Let me be blunt: Those of you telling me not to drive a car or use elecricity had better not be using any cars or electricity yourselves.
Or shut up.
You know as well as I do that’s a fake argument.
It’s not like smoking keeps anyone’s artificial heart running or delivers pregnant women to the hospital.
For your information, I take public transit to work every day, bicycle to the store sometimes, and drive a high-mileage car when I have to.
Frankly, I didn’t think I was being inflammatory. Maybe it’s hard to read tone on a messgae board, but I made the “pro-breath” comment in good humor. Certainly I’m not the one who said others’ health meant “jack shit” to me.
At least one of you feels like you NEED to smoke because of your addiction. Even when it’s posted as against the law. Does that mean you’ll be lobbying to decriminalize burglary and robbery when committed by crack addicts? I hear they need their fix too.
I don’t know about other forms of smoke, but I knew a girl who couldn’t use the bathrooms when we were in high school because all of the cigarette smoke triggered her asthma.
Us non-smokers can smell your smoke a lot more than you can. Of course, all I have in anecdotal “evidence”, but what other kind is there in that sort of argument?
Is it really that hard to quit smoking? Was it that difficult back when people made their own and didn’t have extra stuff in them? I’ve never smoked, and can’t understand that it really that addictive.
I found “pro-breath” to be funny, in a pc sort of way.
Okay, this seems like a good thread (viewpoints from both sides) to ask this question that I’ve been pondering for years.
I have asthma. So I can be more sensitive to cigarette smoke than most people. There are times, like when I’m recovering from a cold, when the tiniest whiff of smoke from someone not immediately in my vicinity can send me into a prolonged coughing fit.
They’re smoking in a place where it’s allowed, possibly outside or I may be in state with little to no restrictions on smoking indoors. Yet, it’s causing me difficulty.
So far I’ve refrained from saying anything since I’m not sure if it would be considered to be my problem i.e. a person without asthma probably wouldn’t be bothered.
Am I justified in speaking up and asking someone to put out their cigarette or do I continue to say nothing?
Here’s a cite from Asthma, Questions You Have… Answers You Need
Tobacco Smoke
Q: I suppose you’re going to say that people with asthma shouldn’t smoke?
A: The evidence speaks for itself. Tobacco smoke – including cigarette, pipe and cigar smoke – is a major indoor pollutant and an irritant that creates breathing difficulties in the lungs of any asthmatic person who smokes. There is also increasing evidence that passive smoking – exposure to second hand smoke – leads to more frequent respiratory problems among asthmatic children and more frequent severe asthma episodes among asthmatic older people.
Q: Why does smoke cause problems?
Tobacco smoke contains carbon monoxide, nictotine and other harmful substances that damage the cilia…The longer someone is exposed to tobacco smoke the more damage to his cilia. With the cilia unable to work properly, inhaled particle begin to build up in and obstruct his air passages.
Q: Are other kinds of smoke a problem?
A: The byproducts of any kind of fire or combustioncan be irritants. Earlier we mentioned brushfires and burning leaves. Other irritating smokes and gases can build up in the air when natural gas or kerosene is burned in the home without adequate ventilation or when poorly sealed wood stoves or fireplaces are used to burn wood.
Q: Which pollutants can cause asthma?
A: Asthma is aggravated by irritants that are by-products of the industrialized wold in which we live. Sulfur dioxide, diesel-fuel exhaust, automobile exhaust and emmission plumes from factories and incinerators are among the offenders. Brushfires, burning leaves and burning garbage also release irritating products into the air. Smog can trigger an asthma attack. So too can fog, by carrying air pollutants as an easily inhaled mist.
I’m a smoker myself, but it really annoys the hell out of me when ah-ju-shees smoke in the subway station or in the elevator or wherever the hell they’re not supposed to. And then they have the nerve to come up to me while I’m smoking outside, minding my own business, and yell at me because it’s “unseemly” for a young woman to smoke in public. :rolleyes:
Last week, I walked through a guy’s cloud of smoke and my throat closed up. It was several seconds before I could even get a labored breath. This was outside, with all sorts of that miraculous air that’s supposed to carry away pollutants. And guess what? Even the reek that clings to heavy smokers can make me wheeze. I have to avoid smoke and smokers like the plague, because it really could kill me.
I have no sympathy for the selfish fuckers who can’t be bothered to walk an extra ten feet, or what have you. Too many No Smoking signs for you to smoke with ease and comfort? Maybe you should take the hint. Can’t stand the cold? Then quit. It’s that simple. Don’t pretend that you’re not doing any harm to yourself or others. It’s a filthy habit that kills thousands of people every day. I can understand the appeal of smoking, just not the total disregard for the consequences.
You can ask all you like , but if your in an area that allows un restricted smoking , your probably gonna be disapointed, you may also wish to change the venue to somewhere more agreeable to you.
