Rules on Smoking - Too Strict?

[I Am The Scum]

Whatever floats your boat is fine with me.

You're probably the most passive-aggressive racist I've ever seen.

 

[AlBell]

You're probably the most passive-aggressive racist I've ever seen.

You need to take the subway ride too. And if some person is illegally smoking, be sure to assertively point it out. Heck, grab the cigarette and stomp on it.

 

[dirtywick]

Here's a hint: being asked to smoke outside is not quite the same thing as waking up to a cross burning on your lawn. Or being told you'd better not let the sun go down while you are in town. Or being literally unable to attend most if not all respected higher-education facilities just because you smoke.

You might think it is, because it is surely an inconvenience to you--which is a fact I will not dispute, as I am sure it is a great inconvenience--but the fact of the matter is, to compare being required to smoke outside to total intolerance faced by any group shows a frankly astonishing lack of understanding or empathy for the experiences of groups that actually have faced total intolerance.

And I know you think that saying "well you could place any group name in there, Steelers fans, etc. and the point remains the same" exonerates you from this, but the simple fact of the matter is that it does not. Because no matter what group you place in there, you're still equating the discrimination that they face to total discrimination. The damage is done. You've already equated smoking regulations to Jim Crow.

You're picking on a purposefully imperfect extreme analogy for being imperfect and extreme. Good way to avoid the point that people in this very thread are being jerks and that doesn't seem to bother anybody because they're smokers, and well, **** smokers right?

Not accusing you of that, I'm just saying, what a bunch of jerks.

 

[A Laughing Baby]

You're picking on a purposefully imperfect extreme analogy for being imperfect and extreme. Good way to avoid the point that people in this very thread are being jerks and that doesn't seem to bother anybody because they're smokers, and well, **** smokers right?

Not accusing you of that, I'm just saying, what a bunch of jerks.

I'm calling a guy on making a racist statement. Using his own analogy.

Who am I to dispute your views? If you're happy, so am I.

I will note the scenario envisioned a time, place, and to most that will suggest the likelyhood of who would be encountered. Hint: It won't be Bill Cosby or Obama; Morgan Freeman? who knows ... he could be a scary dude too.

So in other words variables apart from purely being black may factor into whether or not a person is dangerous. Which was my point in the first place.

 

[Dot Ardella]

Whatever floats your boat is fine with me.

The real question is "Is he (illegally) smoking a cigarette?"? Hmm. Or is that a joint???

Wow, just wow

 

[Irony]

And people who wear perfume force you to take that into their body.

Speaking of perfume, I always ask my coworkers not to wear perfume or cologne due to me being allergic to certain ones (it makes my skin itch and occasionally turn red). I have yet to have a coworker refuse, complain, call me a smell-Nazi, or accuse me of hypocrisy for not also asking them to stop using soap.

 

[AlBell]

Wow, just wow

Welcome aboard. Please extinguish your cigarette. Next stop Harlem.

Sniff, sniff ... my that's strong perfume.

 

[I Am The Scum]

You're picking on a purposefully imperfect extreme analogy for being imperfect and extreme. Good way to avoid the point that people in this very thread are being jerks and that doesn't seem to bother anybody because they're smokers, and well, **** smokers right?

Not accusing you of that, I'm just saying, what a bunch of jerks.

I believe that accusations of anti-smoker hatred are about 10 times as prevalent as actual anti-smoker hatred. There is an actual intellectual dialogue taking place here. Accusations of malice serve only to distract from it.

Some people might pose certain arguments because they're jerks. However, this does not make their arguments wrong.

 

[Stray Cat]

Speaking of perfume, I always ask my coworkers not to wear perfume or cologne due to me being allergic to certain ones (it makes my skin itch and occasionally turn red). I have yet to have a coworker refuse, complain, call me a smell-Nazi, or accuse me of hypocrisy for not also asking them to stop using soap.

That maybe because you don't go up to them saying "get out of my airspace you stinky scum"?

Which seems to be the commonly growing attitude towards smokers.

*must not get involved in another smoking thread, must not get involved in another smoking thread, must not get involved.... damn it!!!

 

[Duffy Moon]

 

[Stray Cat]

I believe that accusations of anti-smoker hatred are about 10 times as prevalent as actual anti-smoker hatred.

If you want strict they should have this rule: You can smoke all you want, you just can't exhale.

.Well, yes...as long as the path to the smoking ghetto is uphill both ways!

I find the smell of smokers to be as offensive as the body odor of somebody that hasn't taken a bath in a week, and personally I would like to see the sale of cigarettes banned. If people want to give themselves lung cancer then let them go snort asbestos.

I don't care about studies. Smoking stinks, and ten feet away from a door isn't nearly far enough. 100 feet, I guess that would do if they were downwind. And when they came inside, they were made to sit in a separate room so I couldn't smell their smoker's b.o.

