then suffer the consequences whether they be good or bad.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

The only thing this thread needs, is to get a discussion going on wether to recline or not recline one's seat on an airplane.

[LittleSpotBlog]

Exactly! Why do you think they don't use asbestos if homes anymore? Those cause cancer too. Just like tobacco.

[Terpesman]

Thank you. I think my initial posts might have flamed the fires a little bit and some people missed what I am saying.

I would not walk into a tavern/bar/restaurant where people are smoking and expect them not to smoke. When I go out with my friends, we usually sit at the bar or near the bar so we can watch whatever games are on. I am eating, people are smoking, everyone has a good time, and I do not say a word.

[Just another Joe]

Maybe disillusioned smokers should think about the rights of other people before getting so disillusioned.

Where does it say in the constitution that you have a 'right' to go anywhere you please and never have to smell smoke from tobacco?

[SheLion]

I also trust doctors and their years of research and medical knowledge over rumors on the Internet.

Did you realize that there is a big filthy rich organization out there that has 48 states to date in their pocket?

They are called the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  The more the state bans, controls and restricts smokers in hospital's and by even programming the Doctors to try to shake us out of smoking, the bigger the grants the hospitals and clinics receive from them RWJ Foundation?

The Doctors and hospitals are chopping off the heads of their smoking patients and visitors........all for the sake of this blood money.

I know for a fact that two hospitals in my vicinity started getting grant money for renovations and to buy big MRI machines and scanners.  Does this sound fair to you?

There have been a few more states added to this map since this map was made. The ones in blue are in the pocket of the RWJ Foundation.

[SheLion]

I live surrounded by potato fields where the farmers spray deadly pesticides a few times a summer. Do I protect this? No. It is their living.

The pesticides scare me, but when they spray, I just close my windows.

[Freedom Dignity n Honor]

What do you think they used in the old 60's - 70's maybe even into the 80's hairdryers that they said caused cancer?

Asbestos!

[iconoclast]

Because I like you and I think that your health has been negatively impacted by smoking cigarettes. In fact, I know that to be true even if you don't agree with it. The truth is, your health would be relatively better if you didn't smoke, and even better if you never had. The chemicals in smoke have deleterious effects on the human body.

Where on earth did you ever get the idea that any of this is any of your business?

Get a life!

[SheLion]

Lunch time, I need a cigarette after this thread.

[Freedom Dignity n Honor]

Remember the Alar/Apple scare based on a flawed study a few years ago that had all the stars up in arms, testifying before Congress? :)

[Terpesman]

C'mon, just because someone doesn't like to smoke doesn't anything.

But, like I've said before, when you can't say anything else, it's easy to make a personal attack. Look back through the posts, have I personally attacked anyone. You are at least the third person to attack me. Why? I don't know. Maybe because when confronted with the fact that other people's opinions matter, some people can't accept that.

Read my posts, all of them. I have never said that smoking should be banned. I never said smokers shouldn't be allowed to smoke in a restaurant (where it is legal), I've never lashed out at someone for having different views. I have just argued that there is another side to this smoking issue and nonsmokers are entitled to their opinions too.