I’ve never smoked and I never will, but I don’t really give a shit if people around me smoke. A few times I’ve been with non-smokers who go into exaggerated coughing fits whenever they so much as pass a smoker on the street and I can’t help but think “give me a fucking break.”
I definitely hate smoking; it’s an unhealthy habit that irritates and endangers others. It also causes property damage; stinking everything up and encrusting it with crud. I recall one poster who fixes computers, MacTech I think, who used to post pictures of the insides of computers belonging to smokers; truly disgusting, like some slime monster crawled inside the box and died. And I’ve heard of people having to literally rip away the walls of apartments to get rid of the smoking smell impregnated into the walls by long term heavy smokers.
And while I don’t hate all smokers, I hate a great many of them, in large part because one of the more common features of smokers has been a complete disdain for other people. The constant littering being an example. And their tendency to smoke around nonsmokers unless forced not to with a heavy hand; one of my earlier memories is of eating in the smoke-filled so-called non-smoking section in a restaurant with my brother and parents, with smokers casually smoking all over despite the signs; me and my brother ended up losing our meal from the smoke when we got outside and vomited into a planter. Pipe and cigar smoke has always made me nauseous. And then there’s the common insistence that it doesn’t matter if waitresses and so forth are forced to breath their smoke.
Being within 50 feet downwind of a smoker can make my throat and sinuses burn. I don’t make a show of coughing though (they likely won’t care or will actively get off on it, so there’s no point), I hold my breath or breath though a cloth while walking away if possible.
People will get angrier at smokers as more data about second-hand smoke comes out.
Right now we’re seeing studies showing that in communities where public smoking was banned a decade or so ago, the heart attack rate among nonsmokers is plummeting, while this same drop is not seen in nearby communities well-matched statistically but without such a smoking ban.
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.
The facts are closing in.
I am angry at the addiction, and at the denial so many nicotine addicts have, as they refuse to consider these facts, hand-waving them away like so much smoke.
Qadgop, what is it in the cigarettes that is causing the problem? Is it smoke in the lungs: will any smoke cause the same issue? Is it the nicotine? Is it the additives? Is it in the tobacco itself? Always wondered about that.
And no I don’t kid that cloves don’t have tobacco, even though it was two packs before I figured it out. Never got a buzz from it, nor a ‘withdrawal’ when I stop for 6 months or a year or two or three, for various reasons. And for all the warnings on the packs, there is apparantly no warning label telling you exactly what’s in it, like how much nicotine, etc, so it’s kind of a generic, general threat. For all the gripes and laws about smoking, the actual DETAILS about what’s in them are far fewer than on your average package of Twinkies, so the government really isn’t pushing it too hard. And why would they? They’d lose taxes.
Once health care becomes more government based, perhaps that will change. 
Years ago, I used to smoke. I quit, and I do remember how hard it was to quit. But I did it.
Smokers now annoy the hell out of me. So many are self-righteous about how they are being denied their rights by prohibitions to smoke wherever they want. But most of the smokers in my office are simply lazy. Every hour they troop outside together to smoke for 10 minutes. But before each smoke break, they wander around the office gathering the smoking group, which takes five minutes. Then when they get back from the smoke break, they stand around for yet another five minutes talking about how good the smoke break was and planning the next smoke beak. I’m baffled how they get away with it. If I were in charge, I would not hire anyone who smokes.
It is an addiction that the addicts know is hurting them and are just starting to get the information that it hurts the people they are around even when they are not smoking. Being angry isn’t going to help anything, gently laying on a guilt trip might.
I really don’t like being around smoking, and I don’t like to smell it on smokers either. But if you aren’t in my face about it, I don’t get angry about it.
Here’s what’s annoying to me, as an employee.
What I do on my break does not matter. I can go to the bathroom, go to the store down the street and get a snack, make personal calls, go to my car. Whatever. The ONLY thing that matters is that my breaks are at the scheduled times and for the scheduled lengths. This was a job I held for 4 years in Virginia, about half a decade ago. Office of 2,000 people, and people were professional. We had our jobs, we were grownups, we did our work; there were no slackers, and I wasn’t one either. I was early every day, didn’t sneak out early, didn’t slack off. I didn’t smoke for the first two years I was there. Took it up again. And my first review after I started smoking again, I was asked to sign a piece of paper that stated that I, as a smoker, knew that breaks were taken at this time and for this long. And I had NEVER been late to or from a break; the whole office took the breaks at the same time. You could NOT be late, without getting reprimanded.
Now why was I asked to sign that, AS A SMOKER, when I had never been late, and had no attendance or tardiness issues either?
Wanna guess whether I signed it or not? I did not.
Now THAT is discrimination.
Now, the kind of 'discrimination that most of the smokers in the building bitched about was the health insurance. Policy was changed, and everyone who smoked was dropped from what was offered from everyone else, and offered another plan, one that didn’t cover squat and cost a LOT more. But that, see, I can understand. And if you proved you were smoke-free for a year, you could get back on the company plan. At least that makes sense from a money angle.
I literally walk across the street or as far around a smoker as I can. I am allergic to cigarette smoke and I am pregnant, so yes, I get a little upset at people who smoke in public especially on campus. You have to be seriously self centered to not think about how you smoke could be affecting others such as pregnant women, people with asthma, small children. These are not unfathomable considerations but some smokers seem to be oblivious to anyone around them. Case in point, I was walking behind one particular gentlemen on campus at a cross walk where I could not avoid him and he blew a huge puff of second hand smoke right in my path of walking, plus I am sure several other people where unavoidably caught in the smoke plume. Dude was an asshole, and don’t tell me that doesn’t happen a lot. Because I know first hand it does. They don’t seem to care about where their smoke to blowing or who it is blowing at.
No, it was not discrimination in either situation. Smoking is your choice. They made you sign, because of how many smokers behave. They changed your insurance, because smokers cost more. I would not hire you.
So there are asshole smokers.
That does not make all smokers assholes.
It really doesn’t matter to me, as it’s never come up in an interview whether I smoke or not, and I do not smoke at work. (That was the especially annoying part of that particular paper I was asked to sign, wtf?) So I would never know why you didn’t hire me. I smoke in the evening, the way others have a drink. I can certainly see people being offended by it, but I’m never going to know that, so, no problem.
I have asthma and smoking makes me cough; gargle-y damp horking coughs that gross me out. Then smokers give me looks like I am choosing to cough that way. I don’t care if people want to smoke if I am not present.
There are asshole meth addicts. Most are.
Both are an addiction and a behavior. But understand, and like it or not, smoking is not only costing you your health in a huge way, it now costs your standing in society.
I have many, many habits which are limited by common courtesy and sense. Smoking is just one of them, and quite easily managed compared to others, believe me.
Everyone can smell you. Most are too polite to say. (I’m not.)
You wouldn’t be whining here if it wasn’t a problem for you.
Well, I can’t argue with you on that. Does nicotine in the system have a smell? 'cause they aren’t smelling it on my clothes or hair or skin otherwise. Oh wait, people are being polite, that’s right.
Carry on.
It’s not a problem for me, it’s a problem for you. And for some reason I’m feeling oddly Quixotic this evening.
This thread is about why nonsmokers hate smokers. Read and learn.