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To: dayglored
I defend smokers' rights today, but as an ex-smoker.

You are 100% right. I also am an ex-smoker. If someone was smoking next to me at work I would object as I have no choice but to be in that area. However, outside of work I can choose to go to a bar or restaurant or not. I have absolutely no right to make everyone else not smoke in that bar or restaurant because I do not. I have the choice to go to one that does not allow smoking if I so desire.

signed Ex-Smoker defending those that smoke. (It is a Libertarian thing)

13 posted on 02/15/2008 10:07:47 PM PST by cpdiii
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To: cpdiii
> ...signed Ex-Smoker defending those that smoke. (It is a Libertarian thing)

Yes, it is! (though I'm small-l, not large-L)

I smoked tobacco from about 15 to about age 25, average about a pack a day. Quit more or less cold turkey, successfully. I have an occasional desire (worst is sitting at a bar having a beer and the person next to me lays a pack of Marlboros down between us), but I've only given in a couple of times in the 30 years since I quit, and typically half a cigarette was enough to kill that desire.

I let friends who smoke do it in my house (in the winter, too cold to go outside) or in my car, with windows open. My wife never smoked, and my daughter is deadset against it (she's 14, so that may change, though I hope it doesn't).

I play in a band that plays in clubs and bars, and we saw attendance plummet when the smoking ban went into effect (NY).

I think smoking is a stupid, dangerous, dirty addiction. I'd rather people didn't do it. But that doesn't mean it should be illegal or taxed into oblivion.

15 posted on 02/15/2008 10:29:10 PM PST by dayglored (Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!)
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