[QUOTE=Psilocybe]
Awwww, a pack of cigs costs nearly two dollars, I really feel for you…not really
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Where I am, they cost nearly 10 bucks a pack.
[QUOTE=davenportavenger]
Why is it that every time I read one of your smoking posts I get the mental image of a white, overall-clad rapper in a video aimed at junior high health classes?
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Thanks, though this leads me to think you are smoking something stronger than tobacco. :dubious:
Because comparing secondhand smoke and perfume odors is inane?
Unlike secondhand smoke, it has not been linked with heart disease, cancer, sudden infant death syndrome or any of the other conditions responsible for close to 50,000 deaths a year (source: latest Surgeon General’s report).
One could go on attempting to trivialize the issue by listing things that are annoying or repellent (bodily odors of the unwashed, scratchy woolens, Tom Cruise etc.) but these things (with the possible exception of Tom Cruise, a fount of misinformation) do not have a significant impact on public health.
[QUOTE=davenportavenger]
Second hand smoke in a park? From ten feet away? I don’t think so.
And a lot of people on this board have even complained about having to smell smokers, like when they come back to work after a break. As far as I know smoke clinging to clothing carries no cancer risk. That, in my mind, puts it in the same league as complaining about perfume.
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Can you provide a scientific study that puts a precise distance from where second-hand smoking magically ceases to be any risk? Is it six inches? Two feet or 10? I don’t know, but I’m not going to gamble that it ‘might’ only be X number of feet. Smokers are free to sit in their own homes and smoke, or, out in public, to go outside and smoke. I don’t want to have them anywhere near me when they decide to light up. Nor do I want to foot the bill for their deadly habit-forming habit.
Complaining about perfume may well be the same as complaining about the smell of cigarette smoke. Thing is, far, far more people complain about cigarette smoke than perfume (although just about everyone agrees that too much of it can induce homicidal thoughts). Hell, even *smokers *complain about the smoke.
That’s beside the point, however: the smell of perfume hasn’t been proven to increase the risk of a host of diseases that kill you.
I’m your huckleberry. Here is a post I made in the pit about a year ago when someone was complaining about cigarette taxes.
[QUOTE=Mtgman]
RJ Reynolds(a major tobacco company) maintains a page on tax revenues from tobacco taxes.31 Billion per year in combined state, local, and federal taxes a well as payments under the Master Settlement Agreement(the multi-state lawsuit against the tobacco industry). RJ Reynolds also maintains a page breaking this figure down by state and locality.According to the Revenue by Government Level table at the Tax Policy Center the total state, local, and federal revenues in 2002 was $2,758,144,370,000 Or two and three-quarter Trillion dollars. Those figures have probably gone up a bit due to inflation and down a bit due to tax cuts, so we’ll call it a wash and use the current figures for tax revenue from tobacco according to RJ Reynolds and the older figures from the Tax Policy Center(which gets its data from the Census Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget).
$31,000,000,000 / $2,758,144,370,000 = 0.01124 = 1.124% of revenues.
So a little over 1 percent of government tax revenue comes from the combined tobacco revenue and the multi-billion dollar tobacco settlement. I’m including the settlement payments in the “taxes” number because the tobacco industry is undoubtedly simply passing on those costs in the price of packs.
I doubt most people would even notice a 1.124% tax increase if it were spread across all the levels(state, federal, and local). This is even less likely when you consider that about some of the 31 Billion is the settlement payments. RJ Reynolds Quick Facts table has So if every smoker magically quit tommorrow it would cost the government about $20,110,820,422 / $2,758,144,370,000 = 0.00729 = 0.729 % of their tax revenues.
So it would seem, given some fairly solid sources for the numbers, tobacco revenues just aren’t that big a fraction of government revenues.
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The simple fact is that “anti-smokers” probably wouldn’t even NOTICE the slight increase in their taxes(spread as it would be aross state, local, and federal levels). Painting the large majority of non-smokers, and the representatives enforcing their will through legislation, as “greedy” is just nonsensical. In perspective with the rest of the tax burden we bear, the portion of it which is derived from tobacco-related taxes is just damn near insignificant.
Now the estimated 50,000 deaths a year from indirect smoke, that is significant. Add it in with the more than 400,000 Americans [who] die from cigarette smoking each year and we get 450,000 lives saved by eliminating smoking. Do you really think a 1% tax burden is more important to people than nearly half a million lives per year? If a politician said “we’ll raise your taxes ~1% and save 450,000 people each year” that they would be booed? That “greedy anti-smokers” wouldn’t make that trade because they’re all about the money?
