hypocrisy of non-smokers

[bumab]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

Most folks don't consider burping and/or farting as unhealthy, but we don't generaly burp or fart in other folks faces.

Ha! Well said.

On the other hand, we regulate other forms of pollution that bother people. Noise pollution, for example, will get the cops called if you are playing your music overloud. You can't shine spotlights into other people's bedrooms. But if your neighbor is smoking and the smoke is constantly drifting into your house, or people are sit down next to you in the park, you can't ask them to leave based on air pollution.

Cars have the same problem, you say? Right- and it's too bad we can't make the same restrictions. That's my enviro side coming out again...

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by bumab

...But if your neighbor is smoking and the smoke is constantly drifting into your house, or people are sit down next to you in the park, you can't ask them to leave based on air pollution....

Sure you can. People do it all the time. I have had people ask me not to smoke in a public place, and I stop. I think people are overly paranoiud about it (and often a little rude) but I stop puffing on my cigar anyway.

And I suspect you could get your neighbor to ber their own filtration burden if you really wanted to, although that one is more difficult.

[bumab]

I meant legally. You can get the cops to come over and stop the noise, but not the smoke. It's an example of a legal provision for a non-health related nusiance. Smoking is a health related (tenuous or not) nusiance many times.

I love good Cuban cigars too, but I wouldn't be offended over a No Smoking in Public Places ordinance. I never smoke in public, only in the backyard, or occasionally some cloves in a dimmly lit bar with some Dylan of Velvet Underground in the background.

[Turtle]

___I smoke & have for decades. Cigars, pipes, & cigs. All in all, I wish I hadn't started & further wish I could quit. it's stinky, expensive, unhealthy, & offensive to many. That said, we haven't touched on the issue of addictioin. My doctors tell me to quit, but don't provide any service to do so, but rather leave that to me. Ya, right! The addict will do the right thing; nonsense.
___We in the US now are addressing the delimma of having the government paying for anti-smoking campaigns, while at the same time paying subsidies to the tobacco growers. I say, stop farming tobacco & switch to cannibis, or at least stop commercial tobacco growing & let people grow a smokeable if they choose.
___While I am a smoker, I am a considerate smoker; i don't smoke around non-smokers & I don't throw my butts on the ground (I "field dress" my smokes outside).
___Anyway, there is it seems hypocracy, but it's from the government, not the community.

[bumab]

Originally Posted by Turtle

I say, stop farming tobacco & switch to cannibis, or at least stop commercial tobacco growing & let people grow a smokeable if they choose.

That's an interesting idea.

[niviene]

I used to smoke quite heavily. After I stopped smoking, I'm not sure if something inside me changed or what, but I now get horrible, horrible migraines with even one whiff of cigarette smoke - and I can smell it a mile away... even in traffic, if someone is a few cars away smoking. It is a trigger of cluster migraines for me - that come and go for several weeks at a time and have sent me to the ER on more than one occasion. As a result, I haven't been to a bar or restaurant with smoking in it for years, because I know what will happen. Now, I know these things happen to me, and I did something about it - I think people have the option to leave if they don't like the atmosphere, as I did. What would make me mad, however, is if I had to go to work every day and walk through smoke to get in the door to my job. I don't care what anybody says - I can leave a social situation on my own, but I should not have to make a choice between dealing with that and my job. Smoking may or may not be as unhealthy as they claim it is, but it certainly is unpleasant and smells bad, and I don't want to smell like that while I'm at work, even if I didn't have to worry about the migraines. I made sure that when I smoked I did it out in my car or way away from everyone else, and I never once threw a butt on the ground or out my car window. I wish that current smokers would be more considerate, and also not leave their trash on the ground, either. But, I don't know that I agree with banning them in the whole city. (the city I live in, by the way, and nearly all of the suburbs have passed smoking bans all over the city - not in restaurants, not in bars, nowhere...just passed about three months ago)

[Chacmool]

Originally Posted by Fishteacher73

I feel there is a bit of inflexability on both sides. Smoke outdoors seems to be fine with me. I can see that right in front of entry ways is not the best place because all that wish to enter the building must deal with it. Smoking and non-smoking sections in food establishments seems valid as well. Smoke in a bar. I for no real reason can see why people wish to ban smoking in bars. Stop one thing that is bad for you to do another??? Get over it.

I also see no real issue for individuals to ask other not to smoke in common areas. Compliance would just be courtesy, but not compulsory. The non-smoker has legs too. They can leave as well.

I don't have to "get over" anything. I don't necessarily go to a bar to consume vast amounts of alcohol. In fact, I hardly ever drink alcohol. A bar is simply a comfortable place for people to meet. Just because some people get inebriated, it doesn't mean I have to put up with a dense haze of smoke.

And yes, I do have legs, so I choose not to take them to smoke-filled places. It's just a pity that there are very few public places for me to go. And before legislation started changing, there were virtually no smoke-free zones.

[bumab]

We don't have a non-smoking ban in town (on bars), yet many bars market as non-smoking locations, and they do well. It's not just a lack of legislation- if enough demand a smoke free setting, you'll get one. It's legal for a private property owner to not allow smoking in his/her bar.

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

T- I think that data is terrible, and should probably be significantly discounted.
...
It is patently ludicrous to contend that non-smokers incur the same damage that smokers do.

Thank you.

My doctors have - since they began studying asthma in the early 70ies (I was a guinea pig) - long since concluded that there is a direct correlation between my mother's smoking while I was still in the womb and also from living in a smoke-filled home as a toddler, to my development of chronic asthma bronchiale which was discovered when I was 13 months old.

Call it ludicrous as much as you want. I have to live with it all my life.

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

Sure you can. People do it all the time. I have had people ask me not to smoke in a public place, and I stop. I think people are overly paranoiud about it (and often a little rude) but I stop puffing on my cigar anyway.

I frankly don't think you have the faintest clue as to what the harmful effects of smoke (active and passive) are. You wilfully push it onto others to humbly ask you to stop smoking. Now THAT is hypocrisy, my friend.