# Non-smokers: How rampant and how deep is the smoker hate? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 27, 2012, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317 "2012-11-27T22:20:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**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:** [December 1, 2012, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/201 "2012-12-01T02:47:49Z")
BBC just showed the new regulations in Australia. From I think it’s today, no branding on cigarette packages allowed. Plain packaging only. A step in the right direction. EDIT: Yes, from today (Dec 1). Story [here](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20559585). (The name can be shown in small print on the bottom of the box.) ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/202 "2012-12-01T19:19:59Z")
> [@Saraya](#): > > \ > Now that I’ve quit, I DO notice the smell occasionally, but it doesn’t gag me. > I DO not however appreciate the government banning restaurants from allowing smoking. > > This is a massive infringement upon business owners and the market. > > Pet peeves/hate from non smokers is out of ignorance as they only hear things second hand(see what I did there?) and they just like to bitch. > People whom go out of their way to complain about a smoker are douche bags, straight up. Life is full of things you don’t like. > F U \* \* K I N G D E A L W I T H I T Smoking is not like other personal life choices; cigarette smoke is a Grade A carcinogen, which means that there is no safe exposure level. What that means is no one can say how much exposure to cigarette smoke (first or second hand) will cause you to grow a cancerous tumour - it could be one puff or a million. I make choices with my life and my health; I do not want other people making choices with my health (that is, forcing me to breathe smoke that can kill me). ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/203 "2012-12-21T13:45:36Z")
> [@spoon\_river](#): > > People who groan about the health “hazards” of vastly dissipated second-hand “smoke” should think much more carefully about the proximity of more serious industrial pollutants, such as those caused by gasoline engine byproducts. What makes you think people don’t? In fact, many of those people are the same ones who advocate strict emissions standards of autos and industrial manufacturers. The hatreds of cigarette smoke and industrial pollutants are not mutually exclusive. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/204 "2012-12-21T13:55:04Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > I’m too am not too bent out of shape about smoking in parks or otherwise outdoors. > > But this fuckng sea of cigarrette butts everywhere? Now that gets me fucking stabby. If I was a congressman I’d be pushing a bill requiring the companies to spend a buttload of their profits on anti butt littering ads. Screw the ads! Put that money back into the park system and county highway and recreation departments to clean that shit up and step up enforcement of littering regulations. Fine litterbugs, within an inch of their financial health, and then cycle \*that \*revenue into raising environmental awareness. Use their own money to blast them with anti-littering messaging. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/205 "2012-12-21T17:02:35Z")
> [@spoon\_river](#): > > It’s absurd – former smoker, but one who is disturbed by the stink people raise about others smoking in public. Perfectly normal thing to do. The next to doorways thing – OK, that makes some sense. Anything beyond that reasonable request belongs in an enormity of its own. > > People who groan about the health “hazards” of vastly dissipated second-hand “smoke” should think much more carefully about the proximity of more serious industrial pollutants, such as those caused by gasoline engine byproducts. > > I’d be happy with selected places where no noise pollution and air pollution were allowed to exist, though. It probably exists – way way out in the country. A suburbanite driving a car hours daily through a crowded freeway, then kvetching about someone smoking tobacco in a park or on a street is the absurd. It doesn’t dissipate at my mom’s retirement home, where some stupid bitch moved in to an upstairs apartment and sits out on the balcony half the day smoking away and coughing her lungs out. The smoke carries, makes her neighbors sick–one of them had to change apartments because she refuses to move and he has emphysema–and my mom can no longer open her back door downstairs because the smoke drifts down there (it comes from just above) and collects in the “pocket” between the back door and the hallway wall. IMHO, no one else should have to suffer or move just because of her. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2012, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/206 "2012-12-22T02:48:50Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > It doesn’t dissipate at my mom’s retirement home, where some stupid bitch moved in to an upstairs apartment and sits out on the balcony half the day smoking away and coughing her lungs out. The smoke carries, makes her neighbors sick–one of them had to change apartments because she refuses to move and he has emphysema–and my mom can no longer open her back door downstairs because the smoke drifts down there (it comes from just above) and collects in the “pocket” between the back door and the hallway wall. > > IMHO, no one else should have to suffer or move just because of her. I understand completely. I have always been supportive of smokers as long as they don’t impact me or my family directly but the apartment we are in now has made me develop an almost violent hatred for smokers, especially pot smokers. Almost all of the building residents have late teen/early twenties children who sit in the stairwell and smoke all damn day long. Some just smoke cigarettes which is gross but easy enough to ignore. The worst are the potheads who smoke in the building all night and day. Every time I smell it I go out and ask them to move but they’ve gotten to the point where they stop responding to me and because it isn’t a violent crime it always takes the police half an hour to show up so they have moved on by then leaving behind a tell-tale stench and empty cigar wrappers. I can’t wait until our lease is up so we can be rid of these assholes, which is a shame because our apartment is otherwise perfect for us. ---
