I grok, Duffer.
I for one am going to smoke a cig now.
And I’m going to enjoy it, too.
Yeah, I getcha. Prohibition was a total failure and was based on some of the same sentiments.
Meanwhile, I will continue to show some courtesy to nonsmokers, as I always have (already noted earlier, ain’t gonna list 'em again). However, I will continue to exercise my own choices, right or wrong or indefferent. I will continue to resent those individuals who feel some deep need to get into my personal business.
Now where’d I put that Cohiba?
It could never have been such a thing. Point the first. If you’re smoking in public or at a shared area like a resturant or workplace then it ain’t your private life being regulated. Secondly, “fully legal” is completely inaccurate. It ain’t legal to smoke on airplanes, in many resturants, the list goes on and on. When the government “intrudes” they do it by making laws. This is the definition of “legal”.
The actions in the linked article are yet more regulations on this obviously NOT “fully legal” activity. Perhaps futile, perhaps misguided, and if you had limited your scorn to those areas that’s fine. Treating smoking as if it has no impact on the society you live in and thereore society has no business regulating or dealing with it through the channels of government is foolhardy. This is not a private decision that should be sacrosanct. This activity has serious health repercussions on both the smoker and those around them. It ain’t an “aspect of [your] private lives” if it’s in somebody else’s lungs even though they never lit up.
Enjoy,
Steven
We’ve seen everything espoused here from less control to more control to total banning (prohibition). Obviously, no one’s had their mind changed by any of it. Let’s just let the thread die off.
Absolute horseshit argument. There is no call for a ban on smoking flavored cigarettes in public, it’s calling for a ban, period. That includes access to use the product in my own home.
Explain how me smoking a clove smoke in my house affects your lungs and I’ll give your argument consideration. This isn’t about public smoking, there are enough of those threads out there. See the difference I’m talking about? This is strictly about a legal product being banned because someone doesn’t like that it has a flavor added. It’s just one more small step toward taking more and more of the freedoms smokers have.
Of course, many think it’s ewwie, so we’re relegated to a status of second-class citizens. Sounds fair since since we engage in an activity you disapprove of. Any other lifestyle changes you’d like to see? Any concerns about some groups that want to ban other forms of “inacceptable” behavior?
Or is it only actions you deem worthy of scorn and everything else is a person’s personal choice?
I think the proposed legislation is wrong-headed and I would prefer seeing these resources go into enforcement of laws against sales to minors and similar enforcement channels. But thinking this proposal is both asinine and likely to be ineffective doesn’t change the problem I have with the attitude you have displayed duffer.
There it is, in a nutshell. Those who want smoking restricted isn’t because of the documented and serious public health risks, it’s because they think it’s “ewwie”. Because they’re control freaks who can’t stand to see someone enjoy something they don’t. Your characterizations of the proponents of smoking-related regulation and government action is flat out bullshit. You want to bitch about this thread? Tough shit. You poisoned this well from the beginning by saying those who were trying to do something had dishonorable motives and by directly comparing them to some of the most brutal and insane mass murders in recorded history.
That’s total bullshit, and you can put it in your pipe and smoke it.
Enjoy,
Steven
Fine take every word literally. Here’s a hint, if you can’t handle some non-literal concepts and a little lashing out, don’t enter a pit thread I open. Fair warning. Fuck off if you think I’ll bow to your idea of how I should and shouldn’t write.
My argument is valid. My argument is against those that want to ban a legal product because of a flavoring. Bitch and whine about me smoking in a public place, in that case you would want tobacco of any flavor banned. If you’re calling for a ban on a product I can use in my own home, you’re intruding into my own personal rights and freedoms.
I completely agree that enforcement of current laws need to be more strictly enforced, but I feel that way about every law we have. Cutting crime is the goal, but making more laws to add to the ones on the books is pointless if none are enforced anyway.
On the other hand it doesn’t seem you read anything I write anyway, so this is all just a big waste of time.
Long story short…big tobacco companies were sued by a bunch of state Attorneys General, because they target marketing at teenagers (90% of smokers start before the age of 19, and smoking is more addictive for teenagers. I can provide cites if you’re really interested). Tobacco companies lost. The terms of the settlement were that they would give a percentage of their profits to the states to be used for tobacco programs, and they agreed not to market to teenagers. But they keep trying to do it anyway. So people who work in public health get just a teeny bit upset when it appears that the tobacco companies are doing what they said they wouldn’t do, and trying to get more teenagers hooked on tobacco.
Need proof that flavored cigarettes appeal to youth? Salon magazine reported that a recent study found that 20% of 17 to 19-year olds smoked flavored cigarettes, compared to 6% of smokers over 25.
