Are people too hard on smokers?

[Avistew]

I think it depends on the area. I was born and raised in France and I was made fun off in school for being one of the very few who didn't smoke.
I also had asthma. Which stopped after I moved to North America. Not saying nobody smokes there, but much less people do, and it makes a difference to me.

I think it sucks for smokers in places where they're not too numerous. On the other hand I wish they had an addiction that didn't affect me. At least people who drink beer don't generally pour it in my mouth too. I know it's not smokers' fault at all, but it does affect other people. And I agree that exhaust fumes and the like do as well, but personally, I start coughing if someone in the same street I am is smoking (that's usually how I know someone is. I cough, get a headache and look for the smoker). I never get that from exhaust pipes.
I do from perfume, though. So I would say that people who wear enough perfume for me to smell it without being in contact with them are just as bad as smokers for other people (probably less dangerous for themselves, though).

I don't consider smoking a deal breaker, I had many friends who smoked and a friends with benefits who did. However my close friends and long-term boyfriends have always been non-smokers. I didn't pick it to be that way, it just happened. I think I connect better with non-smokers.

I can understand it being a deal breaker. When you're with someone who smokes, you need to wash your clothes and hair every time you spend time with them. If they go to your place everything starts stinking. People who smoke can't smell it anymore (like people with too much perfume) but that thing gets everywhere and it smells terrible. It's certainly something I can understand being a deal breaker. On the other hand I think it can work with some compromise. Like, never smoke at home, and have "home clothes" you wear at home, and put the stinky ones in the wash, and have something to clean your breath f you expect kisses and your partner wants to gag at th taste. Believe me, it's better than them throwing up.
And in return the partner doesn't ***** at you if you smoke when going out or at social events and they have to get everything they were wearing clean, purse and all.
Something like that. I don't know, a compromise is to be decided by the interested parties. They're the ones who know what they both consider a fair trade, and it won't be the same for everyone.

 

[koroem]

blah blah blah

Ok Captain Conspiracy. The world is out to get you and I'm an ignorant fool.

P.S. Don't smoke near me.

 

[Hollock]

Yes, they are. Whenever I see coworkers smoke I hear someone else give them shit, it's not a big deal.

 

[CheshirePhoenix]

blah blah blah

Ok Captain Conspiracy. The world is out to get you and I'm an ignorant fool.

P.S. Don't smoke near me.

The American lobby system isn't conspiracy theory. A lobby can only exist if there is a need for it - either real or perceived. Once a lobby movement is created, it garners its own momentum and not only can, but will resort to playing politics in order to remain.

And as we all know, the political games people play have absolutely nothing to do with fearmongering. (Yes, that's sarcasm)

But I have to ask myself here, what's the point in proving you wrong if you just continue to use preschool tactics to "win"? After all, anyone that's ever dealt with the average 5 year old knows that while it may not be the most mature thing to do, sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "nah nah nah can't hear you" is a difficult tactic to beat.

Fact: secondhand smoke has never been (and can never be) conclusively linked to health problems. The opposite is true according to any number of studies, including the World Health Organization's own study showing that there is no significant link between passive (secondhand) smoking and increased health risks. In fact, the only significant finding of that study was that children raised by parents that smoked were 22% LESS likely to get lung cancer. (Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 90, No. 19, October 7, 1998, full text: http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/90/19/1440.full.pdf )

Fact: in the 1992 study on the effects of secondhand smoke (the same one that was cited upthread, where "an estimated 3,000 deaths per year" bla bla bla), the EPA used a questionnaire (unreliable) that was filled out by the people or their surrogates. In other words, some of the information used was unverifiable hearsay. If it won't hold up in our notoriously lax court system, why should we trust it in a "scientific" study? Also, in that same study, they claimed their results before the study was even finished. Then when the study WAS finished, and they couldn't come up with nearly the 3,000 deaths they'd already publicly claimed, they changed the criteria to more than double their margin of error to allow for the POSSIBILITY of 3,000 deaths. The full text of the study is available, but at over 600 pages I'd recommend getting yourself a hardcopy if you're interested in viewing the stupidity for yourself. Instead, try the decision of the Federal District Court judge that vacated the study on grounds that it showed an obvious bias and had no valid findings that weren't manipulated in order to satisfy that bias (judge's decision here: http://www.forces.org/evidence/epafraud/files/osteen.htm and the Congressional Research Service review of the study here: http://www.forces.org/evidence/files/crs11-95.htm )

In the case of the EPA study from December '92, it's interesting to note that this very same study is the one that almost all of our anti-smoking legislature is based on. It's also interesting to note that the judge (Osteen) that ruled against the EPA showed a very strong anti-smoking bias in his previous rulings in support of more governmental control on the tobacco industry and stronger regulations of tobacco by the FDA.

