What should we do about smoking?

[Asteroid-Man]

Personally, I don't and never will smoke. If someone wants to I'm fine aslong as it's not around me. I say we make it private so people smoke at their home or out in the jungle or on the side of a highway. Please no public parks, not around my home, not downtown, not outside the mall. Go somewhere you don't bother anyone. I don't want to get sick. What do you think?

 

[enterthemadness]

1. Wouldn't you have to be around cig smoke for years before you would get sick?

2. It's okay outside.

 

[britrogue]

If they are going to ban smoking in all public places, they may as well make it illegal

 

[Jack & Daniel]

Ok, I'm italian and my laws are different from the american ones. I'm a smoker (I began smoking at the age of 12 , now I'm 24) and I think law must protect the non-smokers: so, essentially you can smoke only outside. You can smoke in clubs, or pubs, only if there is a room just for smokers.

edit: @ britrogue: I don't think that banning smoke in public places means make smoking illegal. If smoking is illegal, you can't smoke anywhere... if you just ban from public places, you do it to protect people who don't smoke.

 

[November Rain]

Personally, I don't and never will smoke. If someone wants to I'm fine aslong as it's not around me. I say we make it private so people smoke at their home or out in the jungle or on the side of a highway. Please no public parks, not around my home, not downtown, not outside the mall. Go somewhere you don't bother anyone. I don't want to get sick. What do you think?

screw you and your lungs

 

[Lantern Venom]

Smoking sucks. I think it should illegal inside any public place including restaurants. Drag your poison outside. Then we have no problems.

 

[Darthphere]

Meh, people smoke, get over it. If they want to smoke go ahead, you dont like it? Leave, simple as that.

 

[redmarvel]

baby steps:

First make it illegal indoors in public buildings for a few years (and raise the cost of cigarettes every year).
Then make it illegal outside in public places for a few years
Finally make it illegal everywhere, because it doesn't just hurt the smokers it hurts everyone around them. There are absolutely no health benefits to smoking.

Smoking is an addiction and a very hard habit to break

 

[NHawk19]

I dont agree with Smoking I dont Like Smoking and I wont Smoke.

Having said that, I dont know how to feel about restricting personal freedoms. I dont agree with restrictions that limit the ability of reasonable people to choose how to spend their free time. I also dont think any major change in how people perceive smoking will come w/o some major push like this.

Any laws like this should have a 10 year limit with a 5 year waiting before renewel for another 10 just to see whether the law should be enacted again. Because once we control smoking what do politicians go for next? Fast Food?!? NYC is already trying.

 

[terry78]

I don't drink, smoke or do any drugs, but if you want to do so in public or at home, go right the **** ahead. As long as nobody is getting injured or killed by your doing so.

 

[AndThePickles]

I like that it's illegal in most public buildings and even in many restaurants now. If you want to mess up your lungs, go right ahead, but don't screw mine over in the process please. Keep that **** outside. Even then, I'm so tired of walking around campus and constantly getting cigarette smoke blown all around me. Yuck.

 

[Darren Daring]

AHahahah, it's funny. Asteroid here comes is trying to come off like a very important person leading some government sub-committee to find some solution about the persistent problem of Smoking. But he's jsut some guy posting on the internet about stuff that doesn't really affect him that much

 

[kypade]

As long as it's outside. Anyone who says otherwise (illegalize it outright? WTF? Are you insane?) hates Jesus. And is an idiot. Whichever is more offensive to you personally. (But if it's hating Jesus, you're an idiot, too, fyi).

 

[AllThingsComic]

Ok like all the pollution in the air isn't affecting peoples lungs as well? Smok'em if you got'em. Nobody has control of what I can do OUTSIDE! If you don't like my smoking and we are outside, you move, plain and simple. This is all a part of gov't trying to control our freedoms, now they are telling me here in NY that I can't have trans-fat because it's no good for me, EF you, I can decide for myself what I put in my body and noone else!

 

[MrScissorhands]

You shouldn't be afraid of getting sick from breathing in second-hand smoke. If you worry about what you're breathing in, consider first to illegalise industry and cars. People never walk up to an automobilist and tell him his driving bothers them. "Please put out your exhaust pipe, sir, I have chosen not to breath in carcinogenic substances."

This whole second hand smoking frenzy was stirred up by the government to keep the focus off the bigger pollution issues.

 

[lazur]

Smoking should be illegal, if for no other reason than the BURDEN it places upon EVERYONE ELSE who has to deal with the COST of MEDICAL CARE for people dumb enough to VOLUNTARILY give themselves diseases.

It's a no brainer.

At the very least, those who smoke should have to sign a statement waiving EVERYONE ELSE from having to pay ONE SINGLE CENT for their medical care when they choke down enough cancer to require it. Wanna smoke? Fine, go ahead, but it won't be covered by medical insurance and you'll be paying OUT OF POCKET for care for diseases PROVEN to be caused by smoking, or you can just die in some dark alley somewhere if you can't afford it.

 

[Grim Goblin]

You shouldn't be afraid of getting sick from breathing in second-hand smoke. If you worry about what you're breathing in, consider first to illegalise industry and cars. People never walk up to an automobilist and tell him his driving bothers them. "Please put out your exhaust pipe, sir, I have chosen not to breath in carcinogenic substances."