If you’re asking why it’s bad for tobacco companies to market to teenagers, first, it’s very unethical, and second, it’s much easier to keep them from starting in the first place than to help them quit. Over and over again. So, duffer, it’s not about you, it’s about getting less people addicted to tobacco. Would you say tobacco addiction is a good thing? Do you want more kids to start smoking? I don’t, because I know how bad it is, and I know how much it costs in terms of healthcare and people you love dying earlier than they should have because they smoked. If you have a better solution than banning flavored cigarettes completely, that’d be great. But I doubt that anything other than a complete ban will stop tobacco companies from marketing these cigarettes to teenagers. Several of the big tobacco companies have decided on their own not to sell flavored cigarettes.
I read the word in caps in the title. I read your characterizations of the legislators and their motives. Not my fault you disguise your “valid” arguement by burying it in a hill of bullshit and strawmen. Want to avoid having your precious widdle threads hijacked? Quit opening threads with valid arguements buried in offensive, inaccurate, and unsupported accusations.
Enjoy,
Steven
Sir, yes sir! I’ll begin by submitting all future threads to you for approval, Herr Mtgman. Lest you, as you freely admit, hijack any thread I begin. :rolleyes:
Okay, so now anything bad that teenagers might do should be banned outright. Cheap beer? Gone. Flavored cigarettes? Gone. Anything else we should prohibit adults from indulging in simply because teenagers do it?
I’m imagining all your arguments would work equally as well when fighting the good fight against R rated movies.
Oh but wait, I forgot, there’s a 10% chance to get lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking. Yes, that second-hand smoke risk must truly be dire.
Do any of the pink lung nuts realize that the secondhand smoke health risk was to workers who were subjected to fulltime, enclosed, smoke-filled environments? You know, like stewardesses on airplanes and such?
Walking past smokers to open a door, or walking behind a smoker outside? Get over yourselves, you get more toxins from the cars on the street passing you by. I’m surprised you don’t have mental breakdowns when stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. That’s gotta be like smoking a whole cigarette yourself, with all the emission pollution! Your poor lungs…let’s ban all cars.
Before the asthma sufferers jump on me citing that their throats close up and they can’t breathe, there are people who suffer from pollen and allergies as well. Should we outlaw gardening?
Actually, if we could ignore my angry ranting for a second, this last point leads me to an actual question.
Are there allergies that are triggered by certain flowers? If so, and a person had such an allergy, would it be reasonable to demand that their neighbors not be allowed to plant said flowers in their garden? What if the way they went about this demand was to lobby the federal governemnt to make that flower illegal? Would that be reasonable? I mean, they might drive around at some point…why shouldn’t they be able to breathe anywhere they want?
Because no thread on smoking is complete without enough Bill Hicks quotes:
"I know you’ve employed some kind of eternal life fantasy because you’ve chosen not to smoke. Let me be the first to pop that bubble and send you hurtling back to reality - because you’re dead too. And you know what doctors say? “Shit, if only you’d smoked - we’d have the technology to help you. It’s you people dying from nothing who are screwed” "
“The worst kind of non-smokers are the ones that come up to you and cough. That’s pretty fucking cruel isn’t it? Do you go up to cripples and dance too?”
"I smoke. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live… and shut your fuckin’ mouths.
I now realize I smoke for simply one reason, and that is spite. I hate you non-smokers with all of my little black fucking heart, you obnoxious, self-righteous, whining little fucks, my biggest fear, if I quit smoking, is that I’ll become one of you. Now don’t take that wrong. How many non-smokers do we have here tonight? By round of applause, non-smokers. A few of you. Good, 'cause I have something to tell you. I do. I have something to tell you non-smokers, and this is for you and you only, because I know for a fact that you don’t know this. And I feel it’s my duty to pass on information at all times, so that we can all learn, evolve, and get the fuck off this planet. Non-smokers, this is for you and you only, ready? Non-smokers die. Every day.
Sleep tight…"
Um, Ellis? Once again, please read my last couple of posts about the many non-lung cancers, heart disease and respiratory disorders caused by smoking, before you try to reduce the risks to smokers and those around them to only those of developing lung cancer.
The smoking/gardening analogy is too ludicrous to address, but since you brought it up - cigarette smoke affects anyone who breathes, and is potentially deadly, Pollen allergies (most of which are caused by non-garden plants like ragweed) affect a minority, who will be inconvenienced but not killed by them. And yes, some efforts have been made to convince municipalities to cut back on planting all-male (and pollen-producing) street trees, to help out allergy sufferers.
I can hear those jackboots marching now… (not).
That was beautiful <sniff> 
duffer is now off the hook for Dumbest Smoking-Related Godwinism Of The Week.
Our new winner is Reuben F. Johnson of Alexandria, Virginia, who writes in today’s USA Today:
“Since I am a Jew and a smoker too, perhaps I could save all these (anti-smoking advocates) the trouble by just wearing one of those World War II-era yellow stars on my clothing with a silhouette of one of my cigars embroidered on top of it.” :rolleyes:
Must be the benzene. Or maybe the carbon monoxide?
Oh, duffer, calm down. You started a thread on smoking - what exactly did you expect to happen?
I started a thread on a product being brought up for banning, not smoking as a whole. How many times do I have to say that to get it through to you? I never asked for the hijack, but thanks for continuing it. :rolleyes: