Thanks,…

I support them because they help to bring down the high cost of health care related to smoking.

RMCS_USN on June 19, 2008 at 5:56 PM

That’s a canard. Smokers cost LESS, with respect to health care, than non-smokers. They die earlier and tend to drop off more quickly. People tend to make some assumption that if they don’t get a disease from smoking they’ll never get any disease. Everyone dies. Smokers die more cheaply.

Add to that the huge savings to Social Security (unless you are going to argue that smokers live longer than others) and the tax revenue collected from cigarettes and you see that there is no fiscal case to be made – quite the opposite.

It might not sound nice to you, but the longer people live, they more health care spending they require (along with ancillary costs), and the cost rises exponentially. If everyone in the US lived to 120, we’d be totally broke.

I oppose smoking bans on the basis of private-property rights.

I support them because they help to bring down the high cost of health care related to smoking. I have many friends who chose to quit because bans in various public places made it easier for them to do so. People spend their lives puffing on cigarettes, then when they contract smoking-related diseases, their insurance companies help to bail them out of the health care costs. This drives EVERYONE’S health care costs up.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t give a rat’s a$$ if they chose a slow death by smoking.

Suggesting that the smoking ban is causing people to drive drunk is about the weakest argument one can make against the bans. So habitual drunk drivers have to go a little further… therefore we should allow smoking to cut down their drunk driving distance?

On the plus side, you won. You get to decide what a private business does on private property and make decisions for him without his input (at least where I live, people like you won).

So pardon me if I don’t feel too sorry about you feeling outnumbered and claiming “poor me” when you’re removed private decisions for private businesses.

Yeah, I “get it”. You not only want to make decisions to be forced on others with the power of Government backing you, removing their ability to make decisions for their own property/business, you want them to like it.

And you’re ashamed that everyone doesn’t like you making decisions for someone else’s property when they don’t agree with you? You believe everyone should agree that you get to make private decisions for private businesses without having any ownership of the property involved? Are you sure you’re on the right site?

But sorry “little people” you must obey the state commands in order to serve the state and the collective. We need you healthy so you can work everyday and pay your taxes. So naturally, smoking is only the beginning, they will be looking at your diet and your unhealthy personal habits too very soon. It’s for your own good, they are only trying to help you.

Obama Admits Smoking Cigarettes in Last Few Months

What’s more likely to kill someone?

In a typical year, something like 13-16,000 people die because of drunk driving. The Centers for Disease Control reported 394,000 cigarette-related deaths in 2001.

Just another useless factoid

Yeah for democracy! The health nuts at the AMA have been so generous to allow us loyal servants of the state to continue smoking menthols according to Politico….

Ironically, now that smoking has been banned in most buildings, the lack of fresh air from open windows is causing people to no longer have the tolerance for or the build up of immunity toward other natural allergens.

People are living their lives in allergen-free environments. That’s not healthy either.

And no, I don’t mind at all if the proprietor of an establishment chooses to make their establishment smoke-free. As much as I enjoy smoking (yep, I did use the word enjoy), I take very seriously the maxim of my rights ending where someone else’s nose begins. Literally.

I do not agree, however, with government intervention mandating the smoking preferences of private establishments it should be for the individual owners/companies to decide on their policy (none/seperate smoking area/smoke ‘em if ya gots ‘em), then let them live with the results of their clientele voting with their feet (as Maxx put it, earlier). I also do not agree with, and am often very, very greatly annoyed with the absolute lack of consideration for and of smokers shown by most governmental functions, and the excuse that the mob-rule mentality ban smoking everywhere do-gooders hand to just about everyone with ‘zero tolerance’ approaches to dealing with what, for now at least, is a legal activity – namely, the consumption of a tobacco product by an adult. While I can understand, and accept (if I know going in) an establishment has designated itself smoke free, I’m more than happy to comply, if the establishment is otherwise of interest or use to me. However, I’m more likely to give repeat business (or have a much nicer experience, in the case of public area situations) to those places that return the consideration by making even a modest effort to accomodate/cater to their smoking customers. Example – the Marriot chain will likely never get my business ever again – not because they are completely non-smoking (or ‘smoke free’), but rather because they make no effort whatsoever to make any allowances for smokers (not even something even as simple as a wind break) other than butt cans placed not too near the entrances.

