Total Ban on Smoking the Only Solution (Canada)

Canoe.ca/WinnipegNews ^ | 1/5/03 | Laurie Mustard

[Mark]

Sunday, January 5, 2003

Total ban on smoking the only solution

By Laurie Mustard

Hack.

Powers that be, can we please impose a provincewide smoking ban -- immediately -- and move on from this nonsense?

I mean, we're not talking a ban on smoking here, are we?

Those who want to can still smoke, still suck in that noxious poison and shorten their lives, but they just won't be able to publicly share their death wish with others.

I for one am sick to death of listening to the endless pitiful blather about "smokers' rights." Does anything make a thinking person reel in horror more than watching a smoker puff poison into a baby's face?

Is this denial, stupidity, or what?

"I insist on the right to kill my kid/grandkid, or at least potentially cause him or her some nasty freaking disease later on in life!"

Think I'm being a little harsh?

I'M HOLDING BACK!

And forcing non-smoking employees to breathe in second-hand smoke at their place of employment is equally vile. How blatantly wrong does something have to be before it's made illegal?

Do any of these non-smoking employees' personal habits in the workplace endanger their fellow workers' health and safety? Garlic breath maybe?

This whole debate is such an incredible waste of time.

We all know a partial ban is not fair to businesses. Even a complete ban like they have in Brandon shafts highway businesses because the truckers just keep going till they find a place where they can smoke indoors.

DESTROYING PEOPLE'S LIVES

Why should some businesses prosper and others die because we haven't got the guts to impose a complete ban? This ridiculous partial ban is destroying people's lives.

It may not sound like it, but I sympathize with people who choose to put their own health at risk to enjoy a favourite activity. I used to love screaming down the river at 100 mph on my snowmobile. But I didn't force anyone to RIDE WITH ME!

I have a cousin in Brandon, bless his black, diseased, stinking lungs, pallid skin and fearful heart, who LOVES to smoke. And smoke he should, but not in the presence of people who don't want to breathe his crap in.

The time has come for smokers to form smoking clubs, just as we have golf clubs, knitting circles, nudist escapes, etc.

They should huddle together at some private, non-public hideaway, like maybe a volcano -- an active one -- and puff their brains out. This should be allowed to continue till proof of smoking's actual impact on health costs is produced, at which time smoking should be banned ALTOGETHER, regardless of how furious it makes my cousin.

Stick that in your pipe, puff daddy.

I repeat -- full provincial public smoking ban, today, please -- and let's move on!

Smoking is, and we all know it, a form of suicide that kills innocent bystanders.

Plain as the butt on your face. The argument is over, it's time to ACT!

I have a dream, friends -- to some day eat my cheese omelette at Nick's Restaurant in Headingley, in a SMOKE FREE ENVIRONMENT!

You smokers may not be there to enjoy that fresh air with me, but that's your problem. Time for the BIG BAN, man.

[TigersEye]

bttt

[timm22]

Exhibit A in the lineup of nicotine junkies who want to force those around them to accommodate their filthy habit. I'd like to see their cancer sticks extinguished with fire hoses full in the face.

What an excellent parody of the anti-smoker mentality!

While it is a little over the top, your satirical post captures the kind of hate and demonisation of smokers that fills our opponents. Heck, one day the anti's may be so crazy as to actually hope for something like this, much like the racists during the Civil Rights Movement enjoyed seeing blacks sprayed with hoses.

[ccmay]

Let's see-- who causes more deaths in the U.S., smokers or doctors?

Smokers. By far.

For doctors:

• 44,000 to 98,000 deaths per year

The wide variablity in numbers reflects the controversial nature of such estimates. Additionally, these numbers are far outweighed by the net number of lives saved by medical treatment. Surgical treatment of acute appendicitis, by itself, probably saves more lives each year.

For smoking:

• 440,000 deaths per year

Why did you even bring this up? It's patently ridiculous to imply that smoking is anything other than our most serious preventable public health hazard.

-ccm

[arielb]

and it's also a major insult to the doctors who spend many hours and energy to save lives.
While I am amused by the raging hysteria of the article and some of your posts as well, the point that needs to get through is that life is a God granted gift and we should be looking to enhance it-not take it away from ourselves, our friends and our children.

[this_ol_patriot]

Get over it. You live you die, 100% certain. Look at the daily obits in your paper you see people from just born to over 100 years old. All dead. Everyone dies and they never know when, you of healthy lungs may be a victim of a boulder falling across a road while driving minding your own business (see the post somewhere on this site). You ever build model airplanes, Testors cement will kill you, ever breathe car exhaust, that will kill you too, the same with fumes from that summer barbecue or the burning of autumn leaves. You eat food with free radicals, kill ya, booze, kill ya, ice cream, kill ya.

You want protected from lifes hazards build a bubble room and live in there but wait better build a strong wall so no truck can run off the road and crush you, no electric either, don't want you electrocuted, no water, might drown, no food, might choke and you just may be allergic to the peanut shells used as filler in some detergents, so no wash for you and clothes are out too, synthetics you know contain some of the same chemicals as smoke, don't want those against your skin, no sun, skin cancer, get a genetic test too might have some genetic killers in the bloodline, so no kids either.

We start to die the day we are born and there isn't anything you can do about it. You will probably lose more years to worry than second-hand smoke of any type. You should enjoy life, let God roll the dice.

[this_ol_patriot]

I'll give you an example, my Pop, everything was bad, smoking was bad, drinking was bad, sex was bad, sitting around was bad, music was bad, everything, and he did it on 2 planes the health plane and the religious plane. He spent his whole later life like this. I never smoked around him out of respect and always hid them anyway to avoid a lecture and this was when I was in my late 30's. I never ate around him because I could never eat right according to him.

Well he died at age 85 from heart disease BUT at 75 he was struck with dementia and lived his last 10 years as a plant. Now I wonder how much he would have gave to have spent some of his lucid years sitting in a smokey bar trading war stories or having a Bud with his sons, What would he have given to have spent a few days sitting around fishing with us, smoking a good cigar and talking about the grandkids. It didn't happen, he was so concerned about living long he didn't have the time to live at all.

[metesky]

Laurie baby, spread the Mustard!

[metesky]

Substances of Mass Destruction (SMD)

Good one.

[Wolfie]

Man, that ain't right.

[metesky]

You're cruising for a one-day membership at FR.

[thedilg]

"And I'll bet my entire 401k this pompous ass believes in a woman's "right" to kill her unborn child."

And if he runs true to form he will also be for the legalization of dope.

Godspeed, The Dilg

[metesky]

He's gone, but not before spreading his crap all over the forum.

Maybe some of the defenders of the h-mo lifestyle here at FR will wake up.

[SheLion]

You're worse than heroin addicts; at least they don't force me to shoot up with them.

Yea? You know why? Because smoking cigarettes is legal, ccmay. Like it or not!

[SheLion]

You're worse than heroin addicts; at least they don't force me to shoot up with them.

No one forces YOU to to ANYTHING! Your a big girl. Decide for yourself if you want to be around smoking or not. Grow up!

[SheLion]

Someone please tell me this is a letter to the editor and this woman isn't actually a paid columnist.

Actually, Timesink........someone told me this woman is actually a MAN!

[JoeSixPack1]

Laurie Mustard

[SheLion]

Works for me, too. Sounds great!! hehe!

[SheLion]

Hey Joe! Thank you! So! This is the infamous Laurie Mustard? haha! Cross dresser perhaps? LOL!

[SheLion]

Liberals want to be kings and rule what all others do because they believe people are too stupid to make intelligent decisions.

Hi chance!