[teslahelper]

Concern over the health effects of smoking and second-hand smoke have led to calls for bans on smoking in public spaces. Are these bans justified?

Most seats in most restaurants are already designated nonsmoking, and there is little evidence that nonsmokers who visit restaurants and bars believe smoking is a major concern. In restaurants with smoking and nonsmoking sections, better ventilation systems rather than smoking bans can solve any remaining concerns.

Smoking bans have had severe negative effects on restaurants, bars, and nightclubs in cities where such bans have been enacted. Smokers choose to stay home or visit with friends who allow smoking in their homes, or spend less time (and less money) in bars and nightclubs before leaving. Smoking bans can also move noisy and potentially dangerous crowds onto sidewalks, and divert police resources from battling more serious crime.

[cooldude]

A just government does not have the authority to ban smoking on private property or to tell smokers to quit or to punish them if they do not. Smokers are adults, not children, and they deserve to have their informed choices respected by others.

If we pass laws forcing smokers to change their behavior “for their own good,” we need to ask: Where do we stop? Do we pass laws against smoking in private homes? Against frying food indoors (which also releases known carcinogens into the air)? Eating the wrong kinds of food? Eating too much? Weighing too much? Drinking too much (and not just when driving)? Exercising too little? Should we ban other risky behavior, such as skydiving, bungee-jumping, or riding motorcycles? How about drinking more than one cup of coffee each day?

[barfly]

Anti-smoking activists give smokers a stark choice: Stop smoking or die! In fact, there is a third path: reduce the harm by shifting to less-hazardous kinds of tobacco products. For example, moving from unfiltered to filtered cigarettes, and from regular to “low tar” cigarettes, both appear to reduce the risk of lung cancer. Switching from cigarettes to chewing tobacco dramatically reduces the health risk.

For many years, the Swiss have used a kind of “spitless tobacco” called “snus.” At least partly because of the widespread use of snus, Switzerland has the lowest rate of cigarette smoking and lung cancer in Europe. Surely there are lessons here for U.S. tobacco policy.

Unfortunately, in the U.S. advertising the comparative health effects of different tobacco products is strongly discouraged by the FDA, state attorneys general, the courts, and a variety of government funded antitobacco organizations. As a result, few smokers know that the health risks of smoking can be dramatically reduced simply by reducing the number of cigarettes smoked or by switching to filtered and light cigarettes or to chewing tobacco.

[cooldude]

I usually just light up where ever I feel like doing so even if I know there is no smoking allowed. I've never been asked to leave (yet) from any establishment where I have refused to stop smoking.

[cooljay788]

So an anti thinks I have only 2 options: Stop smoking, or die!

Let's take a look at these 2 options.

Stop smoking: Not on my watch! Pressuring me to quit smoking just cause you hate seeing me smoke, antis, is no different from hating me for my race. Stop smoking should be MY choice. Not yours, pip-squeaks!

Die: Last time I checked, nonsmokers die too. I even read online years ago about this 25 year-old nonsmoking chick who died from lung cancer. But get this, antis! She neva smoked a single cig in her life, and she neva lived in a family of smokers. I'm sure she avoided smokers in public too.

But I outlived a nonsmoker who died from lung cancer! Go figure! Maybe she got the cancer (despite neva smoking herself and neva lived with a family of smokers) cause she came from a family with a deep history of cancer deaths.

Which meant for her she had a darn good chance of dying from lung cancer anyway, even if she neva smoked.

Maybe that chick would've lived longa if she actually smoked.

[Eddie H]

It appears that smokers seem to be living longer than non-smokers. And the smokers that are living so much longer appear to be the ones that smoke non-filtered or RYO cigs. I hope this trend continues.

[cooljay788]

Cigar smokers live much longa than smokers of Big Tobacco cigs too. Rememba 100 year-old George Burns with his cigars? LOL

[barfly]

I remember seeing him on stage in Las Vegas at over 100 yrs old smoking a cigar, trying to sing and doing tap dances with young, bikini babes in high heels. I wanna have bikini babes right now - forget waiting another 47 years!

[MamboSun]

I think there are a few places where bans are logical: schools (pre-university), hospitals (with allowance of designated smoking areas on the property, not immediately near an entrance), parks and undeveloped land/forest and such during fire season or fire risk periods, gas stations or any business with a notable amount of gasoline/propane/etc... But restaurants, bars, and really any privately owned commercial business is bullshit. It should entirely be up to the business whether or not they want to allow it. I really don't think most people go to bars to rot their liver with a fear of cigarette smoke.

[MoonlightSonata]

Originally Posted by cooldude If we pass laws forcing smokers to change their behavior “for their own good,” we need to ask: Where do we stop? Do we pass laws against smoking in private homes? Against frying food indoors (which also releases known carcinogens into the air)? Eating the wrong kinds of food? Eating too much? Weighing too much? Drinking too much (and not just when driving)? Exercising too little? Should we ban other risky behavior, such as skydiving, bungee-jumping, or riding motorcycles? How about drinking more than one cup of coffee each day?

You know the unfortunate and scary thing is, I've seen people argue such things. Look at the whole food thing lately, government trying to change things "For your own good". Then banning things in schools. I remember when I went to primary school, there was an ice cream vending machine I used now and then. These days? Yeah right. Also heard someone online once say that people shouldn't drink X amount of coffee a day because it could make healthcare costs higher for others. It's really scary to think not just the government but everyday people think these things.

I think there are a few places where bans are logical: schools (pre-university), hospitals (with allowance of designated smoking areas on the property, not immediately near an entrance), parks and undeveloped land/forest and such during fire season or fire risk periods, gas stations or any business with a notable amount of gasoline/propane/etc... But restaurants, bars, and really any privately owned commercial business is bullshit. It should entirely be up to the business whether or not they want to allow it.

I can tell you a little story. A hospital used to have a little smoking shelter outside, away from others and actually in a lightly wooded area. It had benches and a disposal unit for cigarettes. I believe I sometimes I saw people out there smoking. It was away from people and away from the hospital quite a bit and closest to a parking lot. Well somewhere in the last 6 or so years, they made the hospital grounds "tobacco free". The shelter is now completely gone and there's no disposal units either. There's a sign when you go in that says "Tobacco Free" "Thank you for your support".

And there you go.

I really don't think most people go to bars to rot their liver with a fear of cigarette smoke.

HA.