So why were you frequenting bars with that oppressive tobacco smell ?
Simple solution to your woes: talk to the owners of said establishments, and let them know that you would frequent their establishment more often if it were non-smoking. Don’t force your beliefs on others through legislation.
Which “beliefs” would you be referring to?
The “belief” that cigarette smoke just won’t stay in the smoking area?
The “belief” that when you are in a smoke-filled room for a while your clothes stink?
The “belief” that it is easier to taste your food if your lungs aren’t filled with cigarette smoke?
This has nothing to do with forcing beliefs on others, and everything to do with forcing smoke on others.
Actually, your belief that a property owner shouldn’t be able to determine what legal activity goes on there.
Well lookie there-the law changed.
Yes. You and your ilk forced this upon others. Thanks for proving my point.
We call that “Democracy”. My “ilk” would be the majority.
We’re talking about legislation banning smoking in outdoor public areas, where there’s no risk of harm from second hand smoke, so you have absolutely nothing to worry about.
Was there a referendum on the subject? Effectively, what you did was no different from demanding your neighbour get rid of his pets just because you happen to be allergic to them. The unspoken and unjustified assumption, that you somehow had some sort of right to be there and that your claim over his property (towards which you had contributed nothing) overrode his right to run his household the way he saw fit, somehow managed to slip through the net.
OK, cite please.
Because that’s a rather far-reaching claim, so no doubt you have some evidence.
And please, NOT a cite from a study paid for by a tobacco company.
There are 40 years worth of those, starting from about 1950, that claim to ‘prove’ that there are no health risks from smoking. Nobody believes that anymore; even the people who did those studies. (Many of them knew that, even as they were being paid to publish thosse studies.)
I lived in Moscow in 1990-1991, and Muscovites were generally good about throwing cigarettes into the metal trashcans that flanked each Metro entrance. One result was that every day I would walk by a trashcan that was on fire, since most trash in those days was paper. Occasionally both trashcans would be spouting flames and it looked a bit like you were entering Moloch’s temple. One of those things that you got used to, but looking back on it seem rather odd.
In Minnesota the principal smoking ban was passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, so it seems pretty democratic to me.
Okay, maybe I should rephrase. At this time of writing, nobody has been able to produce any convincing evidence that second hand smoke in wide open spaces causes any measurable harm to non-smokers. Do you have any evidence that second hand smoke, say, in a public park, is anywhere near as harmful as second hand smoke in a home or under a bus stop?
Come on now. Whether the latter part is true or not, we can still discuss it.
I’m inclined to think that mentions of litter in such discussions are red herrings, given that nobody ever suggests banning bottled drinks (source of the largest volume of litter that I see), nor mandating a deposit on cigarette filters.
I think we can all agree that forcing smoke on others isn’t acceptable. (Anybody?) The issue is what constitutes force.
It shows a general attitude that has been actively fought for many years. For example, here’s a phrase near and dear to many a military man-“Fall out! Smoke 'em if you got 'em!” This is where some learned that smoking was a right, and throwing the butts down was how you disposed of them.
When I grew up in Northern Idaho, there were no such things as “No Smoking” areas in bars or restaurants, and you couldn’t go five miles down the road without seeing parents chain smoking while the kids were in the back seat(another great way to get them hooked early, btw). In school, the teachers had a smoking lounge, while the highschoolers had a designated smoking area out the back and in the woods about 20 yards from the door.
Tell ya what. You work toward that while I keep advocating for tougher smoking laws. Later on down the road, we’ll compare notes and see how that’s worked out for each of us.
Indeed. I’m not getting my own knickers in a twist if smoking is allowed somewhere. (Unlike many ex-smokers, I never get cravings from smelling others’ smoke.) It always seems to be the smokers who are the belligerent ones, as again I well remember personally. Myself, I’ll be content to work quietly but steadily for stricter laws and even the complete abolition of tobacco products. That really does seem to be the way the law is headed, at least for stricter laws. Look at a film like JFK, which re-creates the heavy smoking culture of the time period and compare that with today. I suspect a century from now, people could very well be bemused that people would ever have smoked at all, let alone be so aggressive about it. We’ll be the dotty old ancestors, the same as the patent-medicine consumers of the 19th century are to us.
Ironically, my best friend in Thailand is a fellow American who is a tobacco buyer for an international company. Also ironically, he’s never smoked and says it would suit him just fine if tobacco were outlawed tomorrow like they’ve done in Bhutan.
Okay, suppose I say that your second illustration does represent forced exposure to smoke, while the first and third do not. You didn’t have to go in the bars and restaurants, but you could if you wanted to. Teachers and students smoking in their designated areas didn’t expose anyone to smoke that didn’t choose to enter those areas (okay, maybe a little trickled out of the smoking lounge).
Sorry, that’s not how it works here.
You made the claim, so it’s up to you to provide cites for it. You don’t get to turn it around and ask me to do the work of providing a cite for the opposite.
businessess are private enterprises so it has everything to do with forcing personal choice. Jazz clubs often banned smoking in my area while blues clubs welcomed it. Same with many restaurants.
I’m well aware of how it works, dude. The claim, the foundational argument which drives the relentless campaign against public smoking, is that second hand smoke is harmful to non-smokers. There is evidence that this is true in encloses spaces. That’s why you generally don’t see people complaining about smoking bans inside municipal buildings (although bars are another matter. A lot of people think it should be at the publican’s discretion). Outside, of course, cigarette smoke is free to dissipate naturally, which it obviously does very quickly.
Of course, I can’t prove with 100% accuracy that, in open air environments like public parks, second hand smoke is completely harmless. But then again, I can’t prove that bread is completely harmless either. Tomorrow, we might discover that brown bread causes cancer. All I can do, when presented with a demand for evidence that brown bread, or second hand smoke in open areas, poses no harm, is point to the complete paucity of evidence for such a concern. No studies have demonstrated any potential for harm, so it’s reasonable to conclude that none exists.
What you’re doing at the moment is asking me to prove a negative. Perhaps my first post could have been worded a little less stridently, but my second was absolutely correct. At this time of writing, nobody has been able to produce any convincing evidence that second hand smoke in wide open spaces causes any measurable harm to non-smokers. Therefore, it is reasonable to object to more pointless hounding of smokers by busybodying assholes under the aegis of protecting public health.
They say second hand smoke in open spaces presents a threat to the health of non-smokers. I say it keeps the dragons away. Who you gonna believe?
So if the majority supported, oh, let’s say, banning abortion in all cases, save rape, you’d be on board?