Enjoy,
Steven
[QUOTE=catsix]
No comment on the taxes, eh?
Everybody loves the billions and billions of dollars that are taken from the smokers in taxes. Nobody’s complaining about the money that rolls in because the tax on a pack of cigarettes in PA is $1.74 plus 6% sales tax which on my smokes is another $0.24.
Leave us alone in our smoking areas. Leave us alone outdoors. Leave us alone in bars. Or give up our money. Can’t do it, can you? You’re all addicted to our money.
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Aw, quitcher bitchin’! I quit smoking because of the cost, not just in taxes but to my health and that of the people around me. And PLEASE don’t try to tell me you enjoy it – you’re an addict and you’re in denial about your addiction, and you know as well as everybody who reads this that you’d be better off if you could just put down the smokes tomorrow and walk away. Quit smoking and you won’t have to pay all those taxes.
Personally, I wrote letters to my state legislators to get 'em to vote against the smoking ban, but it passed in the Denver metro area, so we’re stuck with it. I just didn’t go to places that allowed smoking, and I was happy as I could be. LFRF, take responsibility for your life (I mean responsibility, not blame – there is no blame) and live the best life you can with the body you have. It’s what we all do.
[QUOTE=clairobscur]
Fireplaces I mentionned because many people who can’t bear being within 50 yards of a lighted cigarette never have any issue with any other kind of smoke, for some mysterious reason.
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Because most other types of smoke don’t produce the same sort of burning in the eye/throat/nose with me, at least, unless the concentration is very high. Cigar/pipe smoke is even worse; it’s the only kind that’s made me vomit. As bad as burning plastic.
I don’t find it surprising that so many find tobacco smoke more irritating, since we’ve have fires longer than homo sapiens has been around IIRC; smoking isn’t nearly that old.
[QUOTE=clairobscur]
When drivers will leave their cars in their garages every time they can, maybe I’ll listen to them complaining about the presence of smokers in the streets.
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As said, cars are necessary; smoking isn’t. I do approve of heavy pollution regulations, and would eventually like to see all cars electric when the technology is practical.
How the hell could pipe smoke make anyone vomit? I think it smells great. Pretty much everyone thinks it smells great, even people who hate cigarettes and cigars.
[QUOTE=DragonAsh]
Smokers are free to sit in their own homes and smoke, or, out in public, to go outside and smoke. I don’t want to have them anywhere near me when they decide to light up.
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The OP was complaining about people standing outside and smoking. And there’s the rub–some nonsmokers aren’t content just to drive smokers outside. They also want to ban smoking from outdoor areas like parks and outside concert venues. Like I said, convince me that smoking outside at a good distance (forget ten, let’s make it twenty-five feet) will release any more carcinogens into a nonsmoker’s lungs than any average environmental hazards. Because I guarantee you that some people, even if they can barely see the smoker, will still complain. And I’ve gotta believe that not all (to put it lightly) their complaints stem from a physical intolerance.
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
How the hell could pipe smoke make anyone vomit? I think it smells great. Pretty much everyone thinks it smells great, even people who hate cigarettes and cigars.
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Pretty much everyone? I guess I must be one of the tiny minority that hates cigarettes, cigars, AND pipe smoke.
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
How the hell could pipe smoke make anyone vomit? I think it smells great. Pretty much everyone thinks it smells great, even people who hate cigarettes and cigars.
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How would I know ? I’m not a biochemist. I just know that it does. I will say that incident involved a room full of cigarette, cigar and pipe smokers, many in the so-called non smoking section. It made my brother vomit too; maybe it’s in the family. One pipe will make me queasy and leave the room, but won’t make me vomit.
I won’t vomit, but I don’t like the smell of cigars either. And whatever you’re smoking if you think that ‘Pretty much everyone thinks it smells great’, well, it ain’t cigars.
I actually like the smell of a pile of burning leaves. Still doesn’t make me want to run over to the pile, stick my face down low and inhale.
Further recent developments on the secondhand smoking front (summarized in a USA Today editorial 7/27):
Both Marriott and Westin Hotels have announced they are going 100% smoke-free in their North American hotels.
A total of 14 states have now banned smoking in workplaces, restaurants or bars. A January poll by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation finds nearly 7 in 10 voters support laws to prohibit smoking in most indoor public places, including restaurants and bars. “Amazingly, a 2004 Gallup Poll found that 32% of smokers also favored these smoking bans.”
The editorial comments further that despite dire predictions from opponents of these laws, business has not suffered. More information on that here.
[QUOTE=rowe]
Pretty much everyone? I guess I must be one of the tiny minority that hates cigarettes, cigars, AND pipe smoke.