This whole second hand smoking frenzy was stirred up by the government to keep the focus off the bigger pollution issues.

Exactly!

I smoked for over 10 years before quitting, cold turkey, over 4 months ago. So I can see the merits of both sides of the issue. I can agree to a certain point that banning cigarettes in restaurants is a good move, but making smoking illegal when you're outside, on the streets? that's just stupid!

As for the "cost of treating diseases" that some have talked about, why don't we ban every fast food chain because that can cause some forms of cancer too. why don't we make sunlight illegal too while we're at it?

 

[lazur]

Exactly!

I smoked for over 10 years before quitting, cold turkey, over 4 months ago. So I can see the merits of both sides of the issue. I can agree to a certain point that banning cigarettes in restaurants is a good move, but making smoking illegal when you're outside, on the streets? that's just stupid!

As for the "cost of treating diseases" that some have talked about, why don't we ban every fast food chain because that can cause some forms of cancer too. why don't we make sunlight illegal too while we're at it?

Eating is necessary for survival. Sunlight is something you can't really avoid, which occurs NATURALLY in the environment.

Smoking, the act of INTENTIONALLY inhaling a dangerous substance into your lungs, is SELF INFLICTED and COMPLETELY avoidable.

There is a difference.

 

[Grim Goblin]

Eating is necessary for survival. Sunlight is something you can't really avoid, which occurs NATURALLY in the environment.

Smoking, the act of INTENTIONALLY inhaling a dangerous substance into your lungs, is SELF INFLICTED and COMPLETELY avoidable.

There is a difference.

When you go outside your house and walk anywhere near a car in motion, you are INTENTIONALLY going through an area filled with second hand smoke. In that sense, whatever damage it eventually may cause you are COMPLETELY SELF INFLICTED. Can't avoid it, not even if you go work on a farm.

 

[Badger]

I don’t smoke, never have and never will. But I am also not comfortable infringing on someone’s right to ‘f’ up their body if they want, be it by smoking or shoveling a bunch of fast food down your throat. It’s a simple philosophy. If it hurts you and your stupid enough to do it, then have at it Champ. I see no reason to deprive anyone of anything they deem pleasurable, as long as it doesn’t affect me or somebody that doesn’t know any better and can’t do anything about it. Really this whole issue is a matter of respect, and it goes both ways. If come into my space, it’s my right to ask you not to smoke. If I come into your space, you am I to tell you what do.

Banning smoking in enclosed public spaces is as far as this should ever go.

 

[Fred_Fury]

the outcome of this poll will become law in the United States within 20 days. VOTE OR DIE

 

[Maximum Carnage]

Smoking will never go away .. so stop yur' *****in'.

Besides, smoking only turns into an addiction when you let it. I've been smoking on and off for the past year .. barely 2 cigarettes a week.

In an enclosed area such as a restaurant I could agree with, because non-smokers are sitting down and eating. But if it's on a sidewalk, a park, or on campus and someone asks me to take it away from them? Well, I'd probably tell them to ***k off and/or blow smoke in their face. :/

 

[DV8]

trying to get a smoker to quit smoking is worse than pulling teeth . . . it's almost IMPOSSIBLE to MAKE somebody quit . . . . this leads me to the notion that smoking should be highly regulated as far as the additives that are put in cigs, creating greater chemical dependancy . . . . it's these chemicals coupled with the psychological addiction that makes smoking such a terrible drug . . . .

once that's been done, I think a lot more people would be able to reduce their habit and evetually quit if enough pressure is applied to the places you're allowed to smoke . . .

 

[ElectroFlare]

Smoking sucks. I think it should illegal inside any public place including restaurants. Drag your poison outside. Then we have no problems.

That's the way it is in Jersey. Can't smoke in public places, gotta go outside. Bars and resturants smell much, much nicer and the food even tastes better.

You still gotta wade through the smoke to get to the door though.

 

[lazur]

When you go outside your house and walk anywhere near a car in motion, you are INTENTIONALLY going through an area filled with second hand smoke. In that sense, whatever damage it eventually may cause you are COMPLETELY SELF INFLICTED. Can't avoid it, not even if you go work on a farm.

You're drawing analogies that are completely wrong.

Cars are necessary for travel. Exhaust is a product of that necessity. Walking in an environment filled with that exhaust is also a functional requirement if you want to work and earn a living.

There is nothing "functional" or "necessary" about smoking a cigarette, just as there is nothing "functional" or "necessary" about drinking a glass of diseased urine, though both are about the same in terms of negatively affecting one's health.

And I guarantee that the number of people who contract disease from SMOKING is FAR greater than the number of people who contract disease merely from walking the same streets cars happen to be on.

But whatever, man. All I'm saying is that MY health insurance costs shouldn't go up to cover someone else who is INTENTIONALLY contracting disease.

As to smoking never going away, you're wrong - it's heading there now. I find it amusing to watch the smokers kicking and screaming through the whole thing, too. But keep in mind - NON smokers FAR OUTNUMBER smokers. As long as that remains true, cigarette smoking has its days numbered.