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Smoking

Discussion in 'Alley of Dangerous Angles' started by Montresor, May 22, 2007.

  1. Dendri Gems: 20/31
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    Doing something about smoking wont only fail to 'totally' eliminate the problem. I fail to see how it makes a difference at all.

    I dont take serious a society which, day in, day out, willingly exposes itself to all sorts of unhealthy substances and effects, in so many ways - but grows concerned that passing by a pair of smokers for two seconds has an adverse impact on their life-expectancy, imagined or otherwise.
     
  2. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    That is actually a typical response of a typical egoistical smoker. No offence Dendri, most smokers I know respond to the issue of someone else around them not wanting to destroy or cause discomfort to their respiratory organs by being forced to inhale second-hand smoke in the same way as you. I just feel that it needs to be stated by non-smokers, repeatedly, in every such argument, that you are NOT making a choice that only affects yourself when you smoke. You are also making the choice for everyone else around you to rape them with your smoke. And I'm not using the term "rape" here lightly, only to prevent such stupid arguments as "if you don't like the smoke you can go somewhere else". Those are about as stupid as saying "if you don't want to be raped you should fight harder or run faster than your attacker".

    In the majority of situations, non-smokers can't run away from the smoke - nor should they ever have to. I have no problems whatsoever if you want to kill yourself slowly with cigarettes or destroy what's left of your brain with marijuana. But I most certainly DO have a problem when you want to force it on me as well!

    I can believe that you fail to see "how it makes a difference at all". But as a non-smoker, I can tell you that being able to breathe normal air, not having to agitate my already inflamed throat further and not having all of my clothes stink because some people want to force their addiction on me makes a vast difference to me. But again, I know that most smokers find it near impossible to look at this issue from any perspective but their own. Obviously, we can't let addicts dictate policies since they only look after themselves.

    As for:

    I don't willingly expose myself to any unhealthy substances if I can help it, and I'd say that most people don't either, so I'm not sure who your comment is aimed at. I also wonder where you live that people only encounter a pair of smokers for two seconds. I mean, I can understand that you want to defend your addiction, but your arguments are ridiculous. I'm forced to endure second-hand smoke for at least half and hour every day. Bus stops, outside the university during breaks, in my own house, etc. And this is now when most sensible people have already quit smoking here. A few years back my non-voluntary exposure to second-hand smoke could be measured in hours every day. And I've heard a lifetime's worth of BS excuses and statements from smokers already.
     
  3. Barmy Army

    Barmy Army Simple mind, simple pleasures... Adored Veteran

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    I didn't read the rest of the post, I stopped there... destroy your lungs? The effects of passive smoking (especially so in outside or well ventilated areas) are so minute to be laughable, and completely blown out of proportion by the anti-smoking crew.

    Even so, I'm the kind of person to respect non-smokers wishes. I'm not a big smoker, but I never smoke in anyone elses house. I dispose of butts properly, and if I'm smoking in a pub with a few mates who are non smokers, I make an effort to make sure I blow the smoke away from them. Passive smoking doesn't have that big an effect, it's just annoying to non-smokers. To say your lungs are 'destroyed' by walking past a few guys smoking is sensationalism at it's best.
     
  4. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    I just love it when smokers try to convince me that passive smoking is basically harmless, but again, it's typical and old. As I said, I don't think I've heard any new pro-smoking arguments in the last 10 years.
     
  5. T2Bruno

    T2Bruno The only source of knowledge is experience Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    BZ Taluntain. Very well said.
     
  6. Dendri Gems: 20/31
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    Tal, it is my turn to wonder where you live that people have to stagger through vast expanses of thick, billowing smoke.

    'What's left of my brain' tells me it is exaggeration, and I will shrug it off as such. (what has been lost of my mental faculties would surely have exposed this as the addict in me speaking out, dont you agree with me?)

    But I hope you enjoy 'raping' those around you via the radiation your cellphone is responsible for. Unlike smoke those are inescapable and not dispersed by wind currents to negligible quantities.
     
  7. jaded empath Gems: 20/31
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    Well...I said it, already - stridency and militancy tend to alienate those people you try to persuade.

