# It should be ilegal to smoke on the street. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 5, 2011, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434 "2011-01-05T01:07:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/141 "2011-01-08T16:23:16Z")
> [@Nadir](#): > > No need, same here. And it’s been addressed in legislation for smog checks on vehicles and nationally at the automobile industry level by the EPA along with being tied to requirements for road construction grants to the states - no worries. The rules are becoming more stringent all the time, as they will with public smoking no doubt. > > Personally I just try to avoid the stuff that bothers me. Not too difficult for me to avoid inversion days downtown and I don’t hang out with the bangers anyway, so no biggie. That’s a little hard to do when the object of your nausea happens to be another person standing nearby poisoning the atmosphere. Avoid inversion days and inversion layers? You just don’t go to work, or do you head out of your home and go to the forest or something? How do you avoid them here in LA when the entire sky turns brown in the summer from all the smog? On bad days I can’t even see the big ass MOUNTAIN just a FEW miles away. I call bullshit. I can sidestep a smoker. I can’t sidestep a brown smog filled atmosphere. ---
**Author:** ![Nadir](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nadir/32/7302_2.png) [@Nadir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nadir)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/142 "2011-01-08T16:43:34Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > I call bullshit. Call bullshit all you want. That’s just me. I live 20 miles from the city and don’t work there. Call it a lifestyle choice, if you will. 😛 I can’t speak for everyone like some around here seem to. The EPA along with state and local governments have that ball right now. Sorry if it’s not working up to your full expectations just yet. Tell me a govt. program that is. In the meanwhile, please feel free to contribute your miniscule bit to the air pollution problem, at least until such a time as appropriate legislation is in place to reduce that aspect of it. I call an indignant smoker or rights activist with blinders on, Stevie. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/143 "2011-01-08T19:46:53Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > I constantly see smokers tapping their cigarettes out their car windows (the cigarette butt inevitably follows), and there is no prohibition on smoking in cars that “forces” them to do this. There’s no ban, but there _is_ a lack of anywhere in a car to tap ashes or put out a butt. When was the last time you saw an ashtray in a car? I haven’t seen one in…well, really, I couldn’t tell you. WTF else are people supposed to do with ash and butts if they smoke in a car, get a table ashtray, set it on the passenger seat, and hope it doesn’t slide around? Or I guess they could hang on to the thing with one hand, but that seems pretty unsafe. I don’t like ash and butts all over the side of the road any better than you, but it’s disingenuous to portray the issue as being 100% “smokers are inconsiderate pigs.” ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/144 "2011-01-08T20:51:53Z")
> [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > There’s no ban, but there _is_ a lack of anywhere in a car to tap ashes or put out a butt. When was the last time you saw an ashtray in a car? I haven’t seen one in…well, really, I couldn’t tell you. WTF else are people supposed to do with ash and butts if they smoke in a car, get a table ashtray, set it on the passenger seat, and hope it doesn’t slide around? Or I guess they could hang on to the thing with one hand, but that seems pretty unsafe. I don’t like ash and butts all over the side of the road any better than you, but it’s disingenuous to portray the issue as being 100% “smokers are inconsiderate pigs.” Actually, in this case, they are. My Sonata did not come with an ashtray. For about five bucks I got one at Walgreens that is shaped like a coffee cup and fits right in the drink holder. (Very much like [this one](http://www.cigarextras.com/black-car-cup-holder-cigarette-ashtray.aspx).) I do normally flick the ashes out the window–they disperse in the wind–but the butts go in the ashtray. I can’t think of any _good_ excuse for a smoker to throw lit cigarettes out the window. Not only are they litter, they are a fire hazard as well. ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/145 "2011-01-08T22:49:20Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because, again, it isn’t _nearly_ as noticeable or unpleasant as tobacco is. Even after spending some years living in the country, while the reduced air quality in a city surrounded by cars was noticeable, it never approached the one-whiff-and-my-throat-burns level that tobacco has. I feel the SAME about most synthetic perfumes and chorizo..but I seriously doubt my HEALTH is endangered by my throat-convulsing reaction to either in the way it is from the pervasive exhaust fumes (and general ambient air pollution) surrounding me as I experience this reaction to things I hate the reek of. Let’s be logical here. I witnessed an extreme example of this sort of “tobaccophobia” a few years ago: I was sitting, with a few others, on the “smoking bench” outside a local mall (oh- so conveniently located at the egress of the fucking parking garage, partly in and partly out in open air) smoking my half of an American Spirit, wishing I could do so out in the open air to avoid the nasty fumes coming from the cars going by, and some woman walked by, FROM the oh-so thick-with-exhaust-fumes-from- idling-engines parking structure (which even we hard-lunged smokers were complaining about and profoundly bothered by…in contrast to our little whiffs of smoke which flew on the wind and away instead of being concentrated into a killing funk) and proceded, upon SEEING us, to cough and gag and put on a great show of how much our puffs were causing her terrible agony. She said (for our benefit), “Oh, great, I just LOVE having to GET CANCER