# 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:** 8\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Updike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@Updike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Updike)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/141 "2006-04-02T06:00:52Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > OK I can buy this one, except that sometimes you have to move from car to car, sometimes you want to, and again I see no smokers offereing a few bucks for the damage they caused to my clothes on my way, which they did on public property. > On the trains I have ridden, this would mean a conductor on every door, and a train 10 cars long has 20 to 30 doors, as wll as a long boarding line as the conductors take care of tickets while people are trying to board. Normally people get on, and 1 of 3 conductors come down the isle to chck tickets - yes again smokers raising the cost for other people. > > Why do you want to pass the cost of smoking onto the non-smokers? Oh just be quiet already. Make the smoking car the last one on the train. No one has to walk through it all. That’s rather my point, why not make a simple accomodation, instead an all-out ban? ---
**Author:** ![BabaBooey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dfb087/32.png) [@BabaBooey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BabaBooey)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/142 "2006-04-02T06:54:28Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Or banning smoking outright is usually easier then getting smokers to be reasonable. What’s unreasonable about someone opening a bar that allows smoking? ---
**Author:** ![UntouchedTakeaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d78d45/32.png) [@UntouchedTakeaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UntouchedTakeaway)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/143 "2006-04-03T02:19:50Z")
> [@Unintentionally Blank](#): > > Colorado’s Guv just signed a pretty stout public smoking ban ordinance into law the other day…it got me wondering. > > We’ve come from a society where smoking was something EVERYBODY did (even cartoon characters) to the point where it’s getting illegal to smoke OUTSIDE. > > I don’t see a big crowd of smoking protesters, but I DO still see a lot of smokers (usually huddling in the cold, in the only area near the building they’re allowed to smoke. > > Is smoking a doomed pastime? Or am I just not hanging out in the right places? > > (Incidently, I find it interesting that the government went knocking on the Tobacco Industry’s door, requiested a CRAZY amount of money, and Big Tobacco said, ‘sure’, and wronte the check. I’m not sure if that means they KNEW they didn’t have a legal leg to stand on, or if they’ve got enough money that the payout was a relative pittance.) While generally I’m in favor of the bans (I’m obviously a non-smoker), all I’ve seen this do is make me have to run through a gauntlet of cigarette smoke while entering & exiting a bar, as all of the smoking patrons gather right at the bar/restaurant’s door. And to whomever made the comment about people equating cigarette smoke to nerve gas - while I realize it was a joke, it’s really disgusting to have to run that gauntlet and smell like smoke. VCNJ~ ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/144 "2006-04-03T03:34:51Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > All right, dammit, this time I’m going to insist on an answer from somebody: > > _ **WHY DON’T YOU USE A PERSONAL SMOKE-REMOVING DEVICE?** _ Easy. It would be too inconvenient. Just as it is too inconvenient to use your car’s ashtray (much easier to flip ashes and butts out the car window) and too inconvenient to find a trashcan if you _do_ use an ashtray (much simpler to dump the ashtray out the door onto the curb or parking lot). The idea of a personal bubble for smokers is superfluous. You could say that smokers are already in a bubble - of personal entitlement. The people outside the bubble really don’t count. > [@Ellis Dee](#): > > But oh the asthmatics! They just can’t breathe if they catch even the faintest whiff of smoke, you know. Surely the primary focus of society should be to cleanse everywhere of anything that might pose a risk to our weakest and most sickly citizens. The irony here is that some of the people most susceptible to secondhand smoke are the folks with severely diminished lung capacity due to smoking - patients with emphysema, chronic bronchitis and only part of their lungs left after surgery for cancer. Oh, those whiners! They should haul their oxygen tanks off to establishments that ban smoking and leave the smokers who are still fit enough to indulge their habit alone. Just diagnosed another case of cancer in a smoker with a lung mass. The tumor’s already spread to a lymph node in his neck. At age 53. Sorry to bring that up. We can now return to your regularly scheduled discussion of smokers’ rights. ---
**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 3, 2006, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/145 "2006-04-03T03:52:30Z")
> [@Veuve\_ClicquotNJ](#): > > And to whomever made the comment about people equating cigarette smoke to nerve gas - while I realize it was a joke, it’s really disgusting to have to run that gauntlet and smell like smoke. I had a Vietnamese friend in high school whose parents cooked some dinners that smelled awful to my American sensibilities. There are a couple of apartments in my complex that apparently are rented by people who enjoy Vietnamese food, and whenever I walk by one of those apartments while they’re cooking dinner and recognize a smell from my old friend’s place I find it really disgusting. So far, though, I haven’t seen any measures to ban Vietnamese food and I wouldn’t support one. ---
**Author:** ![Bongmaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Bongmaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bongmaster)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/146 "2006-04-05T19:02:46Z")
What we need to solve this whole smoking problem is a closed tube system. Smoke would come out one end of the cigarette, go through the attached tube and directly into the nose or mouth of the smoker. Second hand smoke would be ejected into a compressed gas canister. Everyone wins while we give a huge boost to the tube and canister industries. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2006, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/147 "2006-04-06T02:23:29Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > 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. I don’t think it’s as easy as that. Apart from the fact that no one would wear those ridiculous-looking things, somehow I feel such filters would not be cheap. And if such things are even possible, why haven’t they attached them to the backs of cars? Or to the smokestacks of factories? ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2006, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656/148 "2006-04-06T11:19:02Z")
Another possibility would be for, not the smokers, but everyone who is bothered by the smoke (but inexplicably not by the myriad other pollutants commonly found in urban air) to get \*themselves \* a bubble, and quit their bitching. When I step outside of my office, I’m hit with a blast of diesel and various restaraunt smells, both pleasant and unpleasant. On most days, there’s also construction going on, with the attendant dust and sewer odors. So you’ll pardon me if I tend to roll my eyes at your theatrical coughing at the sight of my cigarette. I sympathize with people who have respiratory diseases that make them sensitive to cigarette smoke. But I’d greatly appreciate it if someone could explain to me why they’re \*only \* sensitive to cigarette smoke, and not to the previously mentioned \*other \* irritants that surround them. And as for anyone who’s made the “all smokers are selfish, rude assholes” claim? Bite me. Perhaps they’re are rude to \*\*you \*\* in reaction to your sanctimonious attitude, ya fucking harpies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smoking-your-humble-opinion/350656.md?page=7)