by 0mar » Thu 23 Mar 2006, 17:50:09
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Magus', 'M')y two cents...
I've vistited my mother's house on occassion. She's a smoker, and after I leave my hair, clothes, and anything else happen to bring is invaribly left with the strong odor of ash. Since she has stopped smoking in the house, the experience there has improved tremendously for me.
Before the smoking ban, on occassion I would go out to a restaurant, only to find that the entire non-smoking section was occupied. I would be left with two options: wait possibly a long time for the non-smoking section to be clear (possibly going to another establishment if the wait is to great), or eat in the smoking section. The first option is decidedly inconvenient. The conseqence of the second option is that my dining experience is compromised.
Why should I have to deal with the smoking of others while I am eating? Something that people who smoke often fail to recognize is that their senses are dulled compared to people who don't (you know, all that smoke in your lungs and sinuses?), so they really don't have as much capacity to taste and smell the food they're eating. However, I do, and I can quite earnestly tell you that when that crap is going up my nose as I am taking my bites, it has a quite PERCEPTIBLE effect on the taste of my dinner!
![[smilie=icon_puke_r.gif]](https://udev.peakoil.com/forums/images/smilies/icon_puke_r.gif "icon_puke_r")
![[smilie=new_shocked.gif]](https://udev.peakoil.com/forums/images/smilies/new_shocked.gif "new_shocked")
Oh NOES! Not our beer and smokes! You can start an illegal war, take our freedoms away and drive our economy into the ground; BUT TAKE AWAY OUR SMOKES?! NOW YOU HAVE GONE TO FAR!!!
I'm sorry, I fail to take such complaints seriously. esides, you people do yourselves no good, financially...or physically. When I hear this talk about the inconveniences that smokers endure, somwhere, in the background, this can be heard faintly.....
![[smilie=eusa_boohoo.gif]](https://udev.peakoil.com/forums/images/smilies/eusa_boohoo.gif "eusa_boohoo")
Again, just my two cents...
Come on now. A public nusiance is no reason to ban smoking in properly ventilated areas. A lot of things are nusiances to people and you know what we do? Deal with it. That's what life is about. FFS, if you can't tolerate a little distraction/nusiance (because that's all transient second hand smoke really is), you are utterly FUCKED when peak oil hits. And if smoking is really that much of a nusiance to you, get a non-smoking seat. After all, the baby can't get his bottle right away, it gots to be filled, warmed and cushioned just right before the baby is satisfied. If we starting banning public nusiances with the zealous nature that anti-tobacco groups do to tobacco smoke, we might not be able to do anything. Cough in public? You could spread the Ebolas and Smallpox. Glare at a person? You might shatter their fragile, fragile psyche. Transient second hand smoke is nothing more than a nusiance at worst. The health effects from such a short exposure to tobacco smoke is imperceptively small, anyone telling you otherwise is lying through their goddamn teeth.
Taking the right to smoke in designated spots with proper ventilation is taking our rights away. When you start outlawing what adults can do, it damns the entire society.
Smoking tobacco is like any other hobby. Would you say that a stamp collector is wasting their money? How about a person who collects wood? Your audiophile spends thousands of dollars every year upgrading his sound system. Wine connosieurs can spend thousands of dollars on a single bottle of wine. An adrenaline junky might spend tens of thousands of dollars to go to Costa Rica to jump off a mountain. Are these hobbists wasting their money? Because if they aren't, then neither are smokers. Smoking tobacco is a hobby like any other. It has it's risks and we smokers are willing to risk that in order to enjoy doing what we love doing.
SPG, all the studies you linked to are about repeated exposure over a course of years to developing individuals. There can be no doubt that repeated exposure to children is going to be harmful. The degree of harm is something we can argue about. However, there are no reliable studies that show that transient exposure to second hand smoke is harmful. We are talking about something like a couple breaths of second hand smoke every week at the most for most of the general populace. This is what, ostensibly, these bans are supposed to accomplish. The health risks of such transient exposure is shaky at best and pseudoscience at worst. Legislating health is a slippery slope. If this is for public health, then what can't we ban in the name of it? Fast food, risky sports, watching too much TV, drinking, etc etc.
That's the problem I see with these tobacco bans (besides the fact that I'm a smoker and it sucks dick) is that we risk going on a slippery slope and becoming the victims of public health zealots. For example, this Calabasas ban is absurd. You can't smoke in your own car with the windows down. You can't even smoke on your own porch or balcony. You can't smoke in your own home with the windows open. Anti-smoking legislation is moving more and more into dogma than actual public health. We are risking a tyranny of a singular idealogy overruling what an adult can or can not do with his life.
