Adult rights threatened due to 'da children...

mercurior Wrote:
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> cigarettes do not affect everyone, theres people
> aged 80 who smoke and they are ill due to it. it
> all depends on genes, other factors. and car
> pollution causes more of the same chemicals that
> is in cig smoke..

Those cases are the exceptions, not the rule.

And yeah, I agree with you about car exhaust. I really do wish that alternative transportation were encouraged. I think if there were stronger laws about emissions, maybe more alternative technologies would be encouraged.

but then again methane from cows and horses can cause the ozone layer to reduce, thats pollution as well..


(btw People who smoke with children present in the confined space of a car or truck might as well be deliberately trying to kill those children, said City Councilor Patricia Blanchette, who is a smoker." "An amendment that was added Monday to the original proposal makes the violation a primary offense, rather than a secondary offense. That means police can pull over vehicles if they see somebody smoking with anybody under 18 in the vehicle)

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

Another thing that irks me is how it is legal for employers to refuse employment to applicants who smoke and can test them for tobacco usage. Banning smoking from the workplace is the right of the company or business owner. However, no one should be allowed to dictate off-work behaviour. The lame excuse is higher health insurance premiums. Does that mean a woman can be made to get a pee test to make sure she is not pregnant which will give the employer's health insurance a whopper of a bill to deliver the little screamer? I doubt there would be apathy or support on that issue...

"FUCK WORK"

mercurior Wrote:
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> but then again methane from cows and horses can
> cause the ozone layer to reduce, thats pollution
> as well..
>
Yes, but cows and horses serve a useful purpose, AND they are living creatures with rights of their own. Cigarettes have no useful purpose. You can't get milk or meat of of a cigarette. You can't ride a cigarette. A cigarette is not alive and does not have a nervous system or a brain.

Honestly, these arguments are getting dumber and dumber!

CFScorpio Wrote:
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> Me? Are you joking? Why would you think I lived in
> the U.K.? I mention Texas and NY in most of my
> posts.

Heh - Sorry, I realized after I posted that I was thinking of Merc. Never mind me. I was busy drinking in my smoke free bar.

Gosh, this sure is a contentious issue. If you leave it open to the bar owner, there won't be any non-smoking bars because bar owners are all about profit and they don't want to alienate smokers, who will just walk to the next smoking-okay bar on the block.

I can only think of one local tavern here in Burlington (VT) that claimed it was harmed by Vermont's smoking ban, but they claim business crept back up anyway. Interestingly, the ban went into effect as colleges were letting out for the summer, which could very well explain the perceived loss of business.

"If you leave it open to the bar owner, there won't be any non-smoking bars"

That hasn't proven to be the case, though. Non-smokers (who are the majority of the population) talk about how much they hate to be around cigarette smoke, thereby providing the very reason why these laws are unnecessary. Smokers are a minority, and even then most of them prefer to do their smoking outside so their clothes don't smell like smoke. There is still a small minority of people who like to smoke in bars and don't mind wallowing in the smell, and if there are bars who cater to them, so what? The vast majority of people will go out of their way to avoid those places. MOST of the restaurants in my area do not allow smoking anywhere in the restaurant, and a lot of the bars (I'd say half) are the same way. No one wants to go to the smoking bars except the diehards. It all balances itself out, according to the laws of supply and demand.

This has nothing to do with whether smoking is good or bad and everything to do with the rights of a private property owner to do with his or her property as he or she wishes. It is wrong for the government to make this a political issue. Politicians are trying to garner the votes of the non-smokers by pandering to their misplaced sense of entitlement, at the expense of people's property rights. And the average dummy won't think past "I don't like smoke so I don't think it should be allowed!" until they find themselves in a position where their OWN property rights (in a situation like, say, eminent domain abuse) are at risk. They are as bad as breeders who allow themselves to be seduced by "pro-family" government handouts. Those who rob Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul, I guess. Public spaces are one thing, but when it comes to privately-owned property, the person who owns the property is the only one who should decide.

Again, if you don't want your kid exposed to it, then don't take them around it. Period. Pure and simple. Why do breeders think everyone should change their lifestyles just because they were stupid and chose to breed?

Wow, what an incendiary topic...pun intended.

I have allergies to a number of things; dust, mold, cigarette smoke in particular. Have never smoked except for two or three clove cigarettes (a long time ago). The problem is that smoke travels. Yeah, I may be sitting in the "nonsmoking" area of a restaurant, but invariably the smoke drifts over from the bar/smoking area. Thanks for sharing!

Smoking is one of those habits you can give up, if you really try. My Dad was a four-pack-a-day smoker until he was about fifty. He quit because his doctor told him he'd die otherwise and he wanted to live to see his last-born grow up. Thank God for that, he lived another twenty-seven years.

If you're worried about taxes, know that we ALL pay for the reduced life expectancy of smokers. We also end up paying their hospital bills if they are on Medicaid or Medicare. Usually it's the "poor folk" who continue to smoke. What the hell, though, "personal rights" in America trump the common good every time!

"If you're worried about taxes, know that we ALL pay for the reduced life expectancy of smokers. We also end up paying their hospital bills if they are on Medicaid or Medicare. Usually it's the "poor folk" who continue to smoke. What the hell, though, "personal rights" in America trump the common good every time!"

You have just provided an excellent argument for why we should not have to subsidize the poor choices of others through these government programs. Yes, I think people should be free to smoke if they want to, but I also care about the personal rights of people who have their wallets raided to pick up the tab.

It becomes a vicious cycle. First we get stuck paying for others' dumb decisions "for the common good" through these ripoff wealth transfer systems. Then those very same systems become an excuse to start regulating and controlling people's behavior. Because if you can make the argument that "we all get stuck paying for it" then you can make the argument that we should make it illegal. Where does it stop?

Smokers actually save the taxpayers money, because most of them die before they get old enough to receive Medicaid. But what about obesity? If we all get stuck paying for it, there isn't a single unhealthy behavior that shouldn't be made illegal. I'm quite fond of my chosen few unhealthy behaviors (although smoking is not included among them), and that does not sound like the kind of world I want to live in.

smokers in the UK pay more tax on cigarettes a 20 pack costs $8 plus.. so the money raised on them pays for all the health and education for everyone else its something like £9 billion a year .. so smokers do do something for everyone, they help raise taxes.. so you cant say they are useless..

without the tax raised on smokers, you would have to pay more in taxes.. to get the same amount of money. in essence the smokers are sacrificing their lives to make your better

*********************************************************************************************************************************
I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein