lights up
Mister Rodgers. Fucked up that opening montage something good if there were a buncha dirty smokers sitting about in the neighborhood.
ETA:
He’s the head of science for British American Tobacco. Hardly an impartial observer.
Passive smoking is nowhere near the health risk people make it to be.
I don’t believe you’ll see any further advancement on that front. Because if they move the line again the courts will be swamped with complaints of smelly fish, incense, bbq pork. They aren’t going to go there, your delusions notwithstanding.
Until there is an outright ban on tobacco, there is always going to be someplace that smokers are allowed to smoke.
But you go ahead and form your committees and have your marches and protests, if it makes you feel better. Better keep them indoors though, otherwise smokers are likely to stand across the street and partake while watching all the deluded delicate flowers dance.
Shiver.
Okay then, the feeling is mutual.
I used to have a lot of sympathy for this situation, but that has disappeared now, pretty much with the smoking bans in bars. The anti-smoking campaigners drove people out of bars, places where there is no need or compulsion to go, and rejected all compromises suggested like allowing limited numbers of bars to stay smoking.
Now, in DC at least, the next push is to ban people smoking on the sidewalk outside the bar. Had you not banned smoking in the bar, I’d have been fine with a ban on smoking on public sidewalks (maybe with certain areas set up that allowed smoking). It sucks for a person who hates cigarette smoke to have to walk past a big group of smokers to get from one end of the block to the other. But if you allowed the smokers to smoke in a private bar, with an owner who wants to allow smoking, and bar staff who want to work in a smoking environment, then this problem would be significantly less.
Well, I think you might be taking a slightly rosy view of the prospects in that regard. As this Time science blog noted last November, more places are starting to take outdoor smoking bans more seriously:
Like I said, I’d be happy for them to smoke anyplace if they kept their smoke to themselves. But if they can’t, and if their smoke is constantly bothering non-smokers, I’m not going to be surprised if the more militant non-smokers continue to push through additional legal restrictions on their smoking.
And if the smokers’ default response to people who are constantly bothered by their smoke is just to jeer at them and tell them “suck it up, delicate flower, 'cuz it’s legal for me to smoke here and there ain’t a thing you can do about it”, then the smokers shouldn’t be surprised if they don’t get much sympathy when the legality goes away.
I love that your cite basically said researchers found no additional exposure to nicotine in people subjected to outdoor secondhand smoke but that cities would try banning it anyway.
Kimstu, if you’re going to keep pulling out the “hostility begets hostility” thing, it might be worth noting that we didn’t start it. Yeah, twenty years later, herded into pens 50 feet away from the building, we get a little pissy when you complain about our smoke. You see, **we **are smoking in the only place we’re allowed to smoke. **You **can go anywhere you like. So yeah, bite me.
But it is the actions of the non-smokers pushing for compulsory smoke free bars that has made the problem significantly worse. As well as adding to noise pollution, if you happen to live near a bar.
Yep, non smokers were the ones who insisted on NO smoking in bars, no matter what. Even though bar owners were willing to set up a separate room, with a giant ventilation system to vent it out the top of the building. Not good enough, insisted the non smokers. So yeah, people now smoke on streets instead.
Guess you should have been more reasonable when you had the chance. Suck it up is right.
As soon as it’s illegal I’ll be right there with you, until them, tough darts.
Actually, the article discussed in the link said that outdoor secondhand smoke did increase nicotine exposure levels significantly; it just didn’t increase nicotine exposure beyond threshold levels currently classified as dangerous.
Whether or not you view that as a potential public health hazard depends on what you think of the statement that “there is no level of personal exposure to [second hand smoke] that can be regarded as safe.”
Except that to a non-smoker bothered by smoke, breathing smoke into their airspace is a form of “starting it”. Putting smoke into other people’s breathing room seems to the nonsmoker like a rude intrusion, just as it seems like a rude intrusion when people are yelling or playing loud music. The intruder may not mean to be disturbing other people, but that isn’t apparent to those on the receiving end.
But this doesn’t apply when nonsmokers are being constantly bothered by smoke while in their own homes. People want to live normal lives in their homes without being constantly annoyed by pervasive noxious emanations from the neighbors, whether they’re noise or smoke or smells or whatever.
I understand that smokers feel like they’ve had to sacrifice a lot of freedom and comfort for the convenience of nonsmokers, and they naturally resent it. But the fundamental root of the problem here is that smokers apparently* can’t keep their smoke to themselves, and a lot of other people don’t like breathing their smoke.
Personally, I think it’s a bit on the hyperbolic side. None? Really? I can’t help but wonder why we’re not all dead, then.
And you know, I could maybe see that, when we were all sharing indoor space. But if the whole great outdoors isn’t sufficient to diffuse a bit of cigarette smoke to your satisfaction, maybe YOU* are the one who needs a bubble.
*Not, ya know, you.
I for one, am in favor of banning smoking outdoors. While all those pesky non-smokers are out enjoying their fresh air again, we can sneak back into the bar and have a few cigs with our beers.
I think it’s ludicrous, as anyone who thinks it through is bound to.
In some places, I think this sidewalk ban has already been enacted (?), New York maybe? I believe there have also been efforts to “outlaw” smoking from entire towns. As to the “smoking bar”, I think I can predict what will happen - someone will file a lawsuite because they want to go there but it’s full of smokers, or some attorny will file a class action “for” the workers there and get rich off it.
I want to get something clear, OP.
Is this smoking guy next door to you or across the street from you? Is there ever a moment when the breeze or wind is NOT blowing ALL that smoke directly at you? Do you really have choking fits from all this undiluted and undissipated smoke that is constantly being blown directly and at full strength into your house?
And now they don’t want it on the street either. No accomodation, no compromise will be enough.
Just make sure the bouncers keep them out of **our **bar. But then, they’ll probably sue because they’re being discriminated against.
Well, it took a while but you are finally shivering for something shiverworthy. Progress has been made. I now consider this thread a success.
Pork ribs are serious business.
You’ll get my pork ribs when you can pry them …
I was basically on your side of all this until our county tried to make the Pittsburgh Cigar Bar go smoke free because some poor nonsmoker may want to have a drink there. It’s a fucking cigar bar you (in a general sense) fucking moron. If you didn’t want to inhale the smoke you should have stayed outside!
Again, non-smokers and people with health issues I have no complaint with - I married one. But the anti’s have tied all this up with so much garbage and so many garbage laws that my wife figures I may need to be a more militant smoker.
Since its popped up as usual - second hand smoke? My favorite quote is that in 2007, The New England Journal of Medicine estimated an individual would need to spend 4,000 hours in a smoke filled room to inhale the amount of smoke in one cigarette. Compared to a lot of the risks I face in my life, I can live with that one.
Let me paraphrase you a little: I’d be happy for support people bothered by smoking if they kept to themselves and out of places designated for smoking. But if they can’t, and if their attitude is constantly bothering everyone, I’m not going to be surprised if the more militant smokers begin to push through “backlash legal actions” whenever they can.
Either way it will be interesting to watch.
That’s part of my gripe with the whole affair - It will never be enough.