Merged Smoking should be banned universally

[LukeB]

I can only assume some posters here live in an idyllic backwater, otherwise their ability to detect cigarette smoke over exhaust fumes of cars, lorrys, and vans as well as the stench of fellow apes demonstrates a freakishly sensitive and selective sense of smell. Or rampant confirmation bias.

 

[Emet]

just wait until they're in front of you in the supermarket queue...

Bull:

 

[Dorian Gray]

I can only assume some posters here live in an idyllic backwater, otherwise their ability to detect cigarette smoke over exhaust fumes of cars, lorrys, and vans as well as the stench of fellow apes demonstrates a freakishly sensitive and selective sense of smell. Or rampant confirmation bias.

Or, they're indoors.

 

[LukeB]

Or, they're indoors.

What indoor areas are you in where cigarette smoke is a problem?

 

[Kid Eager]

I can only assume some posters here live in an idyllic backwater, otherwise their ability to detect cigarette smoke over exhaust fumes of cars, lorrys, and vans as well as the stench of fellow apes demonstrates a freakishly sensitive and selective sense of smell. Or rampant confirmation bias.

I live in suburban Australia and when I run in the evenings, I can smell the smoke from smokers sitting on balconies as I run past. Oh wait, you did say idyllic backwater...

 

[LukeB]

I live in suburban Australia and when I run in the evenings, I can smell the smoke from smokers sitting on balconies as I run past. Oh wait, you did say idyllic backwater...

All of Australia is a backwater, though the only idyllic part is the single square foot not full of animals so full of poison they can kill you by looking at you.

 

[Dorian Gray]

UK NHS spending on health care for smoking relating diseases is estimated at ~£5billion.

Money taken by the governement on tobacco duty = ~ £8billion.

In the UK that doesn't hold water as more money is taken in tobacco duty than is spent on healthcare. Note that this is just the figure for tobacco duty and not the combined duty + VAT figure, as VAT is going to be collected anyway on this spend no matter what it's spent on (more or less)

I guess you could argue all that, if you value money over lives. As long as you've factored in all the lost taxes from people not working because of smoking related illnesses.

Social policy on anything is politically motivated. Politicians enact policies which are going to be more likely to keep them in office, and keep the monies spent on politicians by lobbiers rolling in. By and large they don't care so much if they are doing the right thing, they care to be seen to be doing the right thing by the majority of the people that will actually get off their arses and vote.

Is there any reason politicians wouldn't want to get votes AND save lives?

 

[Dorian Gray]

What indoor areas are you in where cigarette smoke is a problem?

I'm not in any indoor areas where cigarette smoke is a problem.

 

[Dorian Gray]

I did.

I meant answer it intelligently.

 

[Dorian Gray]

the benefit is, i like it.

How does liking something make it a benefit? What if you like murder?

Oh, now I understand.

 

[Dorian Gray]

True, but why be so mean to the old boy in the first place?

Your argument is "Don't ban smoking because it's mean?" Seriously?

You think governments want people to quit smoking? Oh please.

We've had this conversation and the upshot is that tobacco smokers cover their health care costs twice over in the tax that they pay. So no, it's not financially motivated by government in the UK because the government loses tax revenue if people give up smoking. That is why the tax is set (and very slowly raised) at such a level that people don't quit, they just pay the extra tax with each successive budget. Chancellor not stupid, Chancellor know this.

citation needed. (Hint: don't cite someone saying 'it's mean')

 

[Dorian Gray]

Suit yourself. But it's not your place to decide everybody else must make the same sacrifices of pleasure you're willing to do. I don't drink coffee, but I don't feel the need to insist nobody else drink coffee.

Suit yourself. But it's not your place to decide everybody else must partake in the same pleasure you're willing to do. I drink beer, but I don't feel the need to insist that I drink it anywhere I please.

 

[LukeB]

I'm not in any indoor areas where cigarette smoke is a problem.

Since smoking is banned in most if not all public buildings nowadays you'd be hard pressed to find an indoor area where cigarette smoke is a problem short of going into the house of a smoker.
So your flash of insight that the smell of cigarette smoke is easier to detect indoors than out is not only obvious but irrelevant as well. Congratulations!

 

[Dorian Gray]

A pack a day smoker, burns 200 calories a day, just from smoking. It curbs hunger and it increases the firing rate of dopamine receptor. Of course, I am speaking gratificational benefits and none of which are impossible to acheive by other means. Off the top of my head, though, those are the positive side effects to the smoker. As for benefits...

http://www.data-yard.net/10v2/parkinson.htm

http://85.18.251.150/34/circulation_2001_104_773.htm

http://www.data-yard.net/30/asthma.htm

http://www.data-yard.net/10b/kaposi.htm

http://www.forces.org/evidence/files/brea.htm

Stretching. Let's assume that requiring a statistically insignificantly lower amount of time after a PCI would be considered a "benefit" rolleyes - I don't see anything where it says this smoking must occur in public places.

Oh, wait. The last study is definitely a benefit, lemme see - here it is:

But the researchers say other health risks of smoking far outweigh the possible benefits.

Would you feel better if I said no NET benefits to smoking?

 

[JFrankA]

I meant answer it intelligently.

I did. Sorry you didn't understand.

 

[Dorian Gray]

Also, fat people. Much harder to jink round them, and you know they're going to slow you down, shifting all that weight. Not to mention old people, wheelchairs, pushchairs. The world would be a better place if it only had people like me in it.

"This is a bad thing but there's this other bad thing, so we must either ban both or neither". Seriously? Red herring.

 

[Dorian Gray]

Yet you tolerate smoke coming from a car?

Not inside restaurants and other public places. Thankfully, cars have never been allowed inside restaurants and other places. Why can't you be as relaxed about smoking laws as car owners have been about car laws?

 

[sgtbaker]

Don't forget cows. They fart. Though I haven't found myself stuck behind one on the street for a while.

No joke, I heard a commercial today, about a Florida farmer giving his cows some kind of suppliment to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas his cows ehem...share. I wish I could remember the name of it because it made my inner child giggle.

 

[sgtbaker]

Stretching. Let's assume that requiring a statistically insignificantly lower amount of time after a PCI would be considered a "benefit" rolleyes - I don't see anything where it says this smoking must occur in public places.

Oh, wait. The last study is definitely a benefit, lemme see - here it is:

Would you feel better if I said no NET benefits to smoking?

You asked if there were benefits to smoking. I gave you benefits. I said nothing about smoking in public places. I even stated that the immediate gratifications of smoking are also found by other means.

 

[Emet]

No joke, I heard a commercial today, about a Florida farmer giving his cows some kind of suppliment to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas his cows ehem...share. I wish I could remember the name of it because it made my inner child giggle.

Unusual Feed Supplement Could Ease Gassy Cows, Reduce Their Greenhouse Gas Emissions
ScienceDaily (Sep. 8, 2010) — Cow belches, a major source of greenhouse gases, could be decreased by an unusual feed supplement developed by a Penn State dairy scientist.

In a series of laboratory experiments and a live animal test, an oregano-based supplement not only decreased methane emissions in dairy cows by 40 percent, but also improved milk production, according to Alexander Hristov, an associate professor of dairy nutrition.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100907113135.htm