Zoe wrote
Sam H., speaking up for you own rights is one thing. That’s fair and reasonable. But trying to dictate someone else’s behavior for their own good is controlling. It is not good for the person who is being manipulated and it is not good for the person doing the manipulating.
People do this all the time. I try to get my husband to lose weight and excercize more. That’s not controlling and it’s hardly hurt him at all. Together we are losing weight and eating healthier. The government also does the same thing by running public service adds. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If my husband smoked, I would be on his ass to quit a dozen times a day. I would do the same if he had a drug or alcohol problem. It’s called loving someone.
**Your not smoking on company grounds covers that one, which I already agreed was reasonable. It’s the whole forcing them to quit altogether that I’m taking issue with. That’s what smoking cessation programs aim for, in case you didn’t know. Try to keep up. **
I certainly DO think the government would be justified in making people quit or at least making it illegal. We do that with cocaine and heroine. Cigarrettes are just as useless as those other drugs.
**There’s no back to your building at all? Interesting. So don’t let the smokers smoke near the front door, then. I don’t know why this point is still being discussed anyway, since as I pointed out above, it has nothing to do with forcing someone into a smoking cessation program. **
I work in NYC a few times a week. As far as I know there is no back door and the front door is where the smokers congregate. The smokers have been allowed to smoke there despite the fact that my co-workers have made numerous complaints to building management.
**The only thing you can eat during office hours is a sucking candy? That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard. What about your lunch hour? Can you eat then? See, if your company demanded you stick to a strict diet while employed with them at home and at the office, then you would be discussing something comprable to a forced smoking cessation program. Until then, apples and oranges my friend. **
You can eat whatever you want on your lunch hour obviously. You can’t march around the office and eat drip chili fries everywhere during work hours. And comparing food to tobacco is not apples and oranges. It’s apples and rat poison. You don’t need tobacco to live. And if one of our office co-workers were either bulimic or using cocaine they would probably told fix the problem or get fired. I don’t see why tobacco is any different.
Who cares why it’s not illegal. The point is it’s not.
I do. I care why it’s not illegal. I care because I’d like to see it illegal. That’s the whole point. It shouldn’t be legal. It’s a dangerous drug that serves no other purpose than to kill you.
**Now quit dancing around my arguments and start answering them, as I’ve been doing with yours. **
What was your argument again? That’s it’s legal so nothing else matters? That forcing people to stop giving themselves terrible diseases would be a horrible idea? I don’t find that argument very convincing.
**But it’s not lovely to try to force your will upon another adult, no matter how good your intentions are. See Zoe’s comments for further explanation. **
See my comment above. You’re simply ignoring the fact that ARE dozens of situations where we do try to force our will on another adult. You’re also ignoring that fact that the majority of people who smoke * weren’t * adults when they started smoking. They were forced to smoke by peer pressure and tobacco company advertising. Would you have a problem making a fifteen year old quit? Because that’s what I would do if I found my daughter anywhere near a death stick.
One more question. Smoking also inceases the possibilty that a smoker’s kids will have all kinds of serious illness. Do those kids have the right to force Daddy to stop smoking? Or is it okay for him to make them sick?
**Could we please take the melodrama down a notch? I’m arguing logic here, you’re arguing emotion. We’re not going to get very far with this approach. It’s perfectly lovely that you care about your coworker. **
I watched my grandfather cough his lungs out while smoking himself to death. I listen to a co-worker cough her lungs out on a daily basis because she’s addicted to nicotine and has a place to indulge that terrible habit. She’s had two asthma attacks in the last three months, both of them very serious and both of them triggered because she smoked. Incidently she started at thirteen so free will is a bit of a moot point. I also have a friend who is raising a child without a father because his Daddy died of lung cancer. None of this is “melodrama.” It’s simply the truth. I’m sorry all this emotion is entreating on your defense of the sacred right to suck on a cancer stick.
**So basically, you get to decide who’s allowed to smoke and who isn’t? How very arrogant of you. So, forcing employees in a smoking cessation program is exactly what you were advocating in your previous posts. Those are your own words I quoted. No backpeddling, now. **
Oh read my posts. I never said I have any say in who smokes at my workplace. I said that I am more concerned about the younger woman simply because she is younger and has two small kids. It is a bit more tragic when a thirty year old dies than when someone passes away forty years later. How on Earth is that arrogant? Or is that merely your all purpose insult?
And yeah I would like to see smoking ended period. In the workplace and everywhere else. Fortunately I’ve got a lot of company.
That is not even comprable. I don’t know that many smokers that have to go out every hour. Myself, I take 2 smoke breaks in an 8 hour day. Most smokers I know take the same, perhaps one more at lunch. Having to smoke a bit less to be able to keep with your allotted breaks is VERY different from being forced to quit altogether. The fact that this is the best comparison you can make demonstrates how ridiculously weak your argument is.
The smokers that I work with take four breaks in a day in a nine hour day. I have no idea what your situation are. There’s nothing weak about pointing out that there are simply professions where you can’t take two breaks a day merely to smoke. Nurses do indeed often work twelve hour shifts with maybe a twenty minute break and they can’t leave their patients to suck on a tobacco fix.
But you know what? You just go keep chugging on death sticks. I hear they decrease your lifespan so we’ll get your extra social security money a few years from now.
I plan to do everything I can to help my friend and so does the rest our office. We’ll take arrogant and self righteous over dead any day of the week.
Persephone
Any given smoker is still far more likely to use health care services than any given non-smoker. If you wanted to reduce a single disease – lung cancer – by a significant percentage all you’d have to do is get people to stop smoking and rates would decrease by more than half. Lung cancer kills thousands of people each year and it’s solely due to smoking. Your risks of lung cancer are much, much higher if you smoke.