That’s outright silly. I smoke the occasional pipe or cigar, and driving to work every day is a significantly greater risk to my overall health and lifespan–not to mention the occasional bacon cheeseburger.
One might be able to argue that a *heavy *smoker is an idiot, but one would also have to make that claim about a great many high-risk recreational activities.
Not really. I don’t see any reason to ban private use of any substance.
Label it adequately to describe the actual risk factors*. Ban affecting others with the side effects and byproducts. Punish severely anyone whose abuse of the substance causes them to harm the property or persons of others, but why on earth would I want the government to care what other people ingested?
*I want to see more labels like “Studies show X% of people who smoke a pack become addicted/get throat cancer/get lung cancer.” The pictures are comically easy to blow off, and the extant warnings are too damn vague. “The Surgeon General has determined smoking causes birth defects” vs. “78% of children of a pack-a-day smoker develop moderate to severe birth defects” or whatever.
I assume this includes U-235? Oops, went nuclear again.
It should be obvious that if we banned tobacco, there’d be illicit growing and smuggling on an enormous basis and we’d need to divert scarce law enforcement resources to (ineffectively) deal with the problem. It’s impractical enough with marijuana (which isn’t really addictive), so just imagine what addicts will do to get their nicotine fix.
Disclaimer: As a pathologist, I get a fair-sized chunk of income from diagnosing diseases (malignant tumors, mostly) caused by smoking (there’s a lobe of lung coming out later today which should be fun - hey, it just now showed up). On the other hand, even if tobacco was banned today there are plenty of smokers gestating malignancies to keep the money rolling in until my retirement. Discouraging smoking through education and bans on public smoking to protect non-users still are a good idea, though.
As a pathologist, do you believe, within a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that people smoking in an adjoining apartment pose a substantial health risk? This isn’t a gotcha; I’m willing to take your word for it.
By that logic we should ban alcohol too, it’s also addictive and poisonous. Many would argue that more social destruction is caused by alcohol than tobacco if you look at all aspects of alcoholism including: abuse, property destruction, drunk driving and so on.
I’d say that radiation is a measurable harm and byproduct. =P
Terrorists drink it.
Wild eyed bomb throwing liberals drink it.
Reactionary war mongering neo-cons drink it.
If you breath too much of it, you will die.
In gas form it can severely burn you.
In solid form, it can cause contusions and death, and it caused the death of 1514 people on an ocean liner.
Ban this substance now!
Ra-di-a-tion. Yes, indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it’s bad for you. Pernicious nonsense. Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too.
How “substantial” would depend on the circumstances. If a family with an asthmatic child lived next door to a heavy smoker and his secondhand smoke was constantly seeping into the apartment, then yes, I’d say there was a substantial risk of that smoke triggering asthmatic attacks, especially if smoke was a known trigger for that child.
If the person living next door to the smoker was suffering from coronary heart disease - yes, I’d say there was substantial risk of a serious cardiac event if significant amounts of smoke were filtering into his/her apartment.
*"Results
Two hundred and ninety–seven (35%) of the patients and 259 (24%) of the controls were defined as secondhand smokers. After controlling for several potential confounders, the results showed that non-smokers occasionally (< 3 time per week) exposed to cigarette smoke were associated with 26% higher risk of ACS (acute coronary syndrome) (OR = 1.26, P-value < 0.01) compared to non-smokers not exposed to smoke, while regular exposure is associated with 99% higher risk of developing ACS (OR = 1.99, P-value < 0.001). Moreover, the previous risk increases progressively from 15% to 256% if one or more of the classical cardiovascular risk factors (i.e. hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, diabetes mellitus, sedentary life and family history of premature coronary heart disease) are present.
Conclusions
Consequently, this study supports the hypothesis that even occasional secondhand smoke increases the risk of developing acute coronary syndromes, especially when other risk factors are present. Given the high prevalence of cigarette smoking, the public health consequences of passive smoking with regard to coronary heart disease are important."*
Of course, we’d have to define “substantial” (a 256% added risk sounds rather substantial to me), but I think there is a real chance of those things occurring and I don’t see why the non-smokers should have to assume that risk.
I guess what I’m really asking is whether you think next-door smoke is a substantial risk. I think we’d all agree that secondhand smoke generally is; I just don’t find it plausible that more than trace quantities of smoke are passing between apartments.
Spoken like someone who’s never lived in the apartment above a three-pack-a-day’er in a cheap college-town apartment, man. 
I live in Florida. Even the rattiest apartment here has a balcony. 
I don’t see why I should have to live on my balcony just because my neighbor insists on smoking in his apartment.
Well played.
Heh, I live in a college town in Central PA–the only apartments with balconies are the downtown ones built BEFORE rioting became an occasional college sport.
Neither of my young professional apartments (the first in an “upscale” young professionals kind of place, the second in a “historic” downtown walk-up) that I lived in between college and house had a balcony, although at least the second one was above a Subway so the place smelled like baking bread most of the time.
In all seriousness, does his second hand smoke permeate through your apartment to the point that either your health is at risk, or you must evacuate so that you aren’t subject to the noxious odors of a cigarette?
Really? Through a layer of drywall, insulation, plywood, floor board, carpeting…and you can still smell it?
Yes. Not every day, but on the weekends when they are both home smoking their fool heads off, absolutely.
Oh. You were serious. I meant that people here smoke on their balconies.
Absolutely. It’s not just while they’re actively smoking. Some of those 2 pack a day folks have homes that are pretty much constantly filled with smoke. It’s the difference between saying
“I take a shit and I flush the toilet, it can’t possibly make a difference in your appartment.”
and
“I shit in a cat box and empty it every evening into the trash. Sure it smells constantly in my appartment, but surely you can’t smell it in yours”.
We had an old lady who lived in the house next to us for 20 years. When she finally went to the nursing home we helped her family with the move and getting her things in order. The realtor said they’d have to come WAY down in price or get the place fumigated. Every single wall in that house was covered in yellow film. I think they ended up tearing out all the carpet and drywall and replacing it.
There are airways, etc. The walls are hollow, and so forth. But smokers have no sense of smell.