as I walk into the mall!” Bitch, if you “get cancer”, it’s going to be due to your exposure in that parking structure and/or due to your generally shitty attitude. :rolleyes: And I hope it is agressive as hell. SERIOUSLY. GET REAL. Raising the awareness about the risks of smoking (and OTHER particulate pollution) is a good thing. Smokers learning to be considerate of others, if they are not already (most I know are) is a good thing. Encouraging kids and adults not to start smoking or to quit or at least practice moderation is a good thing. I even agree with banning or restricting smoking in enclosed public areas (even as a smoker, I do not enjoy trying to enjoy a meal while others chainsmoke around me…(any more than I enjoy the reek of their still-emiting- toxic- smoke beef fajitas, but I keep my peace)…I take MY tobacco OUTSIDE after the meal, thank you, and those who work in such places should not have to have such exposures forced on them either) BUT… this idiotic fixation on outdoor smoking, beyond limits re’ smoking near entrances and in enclosed spaces like bus shelters, is BULLSHIT. It distracts from the REAL threats (industrial, coal-burning, auto, and other particulate pollution which causes FAR more deaths annually than ambient or even direct tobacco smoke exposure) and simply serves to allow some to feel smug and superior. This letter to a local rag pretty much sums it up: > **[Letters to the Editor](https://www.portlandmercury.com/Letters/2010/09/30/2898356/letters-to-the-editor)** > > From Hollywood to Eastern Oregon, and all the bull in between. “…Let’s face it, a lot of anti-smokers won’t be happy until all smokers are either dead, imprisoned in camps, or frog-marched through smoke-free Pioneer Square into a secret dungeon beneath Starbucks, where they’ll be subjected to a continuous audio loop of Dan Saltzman talking about how family friendly Portland is until they swear they’ll stop buying American Spirits.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/146 "2011-01-08T23:14:56Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because, again, it isn’t _nearly_ as noticeable or unpleasant as tobacco is. Even after spending some years living in the country, while the reduced air quality in a city surrounded by cars was noticeable, it never approached the one-whiff-and-my-throat-burns level that tobacco has. To you. It’s pretty unpleasant to me. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/147 "2011-01-08T23:41:28Z")
Why can’t we just all get along? ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/148 "2011-01-09T00:52:21Z")
😃 Oh, you naive, sad, little fool. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/149 "2011-01-09T01:57:17Z")
> [@godix](#): > > I didn’t say the laws wouldn’t get more restrict… > > What I was talking about was the effectiveness. On one end of the law you have total freedom to light up anyway, including in middle of a hospital. On the other end no one can light up anywhere at all, even in their own home. Both extremes are pretty obviously moronic. In middle somewhere is a reasonable course that discourages smoking without going so far it drives it underground with all the problems prohibition brings with it. I believe a ban on any outdoor smoking would be too far to the prohibition side of things and bring in unintended consequences that are worse than if there was no ban at all. I would have absolutely no problem if smoking were driven underground. I’d be a lot less likely to encounter it that way. > [@godix](#): > > Here’s an idea, don’t go to the designated smoking areas. You get no second-hand smoke, smokers get to smoke. What’s wrong with that? Why is everyone so set on punishing smokers instead of a live and let live solution that solves the complaint of second hand smoke which no one can seem to show actually causes any harm in an outdoor environment to begin with. Well, right now, in most places, the “designated smoking area” is anywhere outdoors. I can’t walk down a crowded city street without having to go through a haze of cigarette smoke, especially around bus stops. Since I often take the bus to work, this is particularly problematic for me. I’d be happy if there were designated smoking areas in urban environments; this would be an improvement over the current situation. Right now there generally few outdoor restrictions. I expect that to change, and I think that the Long Island outdoor smoking ban is both a step in the right direction and a portent of things to come. In my opinion, your freedom to smoke should stop at the point that your second-hand smoke reaches me. ---
**Author:** ![godix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/278dde/32.png) [@godix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/godix)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/150 "2011-01-09T02:14:32Z")
> [@robby](#): > > I would have absolutely no problem if smoking were driven underground. I’d be a lot less likely to encounter it that way. So you actually support driving cigarettes into the underground, knowing full well that underground products cause gang warfare over territory, illegal trafficking on so massive scale that some countries are literally being torn apart by it, so many murders that the Iraq war casualties look like small change in comparison, and billions of dollars being funneled to illegal cartels? All so you don’t have to smell a little smoke while out on a stroll? Wow. Just wow. That is honestly the most selfish statement I have ever heard. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/151 "2011-01-09T02:26:09Z")
