# Smoking....YOUR humble opinion **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 31, 2006, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656 "2006-03-31T04:03:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/81 "2006-04-01T04:50:06Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > Too much to get this into one post. Accuse me of post-padding, but there is some ignorance as a tax-paying, child-educating (Head Start), that I must fight. Developing, as it were… Count me confused. ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/82 "2006-04-01T04:51:31Z")
> [@](#): > > That’s just fucked up. My body is my property, in a way that’s far more fundamental than how any physical property belongs to you, and you have no right to cross the property line of my body with your smoke without my consent, just because I happen to be standing on a piece of ground that you own. Then don’t stand on my ground. If my smoke were entering your body while you were standing on your own ground, then you would have a valid complaint. > [@](#): > > Can you point to, oh I don’t know, anything that indicates that the State does not have the power to regulate smoking up to and including the point of banning it? Or are you only interested in repetitively repeating the same tired little libertarian rant over and over? Of course the state has the coercive power to regulate and ban smoking. It doesn’t mean it’s right, or that I won’t continue to defy it as much as possible while not incurring penalties I find unacceptable. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/83 "2006-04-01T04:51:56Z")
> [@fetus](#): > > I assume you want to lock up people who walk around breathing out air infested with the cold/flu/whatever virus they’ve caught, which is much more likely to affect your health than walking through a cloud of smoke on the street. Yes. You’ve found me out. Once I have destroyed the smokers I’m coming for the fluers next. And I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids! > [@fetus](#): > > **Otto** , you’re being inflammatory. At least, I hope you’re being inflammatory and you’re simply overstating yourself, not expressing how you really feel. It’s “just fucked up” to allow somebody to enjoy a legal product in the open air or in their own home? But see, it’s only legal because the State hasn’t made it illegal. The “it’s a legal product” argument cuts no ice. Newspapers and tin cans and rusted out cars are legal products too, but if you let enough of them accumulate on your front lawn or even inside your house then you’re going to face legal reprisals, legal products or not, on your property or not. The property line is not some mystic barrier that the State can never cross. > [@fetus](#): > > Nobody’s forcing you to go to any home where smoking is permitted. Never said they were. > [@fetus](#): > > Are you aware that the smoke is actually not nerve gas? Most smokers have directly inhaled massive amounts of the stuff, and aren’t dead yet. The tiny bit of it that may pass through your nostrils every once in a while as you walk by a crowd of smokers who are, by the way, only lumped together outside because of anti-smoking laws, probably won’t kill you. I’ve already recounted in this thread the story of my high school friend. No, the amount of smoke she’d be exposed to walking through a cluster of smokers wouldn’t kill her, but it would certainly cause her a degree of discomfort. Her right to be free of the intrusion of cigarette smoke enormously outweighs any possible right anyone could have to soke. > [@fetus](#): > > Think it smells bad? I think lots of people and things smell bad (and I can tell, now that I don’t smoke anymore ;j ) but they have the right to their awful perfume/food/whatever. Smells can’t be restricted by property line. If your food stink crosses your property line and negatively affects other people, you can be held accountable for it. As for perfume, while I don’t know this for a fact, I’d be willing to bet that if every time I tried to walk into my place of employment I was faced with a half-dozen or more people randomly firing shots of perfume in my general direction I’d have some recourse as well. Why should cigarette smoke be given special consideration? ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/84 "2006-04-01T04:54:53Z")
> [@](#): > > The property line is not some mystic barrier that the State can never cross. The state _can_ cross it, but that doesn’t mean it _should_. > [@](#): > > If your food stink crosses your property line and negatively affects other people, you can be held accountable for it. Yep; what this has to do with you smelling smoke while on _someone else’s_ property, I have no idea. The moment you are subjected to smoke against your will while on your own property, feel free to raise all the hell you want. ---
