Hmm it’s getting worse in the UK too for us poor smokers. There are reports, no cite and not even sure if it is confirmed, that smokers are being put deliberetly at the back of health care queues. Now we have so called free health care for all paid for out of standard taxes that we all pay. Fair enough you may think, put the siller bastards who hurt themselves on purpose at the back of the queue, in fact why not just let them die.
BECAUSE we pay for all you healthy bastards to get medical care too. Ciggies cost £4.50 per pack of 20 over here. How much of that is tax, about 85%. I smoke 20 a day for 40 years (say £4 per pack tax that’s 365440 = £58,400 or $USD 85,978 at todays rates).
Jesus! Have I ever paid my way here, that should just about take care of my medical bills when i get older, and I’ll die earlier too, so even less burden on the state.
PLus no smoking out of doors or in bars, how glad am I that I don’t live in California. They just try taking away my smoking compartment on the train in the morning and I’ll be writing personally to Tony “Bloody Nanny State Bastard” Blair
Yeah, the money thing is the main reason I quit/quitting (it’s day 11, bear with me…) those computations from Merrin were INSANE…I too live in damn Northern California, and while I love it here, it’s HELL on a smoker. I used to live in Palo Alto and was told many times while smoking OUTSIDE to put out my cigarette. I live in Napa now and it’s a little better but people still make you feel like a criminal for doing something that is officially, legal. Bars, forget it. SIDEWALKS, forget it. It is a little on the ridiculous side. I’d bet those people that harrassed yojimbo were definatly from Cali. Although Bosda, I didn’t realize Californian’s had a distinct accent…
I also apologize for the rude Americans that you ran afoul of. (or should that be “of whom you ran afoul”?); please understand that many of us are neither that myopic nor that parochial. Even the Paternalistic US Government, which officially disdains smoking, secretly hopes that we all puff, puff, puff our way to oblivion for two excellent reasons:
Cigarettes are taxed up the ying-yang, providing beaucoup bucks to the public coffers and
Smokers tend to die off earlier, reducing the federale’s burden on keeping up the Social Securities benefit payouts. If all Americans quit smoking, the SS benefit age would need to be increased to somewhere around 80 years of age!
Finally, a personal note: I am not myself a smoker, yet I am a staunch defender of smokers’ rights. Why? Because when the do-gooders of the world are finished stamping out the smokers of the world, who do you think they will set their sights upon next? Why, us DRINKERS, of course! I need that last line of defense! Keep puffing, brothers!..TRM
Hmm, all I can say is, if you ever see me enjoying my pipe, which I get to do on rare occasion and you say that to me my response would be this.
In life, the second amendment brings more weight to a discussion than the first amendment. And if you wandered into my backyard to share your opinion, believe me I will be using the second amendment.
But to get serious about the topic, the first right you have, beyond all the amendments is the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As long as the smoker is following the law and you are the one who joins the area where he or she is smoking, go pound sand. It is you who is violating his constitutional rights, which are just as valid as yours.
Now, if he joined you, whether smoking is allowed or not, you have the right to request he or she stop. If they don’t, they are a dick.
If they are smoking where they should not be law or code, then Scylla should throw them out the bus window, not the smoke.
To me, it isn’t an issue of smoking. It is an issue of a lack of manners that has reached epic proportions. The self righteousness on the people in the OP seems to me just to point out the unfathomable levels of the complainers’ narcissism and self righteousness.
In a confined space with lots of smokers, cigarette smoke can be unbearable - not many of the older Dublin pubs have air conditioning, and sometimes even dedicated smokers like me find it revolting.
But the smell of cigarette smoke is just that of leaves burning.
I reckon the reason people go so crazy about it is that they have conditioned themselves/been conditioned that it’s a ‘disgusting’ smell. It isn’t - in well-ventilated circumstances it’s milder than a bonfire on an autumn evening.
Response to 1st Paragraph: Try reading my post again, genius. I was replying to the ignorant assertion that one can ignore social conventions and laws because they pay more tax on an item, and that someone who speaks up about it is somehow in the wrong. This is not the case. I said absolutily nothing about the subject of smoking beyond that.
2nd Paragraph: Fuck you, and your threats, asshole. You wanna put forth some macho bluster? Feel free to suck the corn from my shit. I hate to break it to you, but you can’t shoot someone for stating an opinion.
And where the fuck did I ever say ANYTHING about coming into someone’s backyard, or a smoking section, and bitching about someone smoking? I really don’t give a FUCK what you do on your property, and I’ve NEVER said differently.
And yes, in case I’m not making myself clear about how I feel about the OP, the American couple were both completely out of line, and I’m embarrased to be a non-smoking American, like they are.
P.S. Summary translated into Dumbass for Bhudda: Smokers can smoke in smoking section. That’s why it’s the Smoking Section.
Smokers do not have more rights or privilages than non-smokers.
I was once chewed out by an older lady while I walked down a street in Honolulu.
Because I was trying to be good to me [sub]I note the irony but choose to ignore it[/sub], I parked about a mile away from my job. The sidewalks between the office and the parking lot were rather narrow, and at one point in the journey - while waiting for a car to leave a parking lot - she pulled ahead of me. I was trying to maintain a certain pace, and she was just…THAT much slower than I, so at the following intersection I beat her off the curb.
