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Gatekeeper
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United States of America
Feb 2000
time: 23:18
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Everyone:
[soapbox]
Hmm ... what to do with smokers, eh? Well, I say NOTHING.
Let them think they're sexy when they light up (never minding the fact that smokers shrivel and wizen faster than normal and have less blood flow going to "essential" areas of the body during sex). Let them think they're cool when they reek like some freakish combination of a fireplace and chemical factory. Let them think they're "hip" when standing outside in all sorts of inclement weather so the addicts can have their "fix." Let them go on about their "rights" when, like clock-work, they need a "break" to nurture their addiction "X" times per hour/day.
Let them learn the hard way when they're choking with emphysema (sp). Let the tears flow down their face when the doctor tells them they have lung cancer that's mestasizing throughout their bodies. Let them learn the hard way when a loved one is sick or dying because of "sidestream" smoke from smokers' deadly and addictive products.
When they're dead and buried (or cremated), they will have all the time in the world to think long and hard about an addiction that ruled their former lives.
Hey, isn't it about time for some smokers to "step outside" to imbibe in their addiction? I mean, my "soapbox" statement has been a somewhat long and rambling one ... and I'm certain the "need" is building, right? 
[/soapbox]
IMHO, the only reason smoking is legal today and defended as a "right" is because it had time to worm its way into human societies before we realized how DEADLY and ADDICTIVE it is to the addict him/herself and just plain DEADLY to anyone who has to live or associate extensively with an addict.
Can you imagine what our world might look like had marijuana, cocaine and heroin been mass produced and distributed since the 1600s, their effects on health unknown or deliberately ignored? Well, that's the story of tobacco. This insidious poison had centuries in which to become "mainstream" and "normal," and that's the ONLY reason it isn't treated legally and socially as an outcast, poisonous and addictive drug, much as marijuana, cocaine and heroin have always been treated.
In conclusion, smokers are addicts. Nothing more, nothing less. Sad, huh? Enslaved to an addiction that's legal and has corporate marketing muscle behind it. You know what's worse? The fact that not only smokers pay the price for their addiction. Non-smokers do as well.
CYBERAmazon
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Guynemer
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Look, I'm not saying that second-hand smoke is a vicious killer that must be eliminated. But saying that it's as harmful as a cookie, that's just BS. Thousands upon thousands of cases of childhood asthma have been attributed to second-hand smoke.
Should smoking be illegal? Of course not. But smokers should realize that they ARE jeopardizing the health of those around them.
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Guynemer
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No, of course not. That's not the point. And I'm really not sure what your point is. What's the problem with getting people to stop smoking? (Again, I do NOT want to make it illegal.)
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote:
Originally posted by Ming
Uhhh.... dumping toxic waste is illegal... smoking isn't. |
You know, that's why it's so ironic. After all, tobacco smoke is toxic waste.
quote:
Originally posted by Ming
I do think an owner has the right to determine what "legal" actions should be allowed in his place of business. It is ok for the government to limit it on government property, that's their choice. |
Why is that? If a owner of a bookstore doesn't allow customers to browse through magazines, it's kosher, no?
quote:
Originally posted by Ming
But to tell somebody they can't allow smoking is just crap. |
Again, why? The society needs to restict individuals from performing acts that are harmful to others.
quote:
Originally posted by Ming
If they want to make laws determining that there has to be a clear division of smoking sections vs non smoking... the amount of ventilation required... fine. But to tell a bar owner that nobody is allowed to smoke in his/her establishment is a joke.
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I don't see why this is a joke. Afterall, it's the society that lets the bar owner have a license to open the bar in the first place. We all know that there are certain conditions attached to said licenses, and these conditions are to protect the customers of the bar.
So why adding another protective condition is a joke?
quote:
Originally posted by Ming
If you don't like clubs that are filled with smoke... DON'T GO. |
Sure, that's one of the things I can do. In fact, I don't. This is not the point however.
quote:
Originally posted by Ming
I personally never smoke in non smoking areas... in front of my kids or other kids... and when people tell me it bothers them.
I understand and I try to be considerate of others. But when I sit in a smoking section of a resturant, and somebody takes a table in the smoking section because it was faster to get a table that way... AND THEN ASKS ME TO PUT OUT THE CIG... I laugh in their face. Smokers have rights too... it is STILL A LEGAL product... just like many other harmful products... |
It seems dubious that smoking is a right. This has been waved around like a fact by smokers and tobacco companies alike, but where is the basis of that? I certainly cannot recall any such provisions anywhere.