What this all boils down to is a few TL;DR points:

- No government agency in the history of American government has ever publicized a reason to downsize or eliminate their own agency. This includes lobbies.

- There have never been any credible studies done that show any link between secondhand smoke and increased risk of diseases in people; all of the ones done that have shown a link have been disproven at multiple levels and discredited on peer review.

So you vehement anti-smokers can get off my nuts now about how "my habit is killing you". It isn't, it never will, and you're blindly parroting political rhetoric if you use that claim to begin with. If you don't like the smell, fine. I admit that's a valid point and won't smoke around you. In return, I ask that you give me the same courtesy - if I'm smoking in the few places that are left for me to smoke, don't walk into my area and complain about it.

Instead, why don't you try educating yourself? Then, maybe you'll be able to argue an actual point with some legs to stand on. Not on this subject though - because the anti-smoking movement is all "smoke and mirrors".

 

[koroem]

I'm not going to argue with you. It isn't preschool tactics. It just doesn't benefit me to continue this because your adamant that the world of the corrupt has made me ignorant and gullible. Corporate denialism seems to have worked well on you. There is no chance that tobacco companies lobby or provide false information to protect their business interests is there.

There are reports that cooking food on a grill leads to cancer too. Did lobbyists and politicians make that up as well? Is skin cancer from the sun false too? How about breast cancer and all the charitable organizations that help fight it?

Smoking kills people that is a fact. That is the only fact that matters. There is shit in them, that you inhale, consume, whatever, that makes you sick if you do it enough, and magically it disappears when it is in the air that other people breath. Do I have to touch the thing to get sick, is that how it works?

I'll admit that even if I was knowledgeable enough in the subject to debate it with you, it wouldn't do me any good. Your mind is so far set that smoking is perfectly healthy to anyone around you (and health warnings to the contrary are evil lies from evil money grabbers and corrupt politicians) that it would be pointless. But I guess the best reports that suit your purpose are 10+ years old. Nothing more recent? Guess they just dropped the subject when they were caught with their pants down.

I don't harass smokers. I'm not rude to them, I don't give them dirty looks, and I'm certainly never on anyone's nuts about it. I prefer not to be near it. You wanna smoke, go smoke where there are signs that say its ok. Those are places I don't go. How difficult is that? People don't want to be around you, if there is even the slightest chance they can be affected. Stop crying over it.

I'll continue to be ignorant and protect myself from even the slightest chance your habits can make me sick. If that upsets you I'm sorry. Go find someone who can sympathize with you.

 

[GraveeKing]

-snip-

Family is different than strangers. I have a sister who was very obese. I have talked to her about it, as she did about my smoking. Did we listen. No. We just got angry and more set in our ways. It wasn't until we found the SELF motivation to do it that changes actually happened. You can't change other people. Only yourself[/quote]

I agree, lecturing strangers is rather insane. But really - the majority of people simply don't have self-motivation. It's why they get stuck into such unhealthy habits in the first place. People should be able to listen to each other and comment on each others weaknesses so they can self-improve. Then again, as humans we are all pretty stubborn... and we can be stuck on such petty arguments when you know the other side has a fair point.

 

[redeemer09]

omg why do people compare smoking to eating fast food?you don't have to smoke but you do have to eat (and fast food happens to be the moss accessible food)

Because being overweight is much more damaging then smoking. Seen any chronically obese people past their mid 50's lately? Didn't think so.

listen im not saying smoking is like the great evil that needs to be destroyed.but its a choice while eating something is a neccesity may it be fast food or not. thus it makes it void in this conversation

Eating fast food is not a nescessity. It does nothing to sustain you. Just like smoking.

so what your saying if im in the middle of the desert for days find a dinner that only serves fast food ,eat said fast food ,i'd just die right there?does it not turn into fuel for my body?does it not digest?

