When I smoked, I was just nasty to them. They lecture and nag me, I blow smoke in their goddam faces. Simple. Elegant.
Do you drive places when it isn’t absolutely 100% necessary?
Have you ever driven when you could have easily taken a bus?
Have you ever let friends or relatives engage in this sort of behaviour without scolding them?
If so then I’d like to proffer my heartiest congratulations on being a grade A 100% hypocrite. I sincerely hope you never encounter anything capable of resurrecting your dead husk of a conscience because the idea that you and your friends are, for the sheer hell of it, releasing hundreds of cigarettes worth of noxious chemicals into the atmosphere every minute that you’re using your cars unnecessarily would (if your snide, holier-than-thou attitude in this thread is anything to go by) probably cause it to go into meltdown.
Even though we can’t forbid smoking (not that I am wishing that) because of the litter most smokers generate, you can’t get around the fact that many smokers flick butts. Just look up some old threads on the subject. Many smokers actually don’t see “what the big deal is” about flicking butts and are not ashamed that they flick butts.
And our eyes tell us how much littering they do—just look anwhere—it’s clogged with damned cigarette butts.
No, you can’t punish the whole of smokers just because a whole bunch of them litter, but damn—it pisses me off how some people don’t think that cigarette buts are “real” litter. It’s crazy, man.
It sucks, yosemitebabe, I agree. That’s why I never flick butts.
Thing is, if you’re going to ban smoking in cars b/c of litter, you’d have to ban it everywhere. Because butts are everywhere. Of course, so are empty soda containers and the like. We gonna ban all consumption of fast food outside of fast food restaurants while we’re at it?
lezlers, it seems like there is this “disconnect” with some people. They’d never dream of tossing a gum wrapper out the car window, but they’ll flick butts. They’d scold someone else for dropping a gum wrapper, but cigarette butts? They don’t even notice.
Butts are in an entirely different category from other forms of litter. I am not suggesting a ban on smoking in cars or in the open air, because I realize that some smokers don’t flick butts. But damn—it really ticks me off how otherwise fairly “enlightened” people will scatter butts and would still (in their own minds) consider themselves to be “anti-litter.” They just don’t get it and even when confronted about it (as has happened on some previous threads) they still don’t get what the “big deal” is.
I have one thing to add, lezlers. One of the recent wildfires just over the hill from my house in Santa Clarita was caused by a cast-off cigarette butt. I smoke, but like you, never toss the thing out my window.
In my earlier years, when I was a tad more acerbic (and energetic), I used to take down license numbers and send the butt-flickers a nasty letter. I do, however, feel legislation is not a solution.
I recently went to see a Beck/Damien Rice concert at Universal Goddamned City. Never felt like more of an outcast in my entire time as a smoker.
I agree, yosemitebabe and Mr. B.
Perhaps significally higher fines for littering with butts as opposed to other litter?
I just don’t think banning smoking in cars and open air is the answer. It’s starting down a scary road.
Also, more astrays. In front of my office building there used to be an ashtray. The thing filled up quickly. All of the sudden, the ashtray was gone. There were no other ashtrays or trashcans anywhere around. I proceeded to stub out my cig and throw it away in the trash inside. Other smokers just flicked their butts on the ground. Then the secretary gets pissed about the butts outside. Well, why’d you take away the ashtray??
Sometimes it seems you just can’t win.
I don’t drive, so no. I haven’t driven when I could take the bus. I don’t even take the bus when I can walk. And if a friend or relative lights up near me I’ll ask them to move or put it out.
So, you were saying…
Because s/he didn’t want a bunch of people hanging out in front of the building smoking.
Heh, maybe Ben Hicks is the one with the snide, holier-than-thou attitude in this thread.
I laugh at all of your misery. I live on a college campus, and it seems like about 50% of us are smokers. I genuinely feel sorry for people making their way to class past the hordes of smokers that gather at certain places on campus to mill about and converse between their engagements, creating a cloud that can be seen from hundreds of yards away on still days.
Part of it may come from the fact that nicotine helps you focus and improves your memory, which is nice for early morning classes, but I think a lot of people here just smoke because it’s an easy way to meet new people and start conversations. Borrowing a lighter, bumming a smoke, taking a seat next to someone on a bench in a smoking area, it seems like you always end up engaging in a few minutes of chit-chat. And if you’re have professors that smoke, it’s an excellent chance to get some face-to-face time with them. Also, I have this one professor who can be convinced to stop and have a cigarette, meaning that we get to finish ours and not be counted late because he’s outside with us.
LC
You smoke them through your nose?
That’s why it’s bloody.
How about when a friend takes the bus when they could walk, or drives when they could take the bus? That was what I was actually asking and since you ask friends or relatives who smoke to put it out when you’re around any and all allegations of hypocrisy against you are still valid if you don’t adopt an equally hard line approach with your friends who drive when they don’t strictly have to. Do you scold them like you’d (at least be tempted to) scold a smoker?
Fight fire with fire, that’s my motto. In real life I despise sanctimony and am very much a “live and let live” kind of person. I’m also in the process of jacking in the cigarettes so I’ve got the view from both sides of the fence.
Then why didn’t she just move it away from the building?
I repeat: sometimes you just can’t win.
:rolleyes:
Why are you a thought criminal? A pariah? A wad of slime on the face of society?
Basically, for existing in the wrong time frame.
I smoked, back in the eighties and early nineties. I quit around the time they started outlawing it in grocery stores.
I saw the Tobacco Nazis coming, you see…
Here’s one for ya. I have migraines. Bad migraines. Incapacitating migraines. Certain fumes, such as adhesive or purfume, will trigger my migraines. These aren’s just bad headaches, they are damaging and incapacitating. When I get a migraine, I will feel the effects for about one to two days after the headache has subsided.
So do I have the right to take the same attitude with someone who wears purfume or is glueing carpet to the roof of a car in my presence? It is damaging to my health.
Which will come first? A cure for (lung) cancer? Or a complete ban of cigarrates? (In the U.S that is)
I’m hoping for the first…but I’m thinking it will be the second.
Yes, I smoke. I can’t smoke inside. Fine. I am ok with that. Work, bars, houses, whatever. It is ok. It gives me an excuse to get away from boring people. I actually kinda like it. (“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m going to go smoke.” Of course it backfires every now and then. “Cool. I’m going with you.”
And thats when I bring up the crack.
If you blew smoke into someone face in England that was saying “Hey I like you, wanna shag”
Honestly…I’m going back many moons y’unnerstand
I don’t see how your point is relevent. When someone is driving unless for some unknown reason I had my mouth over their exhaust pipe its not doing me nearly as much damage as someone smoking next to me. Both my Grandads died of lung cancer. I have no plans to go the same way.