Mr. White:
Hey, yeah! That worked great for alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, heroin…
Wait, no it didn’t.
WHOOSH, Mr2001, whoosh.
So where are the hand washing police? Give this French Fry Chef a citation, Mr. Police Man, he didn’t wash his hands and there is a smear of dung of his index finger.
Making a common human practice, like washing your hands, into a federal law makes about as much sense as a law forbidding people to eat their boogers. It is disgusting that some people do it, but there doesn’t need to be a law stopping it. If an employee at Fife’s doesn’t wash his hands after using the toilet, then the manager would just fire the employee without the assistance of the Federal Government. Federal enforcement of such laws is picayune as best. It is clear when managers of establishments don’t enforce strong standards of cleanliness by the state of visible filth and I stay away from those places. Unless you want huge budget increases and massive Government inspections, the hand washing law is a tit on a bull. Okay, maybe you do want huge budget increases and Government inspections, you’re Kimstu after all.
The Government should play a very minimal role in health and safety standards. I don’t have a problem with regulations on hazardous materials like mercury, biochemicals, plutonium, et al. If cigarette smoke is truly as toxic as some proponents would like us to believe, then it should be treated as such.
I’ve read The Jungle and know that standards of food production where very shoddy at one time and minimal health and safety standards are perfectly acceptable, though I’d rather see it done though independent organizations and not a Government agency.
Great example. Smoke free establishments as viable market entities. You wanna eat that one Kimstu? 
Alas, though, such a bar probably wouldn’t get my money because it wouldn’t be noise-free (i.e., loud music free).
I thought the fed’s mandate on washing hands was to provide the employer with a valid and lawsuit free method of dismissing the unwashed employee.
Sterra, in a free society citizens don’t need “permission” from their government to do things. The government needs to get permission from it’s citizens. You seem to have it bass ackwards.
To put it another way, if the government wants to ban cigs, the burden of proof is on it to show cause as to why it needs to do that. The burden of proof is not on me to show why I “need” to smoke them.
What’s that you say? The government already bans marijuana and a bunch other stuff in spite of not having any proof why it needs to? Well, you’re right. It does. So as long as we have this !&@!@ “War on Drugs” we will not be living in a truly free society.
I could ramble on about that for a long long time, but I won’t, as while I am still quite new here, looking back on my few posts I already have a bad record when it comes to sticking to the topic.
However, I just couldn’t help responding to this:
Yes. Well. So did slavery. The cotton did get harvested after all. But there were good reasons to do away with it nonetheless.
And finally:
If I choose to go into an establishment that I know permits smoking, certainly it is a risk, but the only person’s health I am risking is my own. Assuming that my life is my own, what justification does the state have for forbidding me to do this?
Weird_AL_Einstein wrote:
Hell, some states even have laws against suicide. And I don’t just mean laws against doctor-assisted suicide, I mean laws against taking your own life!
What are they going to do, throw your corpse in jail?
I have asked myself the same question. Truly, as long as the state can make laws like this, our lives will not be our own.
If there weren’t laws making it difficult to fire bad employees, then there’d be no need for hand washing laws to dismiss the great unwashed.
Now the inquiring question of the day: Does the hand washing law stipulate how the hands must be washed? With or without soap? Ect ect ect. Perhaps there is a lawsuit lurking with multicultural standards of hand washing.
While I will admit to not reading all of the replies in this thread, as a smoker and one that hates her smoking habit here are my thoughts. (remember I am a Libertarian too. 
)
Outside of any building should not be a government entity to get involved in. It’s outside and fer frickin sake ever been behind a bus for miles on end??? The smell of deisel fuel, not to mention the black smoke that comes out of that thing…yeesh my 17 years of smoking emitts less than that nasty bus.
Private businesses: Offices and the like. While I agree that not smokers should want a smoke-free environment I also agree that a business should provide smokers with adequate protection from the elements. Not government regulated mind you, but reasonable facilities for all.
As for bars and restaurants. Well, a business like that should, knowing the consequences of smoking environments, ensure that all employees know the risks of working in such an environment (again not government regulated).
What bugs me is that government regulations tell a business that they must not allow smoking on their own private property. If people choose not be in a smokey bar or restaurant then those people wont go. In my opinion, I find that government telling my nieghbor how to run his/her business is completely wrong. If an establishment so chooses to allow smokers in their midst, so be it. If another chooses to ban smoking on their property, then so be it. But in no shape or form should a government entity demand that a business provide a smoke free environment. This is against
…everything that separates the freedom to own your own business and a government that dictates how you run your business. This, in my eyes is a slippery slope.
< BTW, I can’t stand OSHA > Just so you know.