**Author:** ![6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/e19adc/32.png) [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2012, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/207 "2012-12-22T04:04:15Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > BBC just showed the new regulations in Australia. From I think it’s today, no branding on cigarette packages allowed. Plain packaging only. A step in the right direction. > > EDIT: Yes, from today (Dec 1). Story [here](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20559585). (The name can be shown in small print on the bottom of the box.) Yes, and it’s fucking ridiculous. Thank.you.Nicola.Roxon. Who was it again that you slept with to become Attorney General? I see that this brilliant strategy will soon extend to alcohol: unbranded bottles of generic size containing only clear, or brown liquid. (NOT). I for one am waiting for the black market tobacco to arrive. Packaging simple to replicate, and no branding at all on the cigarettes themselves. Too easy! ---
**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:** [December 22, 2012, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/208 "2012-12-22T13:59:33Z")
> [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](#): > > Yes, and it’s fucking ridiculous. Thank.you.Nicola.Roxon. Who was it again that you slept with to become Attorney General? Good. I’m glad it’s working. I look forward to it being everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/e19adc/32.png) [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2012, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/209 "2012-12-22T14:25:00Z")
Working? How is it ‘working’? ---
**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:** [December 22, 2012, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/210 "2012-12-22T14:33:50Z")
It’s got at least one smoker all riled up. Great for entertainment value. ---
**Author:** ![6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/e19adc/32.png) [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2012, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/211 "2012-12-22T14:58:49Z")
Oh. Yay for you then. ---
**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:** [December 22, 2012, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/212 "2012-12-22T15:01:00Z")
See? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/e19adc/32.png) [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2012, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/213 "2012-12-22T15:08:09Z")
Ah. Small things amusing small minds. Good-o. ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2012, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/214 "2012-12-22T20:52:35Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > I’m too am not too bent out of shape about smoking in parks or otherwise outdoors. > > But this fuckng sea of cigarrette butts everywhere? Now that gets me fucking stabby. If I was a congressman I’d be pushing a bill requiring the companies to spend a buttload of their profits on anti butt littering ads. That and some black opps hit squads to take the random butt flinger. This is one of my 3 top peeves. Mandatory C-Butt Patrol for the next 52 weekends for each offender who is caught. Double time if it was done where there is dry brush nearby. Lifetime patrol if your butt started the fire that burnt acreage in a national forest and/or damaged homes/property. ---
**Author:** ![Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boulter_s_Canary)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2012, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/215 "2012-12-22T21:08:49Z")
As an ex-smoker who was damaged by it (heart rather than lungs), I loathe and despise smoking. Because the desire to smoke is still there. It will _always_ be there, a nagging itch at the back of my brain for the rest of my (probably shortened) life. So I don’t nag smokers or ask them to put it out. I _do_ pity them, because I know that need. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2012, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/216 "2012-12-22T21:48:43Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > And we physicians have long been noting studies that showed the children of smokers _who refrain from smoking in the home or around their kids_ still suffer from more respiratory illnesses and asthma than the children of non-smokers. What could explain that? Inaccurate reporting about how carefully they refrain? ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2012, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/217 "2012-12-22T22:05:05Z")
Imagine you’re a child growing up in a house with two smokers. Imagine that every night at the dinner table, the parents light up and blow smoke in the face of the child if the child visibly gags at the smoke. Imagine that on long trips, they roll up the windows and chain smoke, and the rear passenger side window doesn’t open because it is a van. Now imagine it’s one of the reasons I don’t speak to my parents. ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/218 "2012-12-23T01:43:46Z")
> [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](#): > > Ah. Small things amusing small minds. Good-o. Lay off the insults in this forum. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/219 "2012-12-23T02:21:03Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > Something that has really surprised me through the anonymity of the Internet is how deeply some non-smokers hate smokers. > > For instance, right here on this board, (I can’t remember which thread) one poster seriously suggested that smokers shouldn’t have the right to vote. > > I get that smoking is a nasty habit and it makes us stinky. It’s a minor annoyance. What I don’t get is the deep seething hate. > > Why? And how common is this among non-smokers? > > Don’t be shy. Please tell us what gets said behind our back. How do YOU really feel? > [For the record: This thread is strictly to satisfy my morbid curiosity. This subject matter is NOT a source of depression for me. So no need to reassure me. :)] What you do to your lungs is your problem, but I really don’t want to have to choke on smoke near the doors to buildings, and I don’t even have respiratory problems. I know people with asthma and such, and they really do have problems with having to breathe second-hand smoke. I do think a lot of smokers, for whatever reason, could be a lot more sensitive to those around them instead of taking a “too bad, so sad, you don’t have to breathe here” attitude that can keep non-smokers from having as much access to restaurants, stores, etc. as smokers do. ---
**Author:** ![6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/e19adc/32.png) [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317/220 "2012-12-23T02:37:08Z")
> [@Idle\_Thoughts](#): > > Lay off the insults in this forum. _What?_ **Siam Sam** gives ‘nah-nah-nah-nah-nah’ replies to my reasonable request for an explanation of how in fact these changes are ‘working’ - and I’m reprimanded? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-smokers-how-rampant-and-how-deep-is-the-smoker-hate/642317.md?page=12)