Not Smoking

Why would not smoking shorten your life expectancy?

Just what I was thinking kate, maybe someone just didn’t read the topic properly.

Smoking is like a legal drug. We normal people dont like em drugs ♥

alcohol is a legal drug. how about medical drugs?

the smell of ciggarette smoke makes me sick its kinda like a mass slow painfull suicide (smoking)

Yes, I can tell if someone smokes. Since they smell. Weed smokers smell the worst! Gross!

I just can’t stand the smell of smoking…And why don’t they make it illegal? It causes everyone cancer, not only those people who are smoking!

In many places (including the entire state of Colorado) it is already illeagal to smoke inside a public building such as resteraunts, shopping malls etc.

But smoking outside is still okay though. >:(

Smoking should be abolished completely, it's such a disgusting habit. But there are just too many people out there who smoke.

In Illinois they're trying to make it the law that you can onl ysmoke on your own property, whichis better then what itwas but smoking should just be abolished completly

I hate people who smoke in public. Why haven’t they understood it damages other people’s health!?

One might argue that if you go out into public where smoking is likely to occur, you're willingly risking your own health. It's like going mountain climbing and saying you hate low air-pressures and gravity. Now, my friends, I avoid addiction like the plague, I've never smoked anything in my life, I begged my friends never to start, only to antagonize myself, and end up watching them struggle and fail to quit repeatedly. Because of my fresh-air conditioning, I start to lose my voice after even a short exposure to smoke-filled air, but there's no way I'm going to turn to the government to protect me from it. Too many times, we order our government to point their guns at and open their jails to our own fellow citizens, only so we can have simple luxuries, and slightly improved security.  If you ask me, legislation is far more dangerous of an addiction than smoking.

Maybe. But there is such a thing as societal concern for the collective welfare (which is why killing people is generally legislated against. Your “right” to shoot me with your gun is over-ruled by my right to live). Therefore, if you want to poison yourself with nicotine etc., then by all means, do so in your own home. Bringing it to a public place to endanger the health of others shouldn’t be a “right.” (IMHO)

Similarly, if you don't want somebody to smoke, why not point a gun at them until they put the cigarette out?  You're basically doing the same thing with a law, only you're eliminating the middle man, and saving yourself some tax dollars.

Because laws often eliminate the need for guns.  If something is illegal, most people won't do it, otherwise they wouldn't bother passing laws.

I generally think that if something hazardous needs to be illegal for people to not do it, then banning it fails to address the real problem, and in fact only adds a new one.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of stupid people out there, as well as people who make stupid mistakes; otherwise smoking wouldn't be a problem.  Is the "real problem" education?  Most teens pay no attention to DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) or whatever equivalent they have elsewhere, and most adults are too far gone to turn back.  In my experience, at least.

 How would illegalizing it add to the problem?

Because it would make society more dependant on the government and accepting of legal restrictions. It's a matter of influence, really. By forwarding your problems to the state, not only do you create more legal restrictions on your own behavior, but the people around you will be more open to turn to the state when they dislike a given behavior, even if its something that you like to do. As stupid as you believe people may be, the reality is that they play a collective role in controling the people who can restrict your freedoms. If you want to help influence them to do so more often, then that's your business, but I'll have no part of it.

So how do you propose we fix the problem?  Or would fixing it create even bigger problems, no matter how we do it?

Well, anyway, people who smoke in public and damages other people’s healt, are assholes.

Agreed.

I definatly agree with that!!

All you have to do to stop all smoking is to rid yourself of all of your own vices, and be happy to do so. The ease at which it will appear that you do this will influence others to do the same thing. Don't sell people cigarettes, be wonderful to smokers, and never judge them for it. If at some point a friend decides to quit, start hanging out with said friend, as much as possible, and ask them how long they've gone without, every day. You will become their daily reason to refuse to smoke. If they feel like they're being an asshole to you, tell them you didn't notice, but that you would rather them be assholes for a few weeks, than a smokers for a life time. I know you want to save the world from smoking all at once, but to do so would become very encroaching on people's rights, and will only give them further motivation and justification for smoking. Mind only the piece of the world over which you have direct influence. Everything else is oppression in its infancy, and is far more harmful to the populace than smoking.

You’re still missing my point. You keep saying that we want people to stop smoking. I don’t care what other people do, as long as they don’t do it to me. Someone smoking in my presence is the same as someone spitting on me. Why do you think this is such a good thing?

I don't think it's a good thing. I just don't think it's bad enough to warrant legal restriction. I don't need a law to avoid smoking. And though I know second-hand smoking isn't good either, I'm not about to voluntarily pay somebody to ward off smokers, which is what a legal ban would be. I mean what a childish way to deal with one's fears.

Childish? I think not. Besides, I have no “fear” of smokers. I just think they are rude and inconsiderate in their penchant for subjecting innocent people to their wanton poisoning of the communal air supply.

Well, don't act like you never add any pollutants to the atmosphere. I wonder what kinds of fossil fuels are being combusted to generate the electricity needed to power that computer of yours. Technically the C02 you're exhaling is poisonous to your fellow humans. You write as though your fellow citizens are firing handguns into crowded rooms, in random directions, just by smoking. Really, I don't understand this absolute hatred so many people have directed at each other, to the point that they're willing to send the police after them for causing insignificant annoyances. It's fascist-like intolerance. Like giving somebody a black eye for farting. Sorry the world around you isn't heaven-on-earth, buddy, but that's life. You're going to eventually get old, weak, sick, and die, no matter what you do. The more imperfections you beat down in the world around you, the more problems you're going to create. We'll never be happy until we all learn to accept life with all of its ups and downs, and simply let it be what it is.

If we all accept life as it is, and let it be what it is, the world’s never going to change to the better. People who changed the world, fx Martin Luther King, didn’t just accept the things how it was. He did something about it. I’m not comparing public smokers to racists and that whole racism thing of course. But i think it’s important to show normal respect to all people. I don’t know i smokers think about it, but smoking in public is very disrespectful. Of course they can smoke other places how they want, it’s not exactly good for the health, but fair, they decide how they want to treat their bodies.

Although smoking isn't as obvious or as lethal as a handgun, Hideous Monster, second-hand smoke is still as bad for your health as first-hand smoke is, if maybe a bit diluted.  And I think that it's childish to think that you can solve some problems without aid.  Do you really believe that by befriending smokers you can help eradicate smoking?  Too many people would just stop hanging around you.  On top of the impracticalities, there's a huge industry built around tobacco.  Good will is not going to relocate all those wage-earners.  I think that government action is the only way to fix the problem.  Believe me, I'm not thrilled with our government, but it's certainly good for some things.

Every once in a while you need aid to solve a problem, but I don't think smoking qualifies as such a problem. It's one of those things that's so easy to avoid, that you can simply learn to accept it, and still end up about as well off as you would if it wasn't there. It may be possible to get lung cancer through second hand smoke, but in order for you to be exposed to it enough for that to happen, you would have to voluntarily place yourself in environments thick with smoke regularly and very often. Body cells take a lot of chemical abuse before they finally decide to go cancerous. So, unless somebody is regularly, physically forcing you to stand in a small, poorly ventilated room with them while they smoke, I wouldn't exactly call this a life-or-death situation, that requires the use of police force to stifle. It merely calls for consistant good judgement, and logical behavior on your own part. Surely you're capable of that, and don't have to get your congressman involved.

Of course you can stay away from smokers, but what happens if there are smokers where you want to go?  What about other people?  You've been taking a rather self-preserving view of the issue - if I can avoid the problem, it's no longer a problem. 

Do you think smoking in public places is a problem?

No, I don't think smoking in public places is a problem. Now I understand why one would ban smoking around gasoline pumps, or in libraries, where it can become a high fire hazard, I have no issue with private individuals or companies banning smoking in their own places of business, and I would agree that allowing smoking in schools, court rooms, jails, or other buildings where people are required to spend a lot of time, would be a bad idea. But I don't think people should not have the freedom to light up while walking down the street, while driving in their own cars, or while dining at privately owned places that would allow them to do so. I think if the government tells a restaurant owner that he's not allowed to let people smoke in his own restaurant, then the government is encroaching on that company's privacy. Nobody's forcing consumers to spend money there, nor job applicants to apply there.