Likewise, I absolutely loathe most airports, for reasons other than the tender mercies of the TSA. I haven’t done a lot of air travel since 9/11, but even in 99 and 2000, most airports (seemingly particularly the hubs that HAD to be transitted) had either already totally evicted smokers (Minneapolis in Feburary? Across the open skywalk to the open sided parking garage, please! Wind chill? You BET!), or confined them to small, poorly ventilated, poorly maintained smoking lounges (show of hands – been through Atlanta?). And for the ‘well what do you freakin ADDICTS expect?’ crowd, a surprising counterpoint, in what might for many be an unexpected location – Salt Lake City. Talk about somewhere you’d expect a strong intolerance to smoking, given the personal guidelines concerning nicotine and caffeine amongst the folks making the decisions out there, but the truth is that they’re some of the most tolerant and accomodating (in this type of public setting) towards thse who don’t share their beliefs, and wish to perform that still, for now, legal activity of an adult consuming a tobacco product. Spacious, conveniently located near the gate areas, clean, and well ventilated. And their setup probably doesn’t cost any more than the cess pools that were set up in Atlanta, nor did they treat smokers like second, third, or untouchable class citizens like so many other places around the country.

It’s called accomodation. I have yet to run into a smoker who was not sensitive to, and concious of, the effect of their activity on others – it’s almost impossible these days not to – and am not aware of a single one of them that’s not more than willing to honor the wishes of other individuals who don’t choose to ingest tobacco smoke, if asked, or if understood from the outset, or if it’s brought to their attention in a civil manner. I’ve got a firmly extended middle finger for the uncivil snipish busybodies who take advantage of the general situation to whine, moan, complain, throw hissy fits, and generally screw up their faces while discussing the subject, because they’re totally oblivious to the whole rights/nose boundary issue, and have no trouble discarding any consideration whatsoever for smokers, because ‘it’s a nasty habit they should quite anyway’. I’m kinda thinkin those types of folks should have the pleasure of being locked up inside a steamroom with five huge ex-KGB type Russians that speak NO english, and are enjoying some really, really smooth Cohibas. Led off by Eliot Spitzer and Henry Waxman. But that’s just me.

Maxx,

You missed the part where I told you that I understood the basis for your argument. The analogy doesn’t work quite as well as you’d like it to because the air we breathe is a common resource. Smoking is akin to poisoning the well, albeit in milder form.

ElectricPhase on June 18, 2008 at 10:17 PM

Smoking is relatively localized- smoking in a bar doesn’t affect the air outside the bar. So I’m not sure you can use that as an excuse to trample private property. What if I want to go to a bar, but I don’t like the band that’s playing, and it’s a small bar so you can hear the band throughout the bar? Should I be able to ban that band from playing there so I can enjoy the bar the way I want to?

Well said.

But of course it’s only right and good that everyone would give up a person freedom in order to accommodate your disability…. Right? It’s not YOU being selfish at all, it’s everyone else… Correct?

The funny part about this is that forced over-exposure to smoking and nasty chemicals in the military is what caused my hyper-sensitivity. I’ve not asked anyone to give up freedoms, and I think smoking in bars is fine, but I do think that people should be considerate of each other, and that there should be limits or those that can only vote with their feet have no choice but to be hermits or leave the planet.

We really need to learn to forgive a little sometimes and to cut each other a little slack or we are all going to hell in a hand basket.

I’m cool with that, and I couldn’t survive if I didn’t.

BAN PERFUME!!!

Just kidding, it’s my problem, perfume has been around for eons and I’ll just continue to cope with it.

Yeah, I cope as I must too. My problem is a neurological reaction, which admission will draw snickers from the less compassionate amongst our commenter community I’m sure, but it’s debilitating and painful and immediate. Chemical Sensitivity is a growing problem in our industrial society, and the increasing affection for stinking oneself and one’s environment up actually helps create the problem in the first place. I know, lots of folks figure that suffers of such things ought to simply pull the trigger and go away, but what if we are the canaries here?

I remember when I was younger and flew on planes when smoking was still allowed thinking that my breathing was constricted, but I later realized that, at least in my case, it was psychosomatic. Once I stopped actively thinking about it it the sensation ceased.

I wish!

The road to hell is truly paved with good intentions, and applauding government for taking away personal liberties just makes the grade that much steeper.

Asher on June 18, 2008 at 10:47 PM

Great addition!

