Cigarettes are disgusting. Cigars range from vile to good. I usually like the scent of pipe tobacco.
Black and Milds smell ok, but are those considered cigarettes?
I remember when the bar owners were all claiming that a smoking ban would decimate their business. It turned out to be totally untrue. One of my sports bar clients built a new location with a rooftop patio. Legally, they could have allowed smoking in that area, and they chose not to, preferring to send them downstairs and outside. This is not a minor thing, as most of their customers spend several hours at a stretch there watching a game.
I know that I spend more time going out to see music now that I’m not going to be assaulted with cigarette stink. I spend nearly as much time in bars shooting video of music. Once, I shot a show in a smoking bar, and my freaking cameras stank the next day! They are glass, metal and plastic!
The worst person in Hollywood is Jim Cameron. He had both leads in Titanic smoke, and when confronted with it, he cluelessly said said that he wanted “to show that they were rebels”. He even had Signory Weaver’s character smoke far in the future in Avatar! Fuck you, Jim.
One particular menace that no longer exists is that of the evil “drunk dancing girl with cigarette”, a glowing ember in her mindless hand.
That is a pet peeve, when the only people in the office who seem to get breaks are the smokers. Everybody else gets the stink-eye “Why do you need a break? You don’t smoke!”
One of the most disgusting things I have ever had to do was tear out the furnace in a hour filled with smokers. The entire interior of the furnace, a-coil (the interior portion of the air conditioner), fan and heat exchanger was covered with horrible brown goo. I’ve torn out plenty of furnaces, and they are usually just dusty. I had to throw away the clothes I wore and scrub my body with orange pumice soap.
I’m an embarrassed smoker and I take great care to try not to smell (dryer sheets, inoffensive levels of perfume) after smoking. I ask people flat out if they can tell that I smoked at lunch or break and they’ve always been surprised that I did. And this has even been after I’ve smoked in my car. I was astounded because I just assumed that they could smell it on me. I was glad, but amazed.
I’m having a bit of trouble reconciling the strong anti-tobacco sentiment on the SDMB with it’s seemingly pro-legalization stance on pot. One habit is super nasty and we should do anything we can to eliminate it but the other is okay?
I am an ex-smoker and have been for many years now. I have always had the impression, even when I was smoking, that much of the hatred you see is just people taking the opportunity to hate a group of “others” that is easily identifiable and has no outside support.
Sure there are plenty of equable non-smokers who are ho-hum about smokers but the rabid anti-smokers seem largely to be angry people who are happy to have a target that can be identified by their cigarettes, their smell and their actions.
I’m sure that if alcoholics and drug abusers and compulsive gamblers were as easy to spot they would equally be targets of scorn and hatred.
I’m a long-time ex-smoker. I don’t hate smokers exactly, but there are some things that some smokers do that wind me up:
Standing right in doorways, smoking - very common after the UK ban on indoor smoking in public places and workplaces - not sure if some of the smokers are doing this out of spite, but it’s not at all uncommon to see them standing, smoking, blocking an open doorway, blowing smoke inside the building.
Dropping their fucking litter everywhere. Not all smokers do this, and not all litter is smoking-related, but some do and some is, and I hate that.
Complaining about smoking-related health problems, but doing nothing to improve it.
Complaining about how terribly difficult it is to quit, when they’re not really even trying. You can buy all the gums, patches, e-cigs etc in the world (and be encouraged to fail by advertising telling you how terribly difficult it is to quit), but the one thing you have to do if you want to stop smoking is to stop actually smoking. You can’t quit without quitting. Grow a fucking spine and deal with it.
Other than that, I’m reasonably happy with the contribution their taxes make to the health service that looks after me.
I don’t hate smokers … I was a smoker myself for more than two decades. But something some smokers may not appreciate is that it really really bothers me to smell nearby 2nd-hand smoke, especially when I’m eating a meal. And I couldn’t stand card rooms or such filled with stale cigarette smoke.
Paradoxically(?) I had this strong aversion to the smell of cigarettes while eating even when I was a smoker. (Is this related to farts perhaps? “One’s own farts are fragrant.” 
)
(I did think laws against cigarette smoking outdoors or in private homes went way too far.)
Sorry, your what?
Well said. I spent years doing this because I really didn’t want to quit. When I finally decided I really wanted to quit, while not fun, it was doable.
