h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't think this is a question of health, as has been stated before the effect of passive smoking outside is limited(that's if there is one at all- and I don't care if your an asthmatic- everytime I beep the horn of my car I could give someone a heart attack-but the chance is so small I ignore it...and if your asthma is so bad that it's brought on by the smell of smoke maybe you should go out) what I object to is that one group of people is trying to dictate how I live my life without ever consulting me. If I am acting within the law leave me alone.
Why is it the smokers responsibility to ask if people mind...why isn't it the non-smokers responsibility to say he objects? Non-smokers expect us to do things that they wouldn't do themselves...

Smoke 'em if you've got 'em!

I wholeheartedly concur with everything that you've said! Its all too easy to knock the smoker. No smoker is unaware of the health risks or the costs . I too recently faced a barrage of abuse for enjoying a cigarette in my own home, by a "guest" who then proceded to stick her feet up on my brand new sofa and pass wind rather loudly - now tell me which is the more anti social!

Correction:
It *is* in fact physically possible to inhale and then hold your breath for so long that all the visible smoke gets down your lungs (i know because I've done it plenty of times, but probably there are still invisible toxic gasses in the stuff you exhale)
This is not particularly pleasant, and i can imagine that it is significantly less healthy than smoking "normally". Besides, doing this all the time would require you to spend at least double the time on one cigarette, thereby excluding the possibility to smoke a whole cigarette in a 10-minute break...

I never smoke in the personal environment (office/house/car) of anyone who doesn't smoke. I do smoke in the reserved areas of public places like restaurants, hotels, pubs, airports. If there isn't a reserved area, and I really want a ciggie, I go out into the street. There, my cigarette smoke should not be singled out as particularly offensive, even by those with a medical condition such as asthma. By walking in the street, we all expose ourselves to a whole range of pollutants and irritants (vehicle and industrial fumes, pollen, dust, animal hair -- not to mention exhaust vapours from badly-maintained airconditioning systems). Please, put things in context. If, henceforth, no-one ever smoked in the street, it would have little effect on the incidence of asthma or cancer.

I totally agree with what lisboeta has said above,
most of my family don't smoke anymore, and we wouldn't think of smoking within their environment of home and car, but they are quite happy to visit us or travel within my v.w. where we smoke
the problem with cafe and rest-ur-aunts, is the smoking areas are usually full up!

I really miss the sight, in a greasey joes transport cafe with the fag hanging out of the lady's mouth with the long ash on the end of the ciggie, wondering where it would drop as she poored out a row of teas from a giant teapot! Ah those they were the days, what have we got now boring L/C and Happy somthinks serving up plastic food!

what a loss big fry up, beautiful mug of real tea, newspaper that told you the news without the gossip and lies and a fag, heaven

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Yes, but you do not have the right to smoke near or around others! What if "someone" were walking down the street and your mama told you to never be like that man/woman, becuase they are horried.... Is it fare to others to see that you are throwing away your life? IS it fare to let your family see you are killing you-self every time you take one of those to your mouth? Think about that....................................

Sorry Contra, but I don't agree with your last post. I am a smoker, but there is no way in which I can comprehend you putting the onus of responsibility into the hands of a non-smoker.

Our entire legal system works on the common sense logic of the PERPETRATOR being responsible for an infringement of rights. I could argue that I bought a rifle and was practicing firing it into a crowded area... it's not my fault if people decide to walk in front of my gun...

Causing harm is not governed by your intentions to do it. No smoker goes out of his way to offend non-smokers, despite what some of them believe. Unortunately, in smoking we cause suffering to some people. They should be allowed to have a normal life; going to work on a bus, socialising in work; without smoke. Smoking is not something that is life-threatening if we refrain, whereas it could be for those who have to put up with unwanted smoke.

Being selfish is not an excuse. Sorry for the rant, but I believe quite strongly in this.

Okay, here we go again. This is yet another of those contentious issues where a little consideration goes a long way.

Lets put thing in perspective for a start:

Whether you live in town or country, you WILL inhale noxious and unpleasant substances (unless you wander around in an NBC suit). You have no more right to stop a smoker from lighting-up than you have to command a cow to stop breaking wind (which they do with frightening regularity). It is however advisable to not light-up while standing next to a farting cow; this is both obvious and irrelevant.

I object to breathing contaminated air, but as contradictory as it may seem, I am also a smoker; I don’t want to be a smoker any more, but I have no willpower. The thing is, whether people smoke around you or not, you are still breathing potentially lethal substances, or at the very least onerous odours, on a regular basis.