**Author:** ![aurelian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f4b2a3/32.png) [@aurelian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurelian)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/85 "2006-04-01T05:03:57Z")
> [@Updike](#): > > It’s obvious that what the anti-smoking crowd wants is no smoking at all. After all, they’ve banned it indoors, but then bitch about people smoking outdoors. WTF? I’m sorry that you have had bad encounters with harpy-ish drama queen anti-smokers. But just as it would be an unfair overgeneralization of me to treat all smokers as if they were aggressively assholish about their smoking as **yBeafy** , so it would for you to make an analogous assumption. I have never “bitched” about smoking outside of the Pit or with my friends (the ones that don’t smoke - the ones that do are willing not to smoke around me). I would prefer that people not smoke outside because it can trigger an asthma attack for me. It doesn’t always; I have other triggers (exercise, cold air, no reason at all sometimes). So to answer your question, “WTF?”, some people would prefer no smoking outside for health reasons. > [@](#): > > An example of reasonable accomodation is at Phoenix Sky Harbor International. In the terminal, past security, near the gates, is a smoking lounge. It’s completely enclosed. Just a door to enter, I don’t even think there’s a sign. Seriously, if you didn’t know it was there, you’d never notice it. And with the hundreds (thousands?) of airport employees, I’m sure they could find a few smokers to handle the janitorial duties. So the smokers can smoke, and the non-smokers are not affected in any way. Assuming that no airport employee works there who would prefer not to, I would have absolutely no problem with such a setup. On preview: And what about state or public property, **yBeafy**? In your example you mentioned lighting up right outside (I assume) a university building, which is public, yeah? It’s **my** job to enforce the laws you so gleefully ignore? ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/86 "2006-04-01T05:05:23Z")
> [@yBeayf](#): > > Then don’t stand on my ground. If my smoke were entering your body while you were standing on your own ground, then you would have a valid complaint. I am fascinated that you believe that real property (which you own only through the sufferance of the State, which is empowered to seize it from you pretty much at will) is more validly owned than one’s own body. I am _always_ in my own “ground,” the ground of my physical body. Out of curiosity, am I allowed to, say, poke you with a stick if you’re standing on my ground? Assume that you’re an invited guest and not a trespasser. > [@yBeayf](#): > > The state _can_ cross it, but that doesn’t mean it _should_. Then feel free to avail yourself of your First Amendment rights to speak out against smoking bans and petition the government for redress of your grievance against them. Exactly as the pro-ban people did in persuading various locales to pass the bans in the first place. > [@yBeayf](#): > > Yep; what this has to do with you smelling smoke while on _someone else’s_ property, I have no idea. It illustrates that your engaging in an otherwise legal activity on your property is subject to regulation. ---
**Author:** ![aurelian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f4b2a3/32.png) [@aurelian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurelian)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/87 "2006-04-01T05:07:21Z")
Doh, sorry about the misspelling, **yBeayf**. I know I’ve done it before; somehow your name makes more sense as **yBeafy**. No rudeness intended (at least in misspelling your name - I stand by the asshole comment. 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/88 "2006-04-01T05:09:57Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > I enjoy the whining of the bar owners who complain that the smoking ban will kill their businesses. Ahhh, that feels good. Someone that thinks the person risking capital in opening a bar/business should cave to those that want to tell that person how they can run the place? Sure, you can make the argument that the workers deserve a workplace that is smoke-free. And I fully support that. Businesses for a few weeks now were allowed (even in Madison) to not allow smoking. But what about the bar that can field a cadre of puppy-kicking-uncle-feltching-mother-punching-goat-blowing smokers? They’re probably seen by you as less than human, but shouldn’t they have any rights to smoke? You don’t like the dirty tax-raped tobacco users. Good for you for taking such a controversial stand. You’re denying the choice of people to go to a non-smoking bar over a smoking bar by banning the option. You deem yourself worthy of deciding what legal acts adults are allowed to do. You’ve just forfeited your high-ground in personal freedom. ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/89 "2006-04-01T05:11:25Z")
> [@fetus](#): > > Count me confused. Patience, grasshopper. I’m getting my roll on. This is my hot topic. ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/90 "2006-04-01T05:12:50Z")
> [@](#): > > I am fascinated that you believe that real property (which you own only through the sufferance of the State, which is empowered to seize it from you pretty much at will) is more validly owned than one’s own body. I am always in my own “ground,” the ground of my physical body. Rather, you own your body in the same manner as you own any other property. If you concede to the state the right to dispose of it as it sees fit, congratulations, you’ve just done the same to your body. > [@](#): > > Out of curiosity, am I allowed to, say, poke you with a stick if you’re standing on my ground? Assume that you’re an invited guest and not a trespasser. If I consent to it, yes. If you’ve informed me that by coming on to your property, I may be subjected to poking with a stick, and I come on to your property, I have no room to complain. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/91 "2006-04-01T05:14:16Z")