 

[Mr.Platinium]

thought i'd chuck in my two cents.

i'll occasionally smoke if the people i'm currently hanging out with are. it's not some bullshit peer pressure thing - it's just something i enjoy with certain other people. the same thing applies with drinking. i never drink or smoke alone, and since i'm alone most of the time, that means that i very rarely drink or smoke at all and i consider myself a non-drinker non-smoker.

i think smokers have as much right to smoke as any of the rest of us have to do whatever 'bad' habit we engage in. i cannot claim to be a fan of someone smoking, then blowing the smoke into my face, when i'm trying to enjoy a slice of cake or whatever. but i'm even less of a fan of people who think they are so much better, more ethically sound, whatever else, than smokers, because they are non-smokers. i do not like it when people label smokers as unclean or stupid. i had a friend of mine say that she finds smokers 'rude and cruel', and i was beyond insulted. personally i think her saying that makes her ruder and crueller than the smokers.

essentially, i'm pro-choice, and pro-education. people should be aware of the health impacts of smoking, and if a smoker wants to quit, every possible resource needed to help them quit should be made available to them. but if a person chooses to ignore all of that and smoke anyway, it's their choice, and the rest of us have no business trying to intervene or guilt-trip.

Where's a "thanks" button when you need one? Good post.

 

[The Serpent]

No, I think we should be pretty disdainful. It is sad to think that some smokers will both have to endure slowly killing themselves and all the resentment, but I think it's for the better as it gives them a much bigger incentive to stop, and it will stop children and young people from wanting to start.

Smoking will continue forever if we continue "accepting" it. So I'm pretty glad that most people find it completely unacceptable. One day people won't even remember how to make cigarettes.

 

[CheshirePhoenix]

Words

The studies I linked upthread were done in 2009 and 2010, respectively. The ones from my most recent post just so happen to be the ones that our anti-smoking legislature is based off of - so how exactly are they not relevant?

I'm not arguing that smoking is good for you. I'm saying it's not that bad for those around you. If you work in a smoky workplace (think a bar before the smoking bans went into effect) and live with a spouse that smokes a pack a day, guess how many cigarettes you're being "forced" to smoke per year?

Actually, nevermind. I'll tell you the answer - it's six. If you're surrounded by cigarettes at home and work, and you can't get away from them, you're "smoking" the grand total of six cigarettes a year.

Now tell me again just how bad it is for you to pass a smoker in the street, or at a bus stop, or outside of an establishment? I appreciate that you, personally, don't give smokers a hard time, and if you want to stay uninformed about the issue, that's your decision. That said, a little education never hurt anyone.

As far as other cancers are concerned, there's precious little left that isn't "cancer causing". That in itself should be suspicious - if everything that was reported to cause cancer actually did, then wouldn't we all have cancer?

 

[OutforEC]

SNIP
Enough said

There are only a few ep's of Bullshit! that get on my nerves and that's one of them.
"The US Surgeon General, in his 2006 report, estimated that living or working in a place where smoking is permitted increases the non-smokers' risk of developing heart disease by 25?30% and lung cancer by 20?30%."

"in 2004, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization (WHO) reviewed all significant published evidence related to tobacco smoking and cancer. It concluded:
These meta-analyses show that there is a statistically significant and consistent association between lung cancer risk in spouses of smokers and exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke from the spouse who smokes. The excess risk is of the order of 20% for women and 30% for men and remains after controlling for some potential sources of bias and confounding."

There's ton's of this shit that you can find through the citations on wikipedia.

You DO realise that you can find just as many studies claiming that the risks of exposure to secondhand smoke are negligible from the pro-smoking funded groups as you can studies stating that secondhand smoke is deadly from the anti-smoking groups, right?

Just saying, the studies are pretty statistically non-conclusive either way.

Yeah... Ummm... If you want to cite scientific evidence I wouldn't be using Wikipedia. I mean any fool can write anything there. Wikipedia has it's uses, but never cite it as proof of anything. It just make you look kinda... what's a nice word for it? Gullible?

Not