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote:
Originally posted by Sikander
That cost is very hard to quantify, especially when some of the most famous and oft quoted second-hand smoke studies are bogus. |
I have heard that a lot from certain groups, no hard evidence is ever given, however.
quote:
Originally posted by Sikander
The cost of second hand smoke is extremely variable from person to person. A lot of people never smoke indoors because their spouse doesn't smoke, or they have children. |
That's not the point though. The point is second-hand smoke will cause various sorts of diseases in those who are affected, therefore smokers incur a much higher medical cost to the society by harm they have done to themselves and others, contrary to what some economic analysis says.
quote:
Originally posted by Sikander
Additionally, in a country like the U.S. where the government doesn't pay for a huge percentage of medical costs, what is the logic in taxing Joe Blow for smoking because he is harming his son Joe Jr., when Joe Jr. is going to be paying his own health care costs, and perhaps paying them with an inheritance depleted by Joe Blow Sr.'s cigarette tax payments? Joe Jr. gets screwed twice. |
Because by smoking, Joe is not only harming his son but anybody who happens to be around when he lights up. That's why smokers should pay a higher medical insurance.
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Sikander
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Boulder, Colorado, United Snakes of America
Jan 2000
time: 22:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
That's not the point though. The point is second-hand smoke will cause various sorts of diseases in those who are affected, therefore smokers incur a much higher medical cost to the society by harm they have done to themselves and others, contrary to what some economic analysis says. |
Eh? You say that even though smokers pay more than their fair share of taxes (above what they cost society for their own medical bills) that they still cost society more because of second hand smoke. I don't buy that. Between the exagerations in the initial well-publicized second hand smoke studies (do you remember the one which calculated that second hand smoke was more dangerous than smoking itself?) and the huge amount of behavior modification which has since happened I can't believe that second hand smoke is costing society a significant percentage of the costs of the smokers themselves. This may be different overseas, but here in the U.S. I rarely see people smoke around people who don't.
As for the dangers of second hand smoke, a recent air pollution study (quoted on the local news) found that the risk from (outdoor) air pollution to the health of a person living in the 8 largest cities in the U.S. was equivalent to the risk of living with a chain smoker. Should we charge an extra tax for people living in major cities as well? After all, they are costing the rest of us money by insisting on remaining in an area which is well-known to be dangerous to their health, in fact more dangerous than living with a vast majority of smokers. Where will this social engineering end? An extra tax on fat and sugar? The concept of using the sledgehammer of the state to micromanage the affairs of individuals is repellant to me. Some smokers don't give a damn and do damage to their children. Where I live the vast majority do not.
quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Because by smoking, Joe is not only harming his son but anybody who happens to be around when he lights up. That's why smokers should pay a higher medical insurance. |
Well, here in the U.S. smokers do pay higher medical insurance premiums, but that's still about their health and not about second hand smoke. You seem to assume that every smoker is sloughing a pretty significant amount of smoke off on other people. This may be true in places with very high population densities and no significant social awareness of the potential effects of second hand smoke. I'm assuming Joe lives in the U.S., and though he's a pig to smoke around Joe Jr., he can't get away with smoking at work, in public buildings or on public transit. Thus 98% his second hand smoke impact (whatever it is) is limited to Joe Jr. Why should Joe Jr. pay twice for the sins of Joe Sr. ?
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Sikander
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Boulder, Colorado, United Snakes of America
Jan 2000
time: 22:18
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quote:
Originally posted by CYBERAmazon
[/soapbox]
IMHO, the only reason smoking is legal today and defended as a "right" is because it had time to worm its way into human societies before we realized how DEADLY and ADDICTIVE it is to the addict him/herself and just plain DEADLY to anyone who has to live or associate extensively with an addict. |
Are you really saying that smoking is deadly to anyone who lives or associates extensively with a nicotine addict? It looks like you misplaced your end of soapbox marker. Your hyperbole reminds me of the worst excesses of the drug war propoganda. I don't even have to argue here, your statement destroys itself.
quote:
Originally posted by CYBERAmazon
Can you imagine what our world might look like had marijuana, cocaine and heroin been mass produced and distributed since the 1600s, their effects on health unknown or deliberately ignored? Well, that's the story of tobacco. This insidious poison had centuries in which to become "mainstream" and "normal," and that's the ONLY reason it isn't treated legally and socially as an outcast, poisonous and addictive drug, much as marijuana, cocaine and heroin have always been treated. |
When smoking was introduced to Europe it was not even a minor health concern. There are a number of reasons for this:
1) Most people who did smoke didn't smoke much
2) Most people didn't live long enough to develop the cancers and heart diseases that kill some smokers today.
3) The levels of both indoor and outdoor air pollution in the 1600s make riding in a car with three chain smokers seem like a day in the fresh mountain air. This is due mainly to the fact that everyone had fires burning in their tiny houses to cook, and in cold weather for heat. A town or city was a large collection of such fires spewing vast amounts of soot into both interior spaces as well as the out of doors.