But by smoking in public, smokers are infringing on the public's health, because no matter how you put it, second-hand smoke is bad for you.  Besides that, it smells bad.  Do you want to go to a restaurant with cigarette smoke in the air?

And why do you think that smoking in public places is not a problem?

A lot of things are bad for you, that doesn't mean they should be illegal. Car exhaust is bad for you. pesticides are bad for you. Loud music is bad for you. No, I don't want to eat in a smoke-filled restaurant. Such restaurants will not have the benefit of my business, and they may accept that or choose to change to attract more aromatically fresh clientel. If I don't like the environment in that restaurant, I'll go somewhere else. It's like being invited to somebody's house as a guest, and then upon getting there, telling your hosts how they should be decorating their own home. If you hate it that much, then don't accept the invitation. I'm not going to send the government in to run other people's establishments the way I would run them if I owned them. I say let the market decide.

And the reason I don't think smoking is a problem is because I don't smoke. It doesn't get any more simple than that.

Apparently you don’t personally know anyone who has worked in a restaurant all her life (no, she couldn’t “just get a different job”), and who has developed lung cancer as a result of continuous exposure to selfish others’ second-hand smoking in said establishment. Don’t tell me about those smoker’s rights. And yes, in this case, it is the same as pointing a loaded handgun at someone. End result: an innocent person will die due to the direct actions of other people who are doing something they don’t need to be doing in public because they think they have a “right” to do so. And, excuse me, Mr. High & Mighty, ... yes, my iMac may be adding “pollutants” to the air, but I am not aiming them at your face, nor will they kill you anywhere as quickly as forcibly breathing second-hand smoke.

"How is valuing one's niccotine more selfish than valuing one's health and longevity?"

Really? That's a good point? C'mon.

Well, I'm just saying… selfish is a point of view.

Ah yes. Well, thank God we all have you around to reassure us that “death happens” and there is nothing we can do about it. Sympathetic little humanist, aren’t you now. Perhaps someday you will grow up enough to empathize with others. Until then, it is obviously pointless to attempt to remove your “smarter-than-all-of-you” blinders.

.....

Oh yes death happens. But smoke makes you die faster. Smoke does shorten life. That’s a fact. I would like to live as long as i can. But there might be people who just want to get it over with.

Nomi, "Smarter than all of you?" Buddy, you can accuse me of being an elitist all you want, but at least I'm not trying to force my beliefs on everybody else, using the long arm of the law. Gosh, I've never met somebody who's so passionate about demonizing people who simply think we have too many restrictions in today's society. I mean I don't smoke. I never have, and I wouldn't want to date somebody who does, but that doesn't mean I hate them, dislike them, or want to rid them of their freedom to do so. Empathize?  How am I not being empathetic? By not advocating the dispatchment of police officers with guns, nightsticks, tazors, handcuffs to apprehend or punish ordinary citizens who are practicing something that has been perfectly legal for centuries? My empathy is for every society in history that was ever seduced so gradually into giving their power, privacy, and freedom over to the governments that were sworn to protect them. It always happens slowly, and only becomes obvious when its too late, but the process is the same: one harmless law at a time.

You keep saying that police action is implicit in legislation, but I don't think armed police are going to be chasing down someone who lights up in public and beating them into submission.  People won't smoke in public if doing so will get them a fine or a night in jail; they'll just do it at home, leaving the street air cleaner for the rest of us.

_practicing something that has been perfectly legal for centuries_

Centuries ago, people were hanged for witchcraft.  Centuries ago, people thought the earth was flat.  Centuries ago, people didn't know smoking was harmful.  I really don't think we should continue doing something so unhealthy just because we have been for a long time.

You love to bring up debates everywhere dont you HM

Thank you, Silthilar, for being the voice of reason. Obviously, Mr. Hideous just likes to be contentious for the sake of being contentious.