The anti-smoking crusade is more of a religion than anything else.
Having a sheltered area for a smoker does not give them the incentive to quit , while having to brave arctic temperatures , freezing rain , howling winds , and what have you , might motivate the smoker to finally look into quitting and coming in out of the weather.
So any shelter , no matter the location , will be utilized at some point. So at some point you have friction over the boundarys.
Not wanting to be exposed to a noxious irritant is a religion?
So it’s selfish of me to ask my neighbor to turn down his loud stereo, but it becomes a religion if anyone enforces the “quiet please” signs around the hospital?
“Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.” We’re all born needing fresh air to breathe. I’m not saying you can’t smoke in private where it doesn’t affect me. But you ARE saying that your urge to smoke conveniently trumps my interest in fresh air.
Call me a religious nut if it makes you feel better. Just remember I’m not the one asking that anyone else stop breathing.
Seriously, it’s not a huge deal. But when I walk from work to a nice place to get lunch, it’s convenient to smoke along the way. It’s just odd that in an alleyway filled not so much with people as with construction vehicles and hot asphalt that I have to do a street-crossing dance just so the asphalt trucks won’t get cancer.
I think that’s a bit of a misconception. I’ve smoked for 25 years, and my sense of smell is still pretty keen. The reason I can’t smell smoke on myself is due to olfactory fatigue. If, for some reason, I go without a smoke for several hours, I can pick out a smoker from 20 feet away.
I agree - I have a better sense of smell than my non-smoking husband, but when you’re a smoker you don’t smell the smoke on you any more than the guy who cleans the monkey cage at the zoo smells the monkeys. If I’m smoking a cigarette and you are close to me and bite into an apple, I’ll smell apple. If you did the same thing next to the Monkey-Keeper, he’d smell the apple too. And I’m pretty sure he would never be so stupid to say that, because he cannot smell the monkeys, the monkeys don’t stink.
As far as the people who are going, “Just quit!” Um, how many millions of dollars are raked in every year by people claiming they can cure smoking? How many people have tried gum, patches, hypnosis, “spiritual” healing, Smokers Anonymous … and STILL can’t leave the nasty, smelly, lung-blocking, bad breath-inducing, tooth-yellowing things alone?
We moved into this house in '99 and I have never smoked a cigarette inside of it. I’ve boiled, frozen, been drenched … and yet I still smoke. Don’t you think maybe if “just quit!! :D:D:D” worked, MAYBE WE FUCKING WOULD?
Sailboat, have you ever seen people go outside for a smoke in a howling, Pennsylvania blizzard, as in 25 mph plus winds and temperatures in the 20s if not lower?
I have. I don’t smoke and never have, but I’ve seen the conditions people will endure for a cigarette and there’s no doubt in my mind it’s an addiction. I’ve seen a four-pack a day smoker who’s been hospitalized for depression who can’t last one hour without having a smoke break, even though leaving the floor to smoke will and did result in a loss of privileges. I’ve heard people who’ve stopped smoking and drinking say that if stopping drinking were as hard as stopping drinking they’d be alcoholics to this day.
Yes, some smokers are inconsiderate jerks. Some simply aren’t aware of the implications. I once asked my little brother not to smoke in the downstairs bathroom. He didn’t understand why until I pointed out that the heating vent for my room was directly above the heating vent for the bathroom so the smoke from his cigarettes went into the vent and directly up to my room. He stopped smoking there.
I’m unclear as to what this line of reasoning is a reply to. I’m not denying it’s addictive.
I’m questioning the need to expose others to it.
I go to the bathroom every day. It relaxes me. It gives me something to do with my hands. It’s a habit. I suffer distress if I put it off. If I put it off long enough, I suffer severe distress!
But I’m still only going to perform that function in the designated area. I’m still not going to get it on YOU. Even if I have to grit my teeth and squirm. I’ll put up with quite a lot rather than get any on you.
Because I know you don’t want it on you. You don’t want to see it happen. You’ve given me a place to do it, even if it’s far from my desk, or I have to ask for a key, and that can be embarassing, because everyone knows I’ve gone off to do it. But I don’t regard myself as ghettoized by a religious cult just because I’ve been sent to the designated bathroom area.
I’ve seen smokers drop a butt on the floor in someone else’s house and grind it out with their shoe. Every streetcorner is littered with butts dropped there by smokers, as if that was appropriate. I can’t imagine the sense of ownewrship that I’d have to acquire to behave like that.
I’m not asking anyone to stop smoking. I AM asking them to not make me breathe it, and to be understand that my desire is not in any way abnormal, a weakness, or my fault. I was born breathing air, as was the whole human race. If you wish to add smoke to that air, please do it in a way that doesn’t involve me – which you most certainly can – AND don’t give me any shit about it.