Everyone was "smoking" back then, and in truth for all of human history we have been inhaling the smoke from our cooking fires, and the fires that warmed our caves / tents / huts. This is one of the main reasons why we are so well adapted to handling smoke. We live long enough to have children and raise them before we pass away from the accumulated damage to our bodies, which is the standard for natural selection. It is only in the modern age with it's vastly improved lifespan (and the expectation of the same) and vast reduction in indoor air pollutants for it's richer members that we have even had an opportunity to notice that breathing smoke is not good for your health.
quote:
Originally posted by CYBERAmazon
In conclusion, smokers are addicts. Nothing more, nothing less. Sad, huh? Enslaved to an addiction that's legal and has corporate marketing muscle behind it. You know what's worse? The fact that not only smokers pay the price for their addiction. Non-smokers do as well.
CYBERAmazon |
If you feel cheated by people in your family's behavior, then I'm sure you are entitled to do so. But don't paint me with your broad brush concerning second hand smoke or other secondary negative effects. You have never inhaled a wiff of one of my cigarettes. I pay for my own health insurance, and more than my fair share of taxes. I don't owe you or society anything. I smoke, other people drink, and still others drive SUVs. We are an imperfect species, and I very much doubt that any of us can stand a strict accounting without some embarrassment.
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Drekkus
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
If you can find something in cars that's as addictive as nicotine and as toxic as tar, we can talk.
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Ask a person to give up smoking or give up their car, they will gladly give up smoking.
The reason why cars aren't 100% clean, is that people aren't prepared to pay a premium for a clean car. But still they keep *****ing about the dangers of second hand smoke, which are less grave than carexhaust (sp?) fumes. Shell has introduced a petrol calles Shell Pura, which is better for your car and better for the environment, and people are still using normal petrol, because Shell Pura is more expensive.
Second hand smoke is maybe dangerous in huge quantities for long periods of time. I myself are a non-smoker, but I can't stand people who whine about smoke (unless ofcourse one has asthma). It always reminds me of two children playing: lots of toys around but one child always wants to take away the toy from the other because it feels the other has more fun then they do.
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blackice
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Canada where else...
Sep 2000
time: 00:18
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[q] from Urban ranger:
Because there's a thing called social cost. It's the same reason why you are not allowed to dump toxic waste.
From Blackice:
Or drive cars, manufacture pollution we could go on here...I do not see them ordering by law car makers to stop killing us you?
From Urban:
If you can find something in cars that's as addictive as nicotine and as toxic as tar, we can talk.[q]
Ok from social cost to addictiveness...ok I'll bite codine, and any other addictive drug is sold by perscrition why are cigarettes not? Back to the social cost cars and thier pollution have a far more reaching and deadly social cost than cigarettes in more ways than one.
[q]Is it too hard to ask you to use your brain? Tell me, what percentage of the Canadian budget goes to medical care? [/QUOTE]
 The question should be how much more do smokers pay into healthcare.
"Overall, smokers impose higher medical-care costs of 46 cents per pack; higher sick-leave costs of 1 cent per pack; greater life-insurance costs of 11 cents per pack; additional costs due to fires of 2 cents per pack; and forgone Social Security taxes on their earnings of 33 cents per pack… Smokers save society 20 cents per pack in nursing-home care and $1 per pack in terms of lower pension and Social Security costs. On balance, smokers save society 27 cents per pack from an insurance standpoint." And he is not even counting the taxes smokers pay, "which average 53 cents per pack of cigarettes."
But how much worse off are smokers as against nonsmokers? Interestingly, it is hard to get an answer to that question. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 400,000 people die every year from smoking-related diseases. How it arrives at this figure has always been a bit of a mystery. For one thing, what exactly is a smoking-related disease? According to the CDC it is something a smoker is more likely to get than a nonsmoker. Thus if a smoker dies of heart disease, say, the CDC will count it as a smoking-related death. This means that other possible causes of death such as a family history of heart disease or chronic lack of exercise are resolutely ignored.
Moreover, the CDC does not like to tell us at what age these 400,000 died. The suggestion is they died young. Yet there is no evidence of this. Everyone dies of something. Dying of lung cancer at 75 is not the same as dying of it at 45. As a Cato Institute study pointed out: "Almost 255,000 of the smoking-related deaths – nearly 60 percent of the total – occurred at age 70 or above. More than 192,000 deaths – nearly 45 percent of the total – occurred at age 75 or higher. And roughly 72,000 deaths – almost 17 percent of the total – occurred at the age of 85 or above[q]
I guess more than non smokers..
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07-03-2002 23:24
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