A simple stroll down the street will see you inhaling petrol fumes, diesel fumes, exhaust emissions, low-level ozone, radon gas, solvents, carbon monoxide and a plethora of other toxins. Unpleasant smells might include dog excrement, the aforementioned exhaust emissions, perfume, aftershave, food smells and the ubiquitous farts. You are drinking toxins and eating them too, in the form of pesticides, fungicides, nitrates, and who’s to know what GM produce is going to do to us? Newsflash: The World is Not a Safe Place! What are we going to do; put steps up the mountains, fence off the sea, ban all forms of transport, enclose ourselves in (biodegradable) plastic bubbles?

We all take risks in our daily lives, whether crossing the road, driving somewhere, eating cholesterol inducing foods, not taking enough exercise, drinking alcohol, the list is endless, and the risk is in most cases as easily quantifiable as being far less risky than inhaling cigarette smoke, especially if it’s second hand (or lung?).

Even smokers don’t like being in an atmosphere thick with smoke. In the days when it was still acceptable to smoke onboard an aircraft, I would still get a seat away from the smoking section. To sit there for even a short flight was unpleasant to say the least. I don’t like eating with somebody smoking beside me, and I hate being in a pub or nightclub where the air is thick with smoke. This said, doesn’t the answer lie in better ventilation, rather than draconian legislation?

Recently, the mayor of New York announced that smoking would be banned in public places. The same type of legislation already exists in other areas of the USA and several other countries. It is illegal to smoke practically anywhere other than in your own home, in British Columbia, and technically speaking in France, but the French tend to flout the law. That’s just great, say the anti-smoking lobbyists (while they breathe other toxins, eat fruit steeped in insecticides, drink water containing high levels of nitrates and oestrogen). Don’t worry that the human male fertility rate has dropped through the floor, one in three of us will suffer cancer in our lifetime, acid rain is decimating the forests, and more children are diagnosed as being autistic than at any other time in human history; that’s fine, I’m sure we’ll deal with that sooner or later. I know all the anti smokers are smiling smugly at this point, and thinking ‘yes, but there’ll be one less item on the list’, but when you really look at it, it’s a very small part of a massive problem, and it won’t make a jot of difference in the scheme of things, other than making smokers less comfortable than everybody else.

Try putting yourself in a smoker’s shoes for a while, step back and look at where we are. By legislating against smokers, the governments of the world are taking basically law abiding, decent people, and alienating or criminalizing them. What’s fair about that? I would argue that smoker’s needs should be catered for in the same way as any other minority group. Instead of vilifying and turning them into harried sub-humans, why not designate well-ventilated areas for their relief? Why not give them a break? If you’re in an open aired space and somebody is smoking, there is probably somewhere else upwind of them that you would find more comfortable. Just think of it like they’d just broken wind, or they’d doused themselves in their favourite perfume/aftershave, or just hadn’t bothered to wash under their armpits for a month. All of these things are equally offensive in their own way, but you wouldn’t dream of legislating against any of them; you’d just move.

I’m all in favour of everybody being more considerate to one-another, and some smokers are definitely in the wrong, but at the same time some anti smokers are bang out of order too. When all of the coughing fraternity are in (non-smoking) prisons, who are you going to pick on next? Live and let live; or die, as might be the case.

RE criminalizing & vilifying an otherwise law-abiding group, of course, the same arguments can be, made about marijuana, prostitution, and, now I think of it any other illegal drug as well. In fact, heroin for instance is quantifiably less harmful to others than smoking tobacco.

Well I suppose it depends on whether you count the crimes associated with drug dependencies like heroin and crack addiction; mugging old ladies, burglaries, drug wars, etc. As for your other examples; they've been decriminalised in several countries, so I suppose it depends where exactly you stand on moral grounds as to how 'criminal' those activities are.

You could say that some murderers are an otherwise law-abiding group too, but that would mean that you'd completely missed the point of the argument. The implication was; "criminalizing & vilifying an otherwise law-abiding group - for no good reason".

In a place where heroin/crack/etc. are not criminalized addicts do not commit said crimes, as the price is low enough that htey can get job to maintin thier habit or even panhandle, as destitute alcoholics are known to do.

Oh right...and just where is this magical country where crackheads hold down 9 to 5 jobs to feed their addiction?

Never mind: it's irrelevant anyway.

As I said before, the implication was; "Vilifying an otherwise decent and law abiding group - F O R - N O - G O O D - R E A S O N".

Hello? ; )

if you leave a public place, just to have a cigarette, you are making an effort to not be near or around others. If others come near you, that's outside of your control. Besides who has ever heard of one single case of second hand smoke actually causing cancer in a person? If you drink Foldgers coffee you are helping to reduce the rain forest, which I believe to be far more harmful to our environment than the fumes exhaled by smokers. Cars and commercial vehichle exhaust has already been mentioned, and factories and air conditioning systems and you could just go on and on. If anybody out there relies on any one of those many things, they are just as guilty of contaminating other people's breathing supply as I am. If you eat meat I imagine you would be very surprised how much the over comsumption of animal products actually deteriorates our environment, air qaulity and otherwise.