Half a block later she asked if she could pass me, as she could not deal with my cigarette smoke.
I glanced to my left at the 58 gazillion cars waiting in line to hang a left and thought, “You have GOT to be kidding me.”
Bitch went into a huge rant about how I don’t CARE and her LUNGS and CANCER and…
I glanced to my left at the 58 gazillion cars waiting in line to hang a left and said, “You have GOT to be kidding me.”
No, if your original response was to the OP, it was confusing. The argument that you presented against the statement that the smoker had more rights is absolutely correct. If you would have looked under the sarcasm/joke half of the post, you see clearly where I state that smokers have no more rights than non-smoker. I also stated they have the same rights as non-smokers.
Never in my post did I say that. What I commented on was in the nature of the OP. What I was attempting to make clear is my opinion about the number of non-smokers who seem to me to be militant about their beliefs. Frankly I care not why a person doesn’t like smoking, that is their business. But if you choose to go into a situation, as the couple did in the OP, you need to get a few hints from Heloise(sp).
Smoking seems to strike a nerve with a lot of people. Even so, what I was trying to convey was that just because people don’t like smoking, it doesn’t give them the right to interfere with another persons personal freedom. Look at it this way, change smoking to a few other words and maybe it will help see why confronting a person about legally doing what they have a right to do is wrong.
Try Abortion in place of smoking. Try Execution in place of smoking. See, topics people are for or against with extreme emotion. How about wearing fur or leather? Eating Meat? People’s view will change on every topic, but that never excuses them from the basic laws of society. Nor does it excuse them from manners and common courtesy, which needs to work both ways on the smoking issue. As I stated in my first post; if the smoker comes upon you in the restaurant, even in the smoking section, and lights up I feel you have the right to ask them to put it out. Now, they don’t have to but I feel you have the right. Now, if they are already there, smoking or not, you chose to sit in an occupied smoking section.
Personally, as I said, I see this as less of a smoking issue than as a couple of people with poor manners.
There are not too many people more anti-smoking than me. I mean, when my mother is busy coughing up her lungs from the constant smoking, I tell her go ahead and choke to death, she’s earned it. But, I still think that couple was out of line. Please, if you can’t stand the smoke, don’t patronize places with smoking sections. Please, even if you CAN stand it, don’t patronize places with smoking sections! I think it’s pretty well-known that when you travel outside the U.S. the smoking laws are not as pro-breather. Silly tourists.
I was having a smoke outside of the public library, in the designated smoking section by the designated ash tray, which was by a small designated bike rack when a girl came out to get her bike and complained that I was fouling up her air. When I said ‘what?’ she just ignored me and took her bike and left. There still are several million smokers left and they still have rights, though most of them have been trampled on in the politically correct rush, so people are going to have to get used to them. Here, we still have smoking sections in restaurants and you may smoke in bars. Unfortunately, you may not smoke in the mall, which irritates me because I buy a big Barney’s Gourmet coffee and like to have a smoke as I drink it and have to go outside.
Bhudda I completely agree. If what a person is doing isn’t affecting anyone else, then there’s no reason to chew them out about it. We’re all adults.
I am a non-smoker. I tend to have coughing fits around smoke. But you know what? If I go to a club or bar (Most of them allow smoking in Texas), then I get to deal with the smoke. I have no right to bitch at people smoking in a smoking section. At that point, my bitching would be inflicting on the smoker’s right to be left alone.
JMO, but I think that smoking gets on people’s nerves so much because smoking tends to affects everyone around the smoker. If someone could come up with a way to contain the smoke, there would be a lot less whining.
I wish poeple would learn to respect other people, and respect other people’s boundaries.
P.S. My sarcasm detector was broken last night. I apologize for my over the top comments.
[herbert kornfeld]
Of Course, if it were me, and this guy was claiming I was disrespecting his lady, I’d have pulled the letter opena o’Death on him, biatch. Ain’t No Fool gonna be disrespecting me when I be about my personal business.
No problem, Sealemon88. My wife is somewhat asthmatic, and so when I desire to smoke I do so outside. Doesn’t bother me too much as I enjoy the outdoors, and only smoke my pipe on occasion. For some reason, cigarette smoke can bother me at times too, while my pipe doesn’t.
As for containing the smoke, that is problematical because a room just never clears all the smoke. That is why I have no problems with smoking outside, or businesses which ask smokers to go outside. If you want weird smoking laws, when I was up in Mass. for training the bar at the hotel I stayed at had some really good rules. Smoking was allowed, except for pipes and clove cigarettes. I would guess because the smoke has a stronger odor (though probably with less chemicals added) than cigarette smoke.
And I would hope the smoker would definitely think of their surroundings before lighting up. If smoking is causing someone great discomfort, then have some compassion on them before they need to complain. Again, manners would be needed. And a brain, of course. Some people don’t have those. I once saw a patient at a hospital come down from their room, in a wheel chair to have a smoke in the smoking booth outside the hospital. He had an I.V. and an oxygen tank with him. Smart enough to turn the tank off and remove the mask though, or I would have got to have seen a Darwin Award in first person.
It is someone like Omnivore describes out side the library that is just un-frigin-believable.