    Since it's coming out on both sides of this debate, I'm writing the whole thing off and going elsewhere.

    Have fun without me; I got a few Beta cloth suits from my USENET days that y'all can wear.
     
  8. Abomination Gems: 26/31
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    And here I thought I was sitting in front of a computer, suffering from whatever nasty things my screen throws out at me.

    Call me stupid, but when has someone ever felt at least discomfort from someone else using a cellphone (radiation wise)?

    I strongly dislike people smoking near me when there isn't somewhere alternative for me to go to do what I'm doing there. If you can't smoke alone (or at least with other smokers) then don't smoke at all, thank you. Or would you rather I stand in front of you and belch after a rather large garlic smothered meal? I assure you it's just as enjoyable.
     
  9. Dendri Gems: 20/31
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    Abomination, cellphone radiation - even more so that of cellphone stations - isnt about immediate discomfort but about physical harm, which can result in discomfort (to put it mildly) all right.

    Now, I am not saying anyone, not even smokers, should have to put up with smoking in closed spaces. I certainly dont want someone stinking up a restaurant I am in. It is a matter of decency, if nothing else. Same with not getting into anyone's face with ones smoking.

    But finding myself accosted of harming... of raping a passersby outdoors with a single cigarette? After that virtual person had a meal rich in pestizides and acrylamide, hormones, antibiotics and other medical substances in his food and water each and every day? That person can walk up to me on a plaza, having made a way through streets breathing air full of dusts, radiations and emissions, to speak to me of how my cigarette is causing him discomfort, harming his well-being? Of how I'm killing myself?

    That person obviously is ignorant of his own circumstance and better does not attempt to lecture me.
     
  10. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    What is it with smokers and their gigantic exaggerations or microscopic diminutions? I never said that I have to "stagger through vast expanses of thick, billowing smoke". One cigarette smoked in a confined space is more than enough to stink it up for upwards of half an hour. I know that smokers don't realize that (from personal experience), but any non-smoker will still smell the stink a long time after the smoker is done. But I guess in your view, I should be literally choking in clouds of smoke to be worthy of your consideration. :rolleyes:

    Actually, that comment wasn't aimed at you specifically (I didn't know you use it), but at marijuana users in general due to recent scientific evidence of the negative effects of long-term marijuana abuse to the brain. I can't link you that unfortunately as it was an article published by one Slovenia's leading experts in the field of treatment of drug addicts. I've read it a couple of weeks ago, and he's made it quite clear that in his professional opinion and based on years of experience treating marijuana addicts, marijuana is an addictive drug and nothing but. So is alcohol and cigarettes, certainly, but that doesn't change the fact that there's no sensible reason to add another legal drug to the two we already have.

    In Slovenia, there are more cellphones than people, so everyone's guilty of that "crime". But unlike with tobacco, no one has managed to prove yet that radiation from cellphones can actually be significantly harmful to anyone's health (unless you tape it to your head for 20 years). But if someone does manage to prove that the cellphone radiation is a risk, you can be sure that we'll all be changing phones. Not that this is in any way comparable to smoking or on-topic, but I thought I'd respond anyway.

    Believe it or not, a single cigarette is more than enough, but smokers usually come in groups, which makes it worse.

    Amazing how you still don't get it that in most cases we have little to no choice in buying what passes as acceptable to sell in stores, but even when we do, it is our own choice affecting no one but ourselves. Unlike with smoking.

    So because we have to endure other pollutants that we have no power over, we should accept cigarette smoke as well? Great argument. By the way, my throat's never hurt from breathing the regular air, because it's not really that polluted here, thankfully. However, every time I have to gulp down second-hand smoke, my throat does hurt. I guess your solution to this problem would be to pollute the regular air so much that my throat would hurt from breathing that as well.

    Yea, better not, it'd obviously be a waste of time.
     
  11. Faraaz Gems: 26/31
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    Prohibition never works...the people who want to do it will still do it. Instead, I say tax it. A lot. 500% or maybe even 1000%. If a pack of smokes costs $ 20, make it $ 200 or even $ 500...people will stop automatically. Oh yeah, and make cultivation of tobacoo illegal.
     