Perhaps a giant hamster wheel in the street to offset some of the damage to their cardiovascular systems.
It's the only place they can smoke, and if the wheel falls below 6 mph they get blasted out of it with water cannon, thus removing some of the stench.
The energy from the hamster wheel goes to power the building's computers (their own workstation now being used by colleagues to watch porn and send bogus emails to bosses).

Admittedly, this one was most likely meant as humour but still...

I don't consider myself a liberal, but I think that any who do so consider themselves ought to take offense that you think a “liberal society” must necessarily be one in which your right to practice a foul, disgusting, harmful habit overrides the right of others in your presence to choose not to participate in this same habit.

no...... you smelly scum suck and if I had my way roving goon squads would kick in door and take your cancer sticks and...........
quit already, stinky mcbrown teeth

Also hoping this one is a joke... but still...

*must not get involved in another smoking thread, must not get involved in another smoking thread, must not get involved.... damn it!!!

 

[shalomsteph]

I get migraines from cigarette smoke. I can't even spend much time in the Indian casinos because people are allowed to smoke freely in them. Even if I don't get a migraine, I come home smelling like an ashtray.

I live in Minnesota, USA, and there is pretty much a ban on smoking in all buildings, even bars. Recently in Duluth (where I live) they started enforcing a "20 feet from the bus stop" rule as well. I have to admit, I love it.

 

[23_Tauri]

The “smoking question”, turns me first and foremost toward the perception that very many humans need and want some bunch of people “other than them”, toward whom to harbour red-hot, with-all-stops-pulled-out, hatred. Such hates on the basis of race and / or religion are not nowadays, in basically enlightened circles, acceptable: so substitutes are sought; and for many, the smoking of tobacco, and the people who engage in same, have become a heaven-sent substitute.

I’m perhaps unusual, in that I have never smoked – never seen the point of it – but (British, aged 62) was brought up among smokers; don’t find smell of tobacco being smoked, nauseating. The “passive smoking” thing has always seemed rather preposterous to me: in the world as it is now, we are exposed to so many potential poisons – why single out thus, the smoking of tobacco?

Three-quarters-of-a-century ago – how did the very many people who seemingly loathe and detest the smell of tobacco smoke, cope then? How come there were not many murders / riots over the issue? How come, not quite a century ago, alcohol was legally prohibited in the USA for a decade-and-a-half or so, but AFAIK almost nobody said a thing about tobacco?

Brings me back to the suspicion that many people want there to be groups of “others-than-them”, as subjects of apoplectic hatred on their part, to be terminated with extreme prejudice if only it were allowed. Perhaps I’m a despicable “fluffy bunny”; but I favour tolerance (with sensible measures to make life as non-miserable for as many as possible) so far as can reasonably be extended; and I would see, there, smoking as on the acceptable side of “reasonable”.

^This.

Interesting that the only other people who seem to see what I'm getting at are also UKians. We don't appear to have the same level of intolerance (and it is an intolerance) to being in the presence of smokers as there seems to be in the US. Likewise, there aren't hoardes of people gagging at the smell of cigarette smoke in China, where the approximately 2/3rds of men smoke. I wager that it's culturally specific as to whether you find tobacco smoke an abhorrent smell or not. Back in the day (60s and 70s) you used to hear people say that they liked the smell of cigar and cigarette smoke.

Bob B asked where was the evidence that Blacks used to spread disease. Again, that misses the point I was making. Back in the first half of the 20th century and before, racist propaganda used to say that Blacks spread venereal disease, other diseases and were a danger to your children, and people believed it. But it was all despicable, racist lies. Now, health propagandists says that smokers spread lung cancer and heart disease, and are a danger to your children, and people believe it.

I'm not saying that smokers are dragged through the streets and horse-whipped, but the similarity is in the tendency of one group to want to hate another because they see their lifestyle (because as fleabeetle said it's rarely race or religion these days) as a threat to their well-being. It might be people who drive SUVs being attacked by eco-militants, or the tirade against smokers.

 

[23_Tauri]

Here's a hint: being asked to smoke outside is not quite the same thing as waking up to a cross burning on your lawn. Or being told you'd better not let the sun go down while you are in town.

No, but by the reaction of some of those on this thread, I'm sure if enough people were to club together and go and buy a cross giant wooden cigarette they would be enough volunteers .....

Or being literally unable to attend most if not all respected higher-education facilities just because you smoke.

But we do have a situation whereby some companies now don't employ smokers, even though they could accommodate them without being unfair to non-smokers, e.g. making smokers 'clock out' when they go on cig breaks, or provide smoking rooms so that smokers didn't have to share doorway space with non-smokers. But the law in many countries now doesn't allow for the latter, even if an individual company boss wanted to provide a smoking room.