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Not that tiny, actually, if the people in my life are any indication at all. My wife can’t stand to be in my woodshop with me when I puff on my pipe. She’s always objected, doesn’t even want to be around me after I come in the house. I usually have to shower and put on clean clothes before she’ll even get close to me. My sons don’t care for it, either – they both clear out when I light up. Their wives, however, love the aroma of GOOD pipe tobacco; one says it makes her feel safe, and she wouldn’t object if her husband smoked a pipe occasionally (which, of course, will never happen.)
I quit cigarettes because it was expensive, unhealthy and unpopular, and years ago I stopped going into bars or restaurants that allow smoking because the smoke made my eyes burn. But that was my choice, and there have always been plenty of perfectly good restaurants (even some major national chains) that forbade smoking in them, so there were plenty of places I could go for dinner or a drink (I don’t go out drinking much any more.)
We all have personal preferences; I wish I could live in a stupid-free environment, or a selfish-free environment, or a religion-free environment, because I think stupidity, selfishness and religion are as harmful to civilization as smoking or drug addiction.
[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
The editorial comments further that despite dire predictions from opponents of these laws, business has not suffered. More information on that here.
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Our all-smoking ban in Colorado went into effect July 1; already there are complaints from bar owners that their revenues have suffered so badly they won’t make it to the end of the year.
The chances that somebody’s spit on your cheek would give you any disease (it would be on your skin-protected cheek for…1, maybe 2 seconds?) is astronomically small. And I’m talking a light punch, not a boxer’s blow.
Let me phrase it differently. What if breathing in second hand smoke triggers a very serious asthma attack and the person dies? The chances of that are probably just as miniscule as contracting a disease from spit.
[QUOTE=Sunrazor]
Our all-smoking ban in Colorado went into effect July 1; already there are complaints from bar owners that their revenues have suffered so badly they won’t make it to the end of the year.
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Based on documented experience elsewhere (and previously summarized here) smokers do not sulk at home long-term after such laws go into effect; or if they do, they are replaced by non-smokers happy to to experience smoke-free nightlife and eating out. The dire predictions you mention are likely way overblown.
A positive effect on bar revenues following institution of a smoking ban was seen in California.
A similar study found no damage to similar businesses in El Paso, Texas.
More results confirming the trend. Based on most statistical analyses, public smoking bans result in either no significant effect on restaurant and bar revenues or a small gain in sales.
There are also studies showing improved air quality and declines in respiratory symptoms for employees in these businesses after the smoking bans went into effect. These are the people most profoundly affected by secondhand smoke exposures in restaurants and bars, and who increasingly won’t have to choose between their health and their livelihood.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
I don’t find it surprising that so many find tobacco smoke more irritating, since we’ve have fires longer than homo sapiens has been around IIRC; smoking isn’t nearly that old.
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You realize that both consists in burning vegetals?
People use their cars way way more than necessary. They produce tons of toxic by products and irritants whose negative impact on health is well known. Most drivers couldn’t care less. Most will drive their cars even during pollution peaks, when asked not to, without a second thought. There’s no way to avoid these irritants and pollutants in a city because they’re everywhere. There’s no car-exhaust free zone anywhere, and there can’t be. They do harm people’s health and quality of life. People smoking in the street don’t come even remotely close to producing such levels of pollution and health issues.
An individual might possibly be inconvenienced by passing by a smoker (though, as someone mentionned, many make a sport of being offended) but it seems totally ludicrous to me to pretend that generally speaking, cigarette smoke in open air in cities is a problem even remotely as serious as car-induced pollution re. the quality of the air we’re breathing and health issues.
[QUOTE=clairobscur]
You realize that both consists in burning vegetals?
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Different types of veggies, however. Toss the wrong weed on a fire, and it goes from pleasant wood smoke to “GAAAAKK !” immediately.
[QUOTE=clairobscur]
People use their cars way way more than necessary. They produce tons of toxic by products and irritants whose negative impact on health is well known.
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Define "necessary; it’s damned awkward getting around without a car.
[QUOTE=clairobscur]
There’s no car-exhaust free zone anywhere, and there can’t be.
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Which puts it in a completely different category than smoking.
For the love of god… I need an unbiased cite that 2nd-hand smoke is medically harmful.
I guess when you’re talking about the necessity of driving, the definition of “necessary” depends largely on where you live. In my experience, however, people will generally choose to drive to places they could easily reach on foot or by bicycle simply because it’s less tiring.
Yeah, that’d be the “Problems greater than public smoking” category.