> [@fetus](#): > > I assume you want to lock up people who walk around breathing out air infested with the cold/flu/whatever virus they’ve caught, which is much more likely to affect your health than walking through a cloud of smoke on the street. Ah, there it is. The “if you have such a problem with smoke, then why don’t you have a problem with X” argument. It’s so refreshing to see it rear its ugly head in every smoking thread. I’m not even going to attempt to prove to you that the entirely voluntary act of smoking is in no way similar to the involuntary act of being sick. It’s (checks to make sure the thread’s been moved into the pit- yep) NOT THE SAME FUCKING THING. We’re discussing smoking here. ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/92 "2006-04-01T05:15:29Z")
> [@treis](#): > > While I don’t smoke, nor do I particularly enjoy being around smokers, these ordinances seem much to nanny-stateish for my taste. For everything I’ve disagreed on with you, I have to now keep in mind that you have some common sense. Might be short-lived, this love-fest, but it’s a moment to remember either way. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Updike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@Updike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Updike)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/93 "2006-04-01T05:23:32Z")
> [@aurelian](#): > > I would prefer that people not smoke outside because it can trigger an asthma attack for me. It doesn’t always; I have other triggers (exercise, cold air, no reason at all sometimes). > So to answer your question, “WTF?”, some people would prefer no smoking outside for health reasons. Ok, but the anti-smokers have banned almost literally all “inside” smoking, and now you want to ban “outside” smoking as well. What do you suggest a smoker do? ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/94 "2006-04-01T05:26:04Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > For everything I’ve disagreed on with you, I have to now keep in mind that you have some common sense. Might be short-lived, this love-fest, but it’s a moment to remember either way. 🙂 Well, as i’ve already suggested in this thread, i too have some problems with the level of state interference here. That said, as a non-smoker thinking about legislation designed to curb smoking, I just can’t get worked up over it. Call me insular or uncaring or whatever name you can think of. I just can’t work up the rage to rant about it. I’m so damn ambivelent I don’t even have the desire to try to rant about it. My daily life isn’t much different now than it was before it went into effect. I’d apologize, but I care so little about it that even saying I’m trying to sympathize is disingenuous. [You recognize those words, **duffer**?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6909545&postcount=50) It’s you, only a few months ago. > [@duffer](#): > > As far as the Patriot Act? I just can’t get worked up over it. Call me insular or uncaring or whatever name you can think of. I just can’t work up the rage to rant about it. I’m so damn ambivelent I don’t even have the desire to try to rant about it. My daily life isn’t much different now than it was before it went into effect. I’d apologize, but I care so little about it that even saying I’m trying to sympathize is disingenuous. When you care that little about the consequences of the Patriot Act, then i’m afraid you’ve forfeited much of your credibility when it comes to ranting about the alleged excesses of the overbearing state. ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/95 "2006-04-01T05:27:52Z")
> [@drm](#): > > I’m pretty happy about any type of new ban on smoking. I also get giddy when I find out that taxes have been raised on cigarettes. I’m tired of finding cigarettes all over the street, watching the ashes bounce up as someone throws a butt out of their car, **smelling smoke on someone while I’m trying to eat a meal or while sitting beside me on the train, and any number of other reasons**. Well, you’re going to find something to be pissed about when it comes to smokers no matter what. You enjoy an increase in taxes because someone throws a butt out the window? How does that do anything to assuage insulting your sensibilities? Oh Lord! You have to smell the DIRTY@12!11!!@E@ Get the fuck over it. When you start a thread calling for the ban of shitty cologne or perfume that people have to endure in non-smoking restaurants, I may consider it. That and dirty diapers. I was out to dinner last weekend and the couple at the next table brought their newborn with. I wasn’t happy about the smell, but I wan’t about to call for a ban on children because they emit less-than-pleasant smells while filling the Huggies. People adapt and deal with shit. (Heh.) Get over it. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/96 "2006-04-01T05:32:45Z")