The people I know who smoke Black and Milds aren’t smoking what was originally in those Black and Milds. It does smell good. 
I’m not aware of a substantial secondhand pot smoke problem or associated health risks that’d be anything remotely near what they are for secondhand tobacco smoke. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t support restrictions on public pot smoking where it could affect the well-being of non-smokers.
I also have doubts about the wisdom of repealing all pot legislation, but that’s another story.
As to the “we gotta allow smoking in bars and restaurants or lots of us will have to shut down” claim, oddly enough I haven’t seen any of that happening locally after anti-public smoking legislation passed (the bar owners complaining the loudest still seem to be doing good business).
Most people who smoke pot aren’t going to smoke it at the same rate as cigarettes. They sure won’t be taking smoke breaks at most jobs.
There won’t be any butts to throw on the ground.
Smoking pot is more like drinking alcohol.
I feel exactly the same about tobacco and pot. I dislike both extremely, but I still I feel that people should have the right to do what they want with their own bodies. I just wish they wouldn’t choose to smoke anything and I hate that they inadvertently involve me.
Smoking should be legal in the open air* and private residences, as long as no one who doesn’t consent is forced to pass nearby. I’m not sure what to do about apartment buildings: you shouldn’t have to be a homeowner to have a bad habit, but equally you shouldn’t have to be a homeowner to avoid other people’s smoke.
*Though for every cigarette butt you drop, you lose a finger.
I had a friend of mine who was on the street corner, waiting to cross, when a guy tossed a cigarette butt out of his car window. She picked it up and handed it back to him with the comment “You dropped this” then she crossed the street.
She was my hero. 
What about the other stuff related to smoking tobacco? We’ve had posters comment that tobacco smokers are idiots. Are pot smokers idiots? Should pot smokers have their health insurance increased, or, as suggested for tobacco users, have their access to public health care limited or eliminated? Given the current trend of eliminating acceptable places to smoke tobacco, where will people be able to smoke pot? We have people at the SDMB that act as if even a whiff of tobacco smoke is doing them a great amount of harm. Does pot smoke not stink? This is the part I really don’t get: Why do pot smokers get a pass but tobacco smokers are vilified?
No, it’s not. If smoking tobacco isn’t comparable to alcohol then neither is smoking pot.
Not in the same way. Because pot is illegal, there isn’t the same abundance of scientific data on exactly how harmful the practice is. I would say pot smokers are equivalent to tobacco smokers of the 1960s: we’re pretty sure it’s bad for your health, but there are social and (temporary) mood benefits and more to the point, you can look at what evidence there is and convince yourself that it’s not that bad or even that it’s actually good. There is an entrenched belief that smoking pot can be beneficial for the health, especially for certain conditions, exactly as there used to be about tobacco.
I’m not claiming to know anything about pot, positive or negative, but I think you can only call the partakers idiots if you have strong and unambiguous evidence about its harm when you start smoking.
The issues are:
Anti-social nature of smoking: tobacco and pot are equal; alcohol in excess can certainly cause major problems, but not for every drink nor for every drinker.
Pervasiveness of the habit: Tobacco is worst, if only because people can legally and physically smoke more tobacco than pot. I think alcohol may have been worse than tobacco in the past, but social habits and tolerance of drunkenness have changed.
Littering: tobacco is worse, for the same reasons as above. People do litter more when drunk, but it’s a drop in the bucket.
Idiocy of smokers: tobacco is worse than pot, because the evidence is greater and clearer. Alcoholics might give them a run for their money, though.
Is it really that much trouble to imagine a world where pot is legal, but treated to the same restrictions as tobacco?
My best friend died of AIDS when he was in his late 30’s. Before there was anything like the treatments they have now. He was one of those gay guys who pretty much exemplified what conservative people thought gay people did in San Francisco in the 80’s. He used and abused every kind of recreational drug you can think of. After his lover died – that was before they had even named AIDS, he went to the doctor with a persistent cold and was dead in two weeks – Charlie gave up all his drugs (except the marijuana which made it possible for him to eat). But he couldn’t quit smoking. Could not. He was smoking on his death bed, when he was barely strong enough to hold the cigarette. They say nicotine is more addictive than heroin. I believe that.
Which is why I don’t hate smokers, despite cigarette smoke making me truly ill. I pity them, but I don’t hate them. I wish they could stop. A whole lot of them want to.
Hahaha…oooooh