  12. Dendri Gems: 20/31
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    In my view people like yourself are *far* to acceptant of every-day perils to their health to raise such a stink about a room wherein someone smoked tobacco.

    To me your consideration of health is nothing but a question of convenience and a highly selective matter, enough so to come off as tyrannical. "We have no choice - no say - in what we breath and eat, yet that is still our choice." "...somehow."

    Being so pliant in regard to the overwhelming presence of toxins and chemicals on the one hand, yet so determined to protect yourself from the occasional smoker incursion... wont win you anything with me, suggestive questions asked notwithstanding. "I guess your solution to this problem would be to pollute the regular air so much that my throat would hurt from breathing that as well." :rolleyes:

    So, yes, it is a waste of time. You put up with far too many things. The odd smoker doesnt have to suffer being your redeeming act.

    P.S.: No, I do not use marihuana anymore.
     
  13. JSBB Gems: 31/31
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    Taxing cigarettes too heavily just results in people buying smuggled cigarettes. Back in the 90s it got so bad around Toronto that I would estimate that at least 80% of the cigarettes people smoked were smuggled. The government cut the tax down to a more reasonable level and a lot of the smuggling went away.

    Banning cultivation of tobacco or banning the sale of tobacco would just result in more smuggling too.

    Pretty much the only method of trying to get people to stop smoking that seems to work is educating people about the health risks.
     
  14. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    The point is to ban public smoking, not to prohibit it altogether. Most of us don't care if smokers want to do it in the privacy of their own homes. The only point is that they don't do it anywhere public* where they would force it upon other people as well.

    *If they want to continue smoking in the presence of their children and/or others in their own home, no one can stop that unfortunately.

    People like me? You mean non-smokers? Talk about sweeping generalizations... does the phrase "you're either with us or against us" sound familiar? Funny, in a different context I remember you being vehemently against it.

    Do you have your own cult or something to assume God-like abilities to know what I put up with or how much smoke I inhale every day? Despite stating in this very thread that it's quite a lot, you seem determined to convince me that I only encounter an odd smoker here and there. Truly, I know a lot of smokers, but I've managed to make all of them see at least some sense, whereas you obviously haven't shifted from the aggressive defence position on your addiction at all. Here's hoping that you manage to drop it before you cause irreparable harm to yourself or anyone around you.
     
  15. SimDing0 Gems: 9/31
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    In bars here it is not uncommon for smoke to sting my eyes so much I have to leave.
     
  16. Dendri Gems: 20/31
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    Tal, I do see your point. In a way I agree with you. But I cannot help noting the hypocrisy of this affair. It isnt your fault, or mine, that general circumstance totally undermines an otherwise legitimate effort. However, that doesnt change my feeling of being singled out and persecuted by standards that are not at all applied in many other instances... do not seem to go, in truth, against sensitivites that much after all. I react accordingly.

    Which does, of course, not mean I may freely impact the lifes of others with my decision. Thusly, I try not to... not to rape, yes?

    That's all I can say for this smoker.
     
  17. Equester Gems: 18/31
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    same here, eyes start to water and my nose closes down in some bars do to smoke, back when it was legal to smoke in my towns mall, i had a hard time going there in the afternoons do to the amount of smoke packed in there.
     
  18. Drew

    Drew Arrogant, contemptible, and obnoxious Adored Veteran

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    But there isn't any hypocrisy. Most non-smokers who don't want to be around second hand smoke also don't want industrial runoff in their water and pesticide in their foods...and would support legislation which limits those levels. In other words, they don't want to breath second hand smoke and they don't want arsenic in their drinking water. Smokers aren't being singled out. Polluters of all kinds are being singled out.
     
  19. Darkthrone Gems: 12/31
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    Smoking is anti-social and an enjoyment for the underclasses.

    Labelling him who tries to improve a detail of his environment without tackling all environmental issues at once "hypocrite" is pathetic.
     
  20. Equester Gems: 18/31
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    haha the queen of Denmark who smokes around 60 cigarettes a day, belonges to the underclasses :p
     
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