You know, I ask this same question in about one out of every ten or twelve smoking threads around here, hoping I’ll get a serious answer to it, but I never seem to. Well, hope springs eternal, so here goes again: Why don’t smokers (and non-smokers, since they have a stake in the matter too) demand the production of personal smoke-screening or smoke-sucking devices, so that smokers can smoke **without** making everybody else breathe their smoke too? I think I speak for the vast majority of non-smokers when I say that we really don’t give a rat’s ass about your smoking, we just dislike breathing the smoke. Why can’t you just wear some kind of plastic bubble-head apparatus with a filter that eliminates the smoke? Or some kind of personal ventilator with a filter that sucks in all the smoke and gets rid of it? Sure, you couldn’t wave the cigarette around freely as you do now, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? I mean, if you just wanted a cigarette to gesture with, you wouldn’t have to light it. And if you had one of those devices that would really keep your smoke to yourself, I’d be 100% behind your legal right to smoke wherever you damn please (except perhaps around highly flammable substances and so forth, for obvious reasons). Bars, workplaces, my own living room, theaters, airplanes, wherever. As long as your smoke isn’t going into my lungs, I don’t care at all if you’re smoking. Problem solved, harmony restored. So why don’t smokers do that? If you say that it’s because there aren’t any such devices available, why aren’t you out there screaming for them to be made available? It seems like the only real solution, other than the currently inexorable trend of making it harder and harder for smokers to smoke in public, which smokers naturally don’t consider a desirable solution. ---
**Author:** ![aurelian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f4b2a3/32.png) [@aurelian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurelian)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/97 "2006-04-01T05:33:54Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > Ahhh, that feels good. Someone that thinks the person risking capital in opening a bar/business should cave to those that want to tell that person how they can run the place? Well, yeah, we do that all the time - OSHA, pollution regulations, mandatory minimum wages, etc. This argument doesn’t help your case (unless you are also advocating that there be _no_ controls on anything a business does. > [@](#): > > You don’t like the dirty tax-raped tobacco users. Good for you for taking such a controversial stand. No, I don’t like the not-enough-oxygen-getting-into-my-lungs that can happen when my asthmatic body is around people that smoke. That’s not the same thing. > [@](#): > > You’re denying the choice of people to go to a non-smoking bar over a smoking bar by banning the option. You deem yourself worthy of deciding what legal acts adults are allowed to do. I deem myself worthy of breathing. Smoking can interfere with that ability. I wholly refuse the argument that my asthma should mean I may never go to a bar, concert, dance, or exit my work building because a few people choose to smoke there, and until people stop making disingenous arguments (but my smoking has no effect on anyone else!), I’m not sure how we’ll ever reach any mutual understanding. On preview: Good to see you’ve abandoned the hyperbolic rhetoric there, **duffer**. Ever think about decaf? **Updike** : You got a cite for that “banned virtually all inside smoking”? I know there is a town in CA somewhere considering such a bill, but that’s distinct from the blanket statements you made ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/98 "2006-04-01T05:36:39Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Still, i have trouble thinking of any other indulgence that so adversely affects people who are not engaged in it. Hell, i even know smokers who complain when they get home after a night out and find their hair and clothes reeking of smoke. I can think of one indulgence that adversely effects people. Of course, a firey multi-car crash isn’t expected by the family driving home after a night out. But at least they don’t have the hassle of having to, you know, take a shower. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/99 "2006-04-01T05:43:00Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > I can think of one indulgence that adversely effects people. Of course, a firey multi-car crash isn’t expected by the family driving home after a night out. But at least they don’t have the hassle of having to, you know, take a shower. So you admit that an accident isn’t the expected or intrinsic result of driving, thus acknowledging that your analogy is inept and inappropriate, yet you choose to stick with the comparison anyway. Nice work. ---
**Author:** ![aurelian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f4b2a3/32.png) [@aurelian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurelian)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/100 "2006-04-01T06:07:38Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > **I can think of one indulgence that adversely effects people. Of course, a firey multi-car crash isn’t expected by the family driving home after a night out. But at least they don’t have the hassle of having to, you know, take a shower.(Bolding added)** The Scene: **aurelian** sits at her desk, in front of her laptop, alternating between taking notes and reading the Dope. She takes a sip of wine. Mwa ha ha ha! Like Zeus hurling a lightningt bolt from the heavens, the malevolent **aurelian** has just cruelly mown down a young family coming back from the movies! She ponders her next victims: adorable baby harp seals? Nah, too obvious. Puppies? I think that was a Simpsons episode… Babies dressed up as plants? Suddenly, inspiration strikes. **aurelian** slowly lifts the wine glass to her lips, savoring the thought of the terror she is about to strike in her innocent victim… \ Really, **duffer** , if you’re going to go for ridiculous oversimplifications, at least make an attempt at creativity! Jazz hands! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656.md?page=6)