I told her a story about when I lived in a condo and a neighbor of mine had wind-chimes that routinely caused me sleep-deprivation. While I would lay awake at night I would often fantasize about taking a pole with a hook on the end and sneaking out to remove the wind chimes from the neighbors second floor balcony and throwing them off into the greenbelt where they would be unlikely to be found.

But I never actually did it. I tolerated it and lived to tell the tale.

I explained to my mom that she should learn to tolerate the neighbors smoke and understand that he might have a similar dislike of her annoying wind-chimes.

Doctors can’t touch that kind of issue, and it’s not uncommon, I personally have problems with smokers even in traffic at interstate speeds, life can suck like that.

Maquis on June 18, 2008 at 10:30 PM

I had to be rushed to the emergency room and spent three days in the hospital due to an asthma attack when I was a kid but it’s rare that I have that problem any more.

I remember when I was younger and flew on planes when smoking was still allowed thinking that my breathing was constricted, but I later realized that, at least in my case, it was psychosomatic. Once I stopped actively thinking about it it the sensation ceased.

The only time I experience that problem any more is when I’m trapped in an elevator where someone is wearing strong perfume. The constricted breathing is fairly minor but I almost always wind up with a migraine that last all day.

BAN PERFUME!!!

Just kidding, it’s my problem, perfume has been around for eons and I’ll just continue to cope with it.

Something like that, but not a concern for selfish bastards.

Maquis on June 18, 2008 at 11:00 PM

But of course it’s only right and good that everyone would give up a person freedom in order to accommodate your disability…. Right? It’s not YOU being selfish at all, it’s everyone else… Correct?

Not to go Billy Graham on you, but the Bible talks of the end times where it will be neighbor against neighbor. The authorities will have accomplished getting all the public at each other’s throats.

And while we are busy bickering with each other and charging each other will assault because your neighbor thinks something as absurd that he could smoke in his own house. The collectivist in power that made all these little rules to get us at each other’s throats will be laughing while they steal the country out from under us.

We really need to learn to forgive a little sometimes and to cut each other a little slack or we are all going to hell in a hand basket.

You missed the part where I told you that I understood the basis for your argument. The analogy doesn’t work quite as well as you’d like it to because the air we breathe is a common resource. Smoking is akin to poisoning the well, albeit in milder form.

There is no solid data that links increased cancer risk to second hand smoke. None.

It’s just been an accepted fact that it’s a killer, but it’s not unlike the lies that were told about DDT or the nonsense that passes for science in the global warming debate.

You don’t have to trust my word…do your own research.

A credible link between secondhand smoke and lung cancer remains elusive despite more than 40 published studies.

The largest-ever study on secondhand smoke and lung cancer, published in 1998 by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, reported no statistically significant increase in lung cancer risk associated with exposure to secondhand smoke.

That result was no surprise. It was the result the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should have reported in its notorious 1993 secondhand smoke risk assessment — the study that greatly accelerated efforts to ban smoking in public places.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,1897,00.html

Bad science is bad science…

A massive number of smokers who’ve enjoyed the bar, (inn, pub), scene for generations have had their culture squashed so that a few asthmatics can participate in their stead. They claim to have high and mighty intentions but when it comes right down to it it’s pure unadulterated selfishness.

FloatingRock on June 18, 2008 at 11:01 PM

And by the way, I don’t frequent bars because it’s not my scene. I don’t have a vested interest in this issue other than as it relates to the defense of the freedom of people who own, operate of have frequented these time honored establishments.

Do I advocate legislation that would force the bars to create an environment more to my liking so that I would feel like participating in something that doesn’t currently interest me? No, it’s none of my damn business!

I predict that before too long strobe-lights will be banned in all public locations, like bars, concerts, etc, so that epileptics can participate. Will the fascists open their own clubs or host their own concerts and voluntarily ban the use of strobe lights in their own establishments? Heck no, they’ll just squash freedom and liberty again and force other private entities to do their bidding for them.

Banning smoking in government buildings is one thing but forcing the issue on private business owners as has been done to bars is the antitheses of freedom and liberty.

If I seem insensitive, it’s because I’m a selfish bastard.

hillbillyjim on June 18, 2008 at 10:55 PM

There’s a lot of that going around.

If your lungs/sinuses/whatever are that sensitive, a man wearing a little too much Old Sock cologne must send you to the E.R. or to bed “with the vapors.”

Something like that, but not a concern for selfish bastards.

Maxx on June 18, 2008 at 10:45 PM

Well said.