> [@Nadir](#): > > Call bullshit all you want. That’s just me. I live 20 miles from the city and don’t work there. Call it a lifestyle choice, if you will. 😛 I can’t speak for everyone like some around here seem to. The EPA along with state and local governments have that ball right now. Sorry if it’s not working up to your full expectations just yet. Tell me a govt. program that is. In the meanwhile, please feel free to contribute your miniscule bit to the air pollution problem, at least until such a time as appropriate legislation is in place to reduce that aspect of it. > > I call an indignant smoker or rights activist with blinders on, Stevie. 😉 And I call a busybody trouble making can’t mind his / her own business can’t let other people alone whiner. How’s that workin’ for ya? I’d rather be a “rights activist” (though I prefer the leave us alone stance) than the label of interfering, controlling, whining, petulant busybody brat. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/152 "2011-01-09T03:07:42Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > [Outdoor Smoking Banned in Village of Great Neck](http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/01/06/new.york.outdoor.smoking.ban/index.html?iref=allsearch) > > On Long Island. And good for them! I recall back when “everyone knew” smoking bans in restaurants and bars would never work. When seatbelt laws would never work. Things change. > [@SteveG1](#): > > I grew up on Long Island. if this is the way they want to go, then to hell with them. You may want to get used to it. This is how these things start. Twenty or 30 years from now, this could be norm. We can only hope! ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/153 "2011-01-09T04:20:18Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > You may want to get used to it. This is how these things start. Twenty or 30 years from now, this could be norm. We can only hope! Just wondering. What car do you drive? What foods do you eat? Any fats, transfats, nonveg (meat)? Do you drink? Beer, soda, coffee, any other 'suspect" things that may be less than good for you? Do you wear animal products (leather shoes)? How long is your hair (too long makes you a commie hippy, too short makes you a nazi skin head). What sort of music do you like (rock is the devil, jazz is evil, ragtime is the music of whore houses)? Do you go to church (it better be the right church)? Do you watch movies (violent movies should be bannable because they ummm glorify violence and other movies are a waste of time)? How about card playing or dancing? Don’t even think about wearing ANYthing that someone somewhere might think is a “gang thing”. Everything I listed, someone somewhere has tried to control, tax out of existence, or ban at one time or another. After all, if you feel free to control what others do, than they have the same power over you (or they should). Believe it. I don’t have to get used to anything. I’m getting closer and closer to eligibility for retirement and then can move anywhere that doesn’t have these stupid laws. Oh, almost forgot. To hell with Great Neck Long Island. USA land of the free? My ass it is. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/154 "2011-01-09T04:22:53Z")
They carried on like that with compulsory education too. Another radical idea that "would never work.’ ---
**Author:** ![Jaledin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/155 "2011-01-09T04:27:16Z")
Go the French way – smoke in any street, duck your butt in the street, and pay for people to clean them up. And I currently live in a city where smoking _outdoors_ is prohibited in the so-called “backyard” of the city. Bunch of pussies and arrogant fatcat pseudo-politicos. Streets are for innocuous debris, air is for everyone, and we smokers have to breathe it as much as the next one, so we ought to have a say in what quality it remains as well. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/156 "2011-01-09T04:49:10Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > They carried on like that with compulsory education too. Another radical idea that "would never work.’ How about Prohibition, which is a much much better comparison? ---
**Author:** ![Pierrot\_Le\_Fou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f475e1/32.png) [@Pierrot\_Le\_Fou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pierrot_Le_Fou)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/157 "2011-01-09T04:57:35Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Just wondering. > > What car do you drive? What foods do you eat? Any fats, transfats, nonveg (meat)? Do you drink? Beer, soda, coffee, any other 'suspect" things that may be less than good for you? Do you wear animal products (leather shoes)? How long is your hair (too long makes you a commie hippy, too short makes you a nazi skin head). What sort of music do you like (rock is the devil, jazz is evil, ragtime is the music of whore houses)? Do you go to church (it better be the right church)? Do you watch movies (violent movies should be bannable because they ummm glorify violence and other movies are a waste of time)? How about card playing or dancing? Don’t even think about wearing ANYthing that someone somewhere might think is a “gang thing”. > > Everything I listed, someone somewhere has tried to control, tax out of existence, or ban at one time or another. I am not calling for a complete ban on smoking. I just don’t want people doing it where it can interfere with people breathing clean air. Smoke in your home. Or invent a device that captures the excess smoke. ---
**Author:** ![Nadir](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nadir/32/7302_2.png) [@Nadir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nadir)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/158 "2011-01-09T05:16:47Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > And I call a busybody trouble making can’t mind his / her own business … Why is it so hard for you to comprehend that the air someone breathes “is” their business? ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/159 "2011-01-09T05:31:41Z")
> [@Nadir](#): > > Why is it so hard for you to comprehend that the air someone breathes “is” their business? I know where he’s coming from and can sympathize. I was a pack-a-day smoker for 17-1/2 years myself and was just like him. Then I grew up and quit. That was 19 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434/160 "2011-01-09T15:23:32Z")
> [@LouisB](#): > > Why can’t we just all get along? Shut up, Rodney, or we will have the police beat you again! 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-should-be-ilegal-to-smoke-on-the-street/566434.md?page=9)