I didn't quite get that part about your Mama telling you somebody is horried. Do you mean horrid by some chance, cause my Mama would never have told me anybody was horrid based on what she could deduce walking down the street. Do you actually contend that I am throwing my life away because I smoke cigarettes? For all you know I may do more good with my cigarette shortened life span than you could do with ten normal human life spans. If you eat meat you are probably killing yourself with every piece of formally living flesh you put in your mouth too, but I don't feel the need to declare your life useless.

The way I see it, if you live a perfect lifestyle, never never hurt anybody or anything, then you can afford maybe to be so judgemental about what other people do with their own actions. If you even so much as buy floor cleaner, knowing all the while living creatures died needlessly in the making of it, well I think it quite hypocritical of a person like that who would attempt to make me feel guilty for blowing a few smoke rings out into our air (the operative word here being "our").

So anyone with asthma, or who just doesn't like cigarette smoke, should avoid pubs, clubs, many restaurants? Hey, maybe they should just stay at home all the time, not go to work, as people may smoke there. Your not even away from it at gyms or sports centres. I do not have an aversion to it, I feel I should point that out now, but I think that your argument has flaws. I don't think I've spelt flaws right!
It isn't they're fault that they have asthma, but smoking is a choice people make. It is also one that they make knowing that it is considered a social evil. Why do something that you know to carry with it these problems, people moaning etc, then complain that they're complaining.
If that made any sense, I'll be happy!
Kirp

PS, sorry, I have this thing in life, where if theres a point that isn't being made in an argument, I have to make it. I am considering therapy!

Hi Kirp. As bizarre as it might sound, people who suffer from asthma will actually note an impovement in their condition (initially) when they take up smoking. If you don't believe me, ask any doctor. Obviously in the long term it's detrimental effects outway any benefit, so I don't advise anybody to try it purely for that reason.

What I'm advocating is a solution where both parties are happy. As I've said before, many smokers hate smokey atmospheres just as much as non smokers. Instead of lobbying against smokers, why not lobby the government to improve ventilation standards in places such as workplaces, nightclubs and pubs? That way everybody would get what they want, without smokers being persecuted. And if you're in a public place and you have the opportunity to move rather than being inconvenienced, then why not move? It's common sense really.

You say that people choose to smoke, well that may be true in the beginning, but I think you'll find that most people who smoke, wish they could give it up after a few years. It's as addictive as heroin, so I'm told, so it's not that easy to choose whether or not to do it once you're addicted.

As for second hand smoke causing cancer; there have been a few proven cases. Roy Castle is the one that springs to mind. He never smoked in his life, but contracted lung cancer after years of playing trumpet in smoke filled jazz clubs. Again, this could have been prevented by means of better ventilation.

I agree that ventilation should be improved. As I (think) I said (it was 2 hours ago, and I have a short memory!) I'm not against smoking, though I am not a smoker. The proposal of making all New York pubs etc non-smoking is ludicrous - perhaps all it needs is some tolerance on both sides. Having said that, seperate smoking and non-smoking parts in restaurants works.

No, kirp, it would be better to finish on the sentence before that. Hang on, I think I can still salvage it...

Perhaps all it needs is some tolerance on both sides!

Ta da!

I´m not a smoker. I´ve smoked a few ciggeretts in my life, but not to many.
Where I live, smoking is the most taboo thing a person can do. We have a bondage shop, but only one place that sells ciggerettes. Pot is far more acceptable.
I was all fine with my lovely little protected town, frowning on smokers and wandering around with my nose in the air. Then I moved to Spain for four months.
In Spain it´s impossible to live without smoke. If one manages to come away from a long term stay in the country with out smoking one is a rather unusual spectacle.
They allow smoking in schools, coffee shops, normal shops, and all places, so don´t complaine.
Smoking isn´t evil ecepting to the smoker, and then it´s a personal choice. Second hand smoke does barely anything, so stop you bitching.
a friend of fish

That should put an end to that conversation, friend of fish!
Hows the US?
Kirp

Yup; nice one! I love Spain; the only thing that spoils it is the other holidaymakers. It's one of the only places where political correctness and absurd laws haven't penetrated yet. The Spanish people are so laid back they're almost horizontal...unless you wind them up of course, and then they're complete lunatics. But that's fair enough I'd say, especially when most of my fellow countrymen are complete lunatics most of the time, and almost permanently when on holiday.

Are your countrymen Britsh, American, or other? Just checking.