And people will say, "but you can stop smoking, you can't change the colour of your skin" which is true, but it betrays the underlying crusade of the anti-smoking movement: to stamp out smoking totally and not tolerate a single smoker. The only reason the anti-smoking movement says it 'accommodates' smokers now is because it hasn't achieved it's end game, which is the total abolition of smoking.

 

[23_Tauri]

It was banned in some states, etc. Very politically and socially incorrect to smoke. It was politics (war) that turned the tides, not medicine or other social forces.

So what's changed?

The anti-smoking movement has always been political, and doesn't hide the fact. So let's have prohibition, because that worked so well in your country last time you tried that....

 

[fls]

These are really two separate issues.

One is about intolerance generally and the devices used to support it (justifications on the basis of the Bible, health effects, economic costs, etc. are typical for any) as well as the ease with which They can be identified.

The other is about pre-established responsibilities of agencies with respect to health and safety. Some aspects of tobacco use happen to fall under their purview, such as regulations about safe levels of exposure to respirable particles.

Just because health is a typical tool used to justify intolerance doesn't make it wrong to be concerned about health. And just because there are health risks associated with some activities doesn't make those activities wrong. Go ahead and argue otherwise on those points, but don't conflate the two issues.

Linda

 

[23_Tauri]

Just because health is a typical tool used to justify intolerance doesn't make it wrong to be concerned about health. And just because there are health risks associated with some activities doesn't make those activities wrong. Go ahead and argue otherwise on those points, but don't conflate the two issues.

Linda

Yes. I agree, the two issues are separate and should not be conflated.

I think where you and I depart is on how much of a risk second hand smoke poses to those in the vicinity of smokers and what level of control should be imposed to deal with any perceived risk or even discomfort to non-smokers.

Personally, I think the state and its health agencies are using a sledge hammer to crack a nut, and that we long ago passed the point at which smokers and non-smokers were treated with equal fairness and respect. But I guess my PoV will come as no surprise to most here.

 

[23_Tauri]

Whatever floats your boat is fine with me.

The real question is "Is he (illegally) smoking a cigarette?"? Hmm. Or is that a joint???

One of the absurdities of the EU wide ban on smoking tobacco in indoor public places was that it in the Netherlands it became illegal to put tobacco in your joint if you wanted to smoke it in the coffee-shop. Only pure joints are legal! Anyone who has been to a coffee-shop in the Netherlands will know that Dutch weed is not designed for smoking pure. You can try, but you might not be conscious for long....

Fortunately, the ever pragmatic Dutch have recently relaxed the universal smoking ban, so small owner-operated bars that employ no other staff can allow smoking on the premises. Hurrah for choice and common sense. As far as I know, there hasn't as yet been in a change in a law for coffee-shops.

On smell: when the smoking ban came in, a Dutch company produced a machine that re-creates the authentic smell of a Cuban mixed with some cigarettes to mask the unwanted smells that had inadvertently come to the fore since the smoking ban. I just hope that these machines catch on in Britain, where pubs now often smell of toilets and body odour. Mmmm... nice. Unfortunately, publicans have lost so much revenue since the smoking ban, an artificial cigar-smell machine is probably the last thing they can afford.

 

[23_Tauri]

I object to the politically correct term highlighted... can we just call them fat lazy ****s please?

Yeah. Fat, stinky scum with their over-active sweat glands. Get outta my air space, lard balls! Perhaps we should force them all to get on a giant hamster wheel every time they eat, so as to offset some of the damage to their cardiovascular systems caused by their gluttony.

 

[fls]

Yes. I agree, the two issues are separate and should not be conflated.

I think where you and I depart is on how much of a risk second hand smoke poses to those in the vicinity of smokers and what level of control should be imposed to deal with any perceived risk or even discomfort to non-smokers.

Actually, I don't think we do. I think it's reasonable to apply regulations which are already in place with regards to air safety. I don't think employers are obliged to deal with assaults to employees' sense of smell or taste, etc. You also seem to think it's reasonable to address workplace safety concerns. Accommodations to address safety ranges from awkward to impossible and realistically, since smokers are not a protected group, like those with disabilities, employers shouldn't be put under an obligation to accommodate them. If safety is a priority, the most effective way to ensure it is simply a smoking ban in enclosed workspaces. Unfortunately, this seems to make it easy to extend bans to areas where safety is no longer the issue, but accommodating intolerance is. And I don't agree with that.

On the other side of the issue, proponents want it left open for employers to choose to make accommodations. I think this is reasonable, but I'm not going to push for it. I am a doctor after all. (Although, if I wanted to be logical about it, turning a blind eye to ubiquitous tobacco use would be a far easier way to ensure doctors' job security than embroiling themselves in these vast, elaborate pharmaceutical conspiracies which are susceptible to discovery by failed con artists and ex-B-movie starlets.)

Linda