I've been wanting to read this conversation but I don't know if its worth my time since its so long, so I was wondering Nomilove (since I think you've been keeping up) if it's worth reading?

(Sigh). Probably not. I’m for the rights of people to live in peace and not have to suffer needlessly. Someone else is for the rights of people who don’t care what they do to others.

I don't expect to convince you. I'm simply saying that if a private company wants to let people smoke in their stores and restaurants, it's a private matter, not a public one, and certainly not a government one. A non-smoker, if so bothered, can simply practice a personal boycott of that business. All Silthilar points out to me is historical examples of how legal restrictions can get out of hand, if people become too willing to enact them. Smoking does pollute the air, but the negative health affects are so dilluted when taken in the second hand, on occasion and in vetilated areas, that it becomes comparable to other, more commonly accepted air pollutants. In other words, I don't believe that it's as hazardous as you say, but that banning it would be both an act of paranoia and dependence on the government. Not to mention that you are free to avoid designated smoking areas, just as you're free to avoid walking out into the middle of a highway, or onto a train track, or off a cliff, or into a bear cave. I'm not saying that people should be allowed to smoke in such businesses where its administration or management doesn't allow it. Is it not fair to allow them their own smoke-permissive public places, just as it is to allow us our smoke-free areas? And just as we would be allowed to brave the smoking section, and risk our precious life expectancy, they would be allowed to put their cigarettes out, and subject their tar-filled lungs with the flavorless gas we call fresh air. I just don't see the harm in allowing our less health-conscious neighbors to enjoy public socializations in the ways they wish. Now here I am, a fellow non-smoker. And I find myself being attacked for not hating smokers enough to deserve your tolerance. I never knew being against a new, and previously unneeded legal restriction would generate such opposition from my own fellow citizens: the very people on whom those restrictions are placed, and who obviously don't need a law to avoid smoking, themselves. I have friends who smoke, and I don't feel the least bit offended when they do so. I get a little horse when I go to a smokey bar, but to me it's just another reason not to go to a smoke-permissive bar. It's not like there aren't plenty of other bad habits, influences, and health concerns in those kinds of places, anyway.

Well, I guess this is a pointless discussion, anyway. I'm just incapable of effectively expressing this degree of tolerance and contentment to people who depend this much on their government. Sorry I'm wasting your time.

You keep talking about the government and the law. I don’t think this discussion’s never been about those things.

Well, I think the law is relevant, when it concerns the legality of smoking, and it was only made a topic when somebody said "why don’t they make it illegal?" I think we've been trying to stay on that topic as much as possible. 

One fallacy that many of your arguments have been dependent on is that air pollution through smoking is equivalent to air pollution through other sources.  Smoking is a luxury, it is nothing but a luxury, and the only thing getting rid of it would hurt would be a paltry few tobacco farmers here in Kentucky.  Now, say, automobile exhaust: automobiles are an absolute necessity for the infrastructure on which our everyday lives depend, and revamping the entire industry to reduse emissions would be astronomically expensive.  Pollution as a byproduct of the production of electricity: do I even need to mention how important this is?  And alternate energy sources, as much as they need to be developed, are currently far too insufficient to meet the energy needs of the world.

_ All Silthilar points out to me is historical examples of how legal restrictions can get out of hand, if people become too willing to enact them._

 Where did you get that?  They believed the world was flat?  My point was that tradition is a lousy reason to keep smoking around.

_this degree of tolerance and contentment_

Contentment?  With what?  Smoke-filled restaurants?  If I want to eat somewhere, I have as much right to be there as a smoker does, but I'd say my right to health (because as much as you downplay it, second-hand smoke is bad for you) overrides their right to get lung cancer.

Sorry if I'm kicking a sleeping dog in the ribs, just ignore this is I came in after the unspoken end of the debate.

You're right, dumbbrunnette, this has been quite a silly discussion.  However (and probably unfortunately), I am attracted to debate like moth to flame, so I can't help myself.  Alright, so I can help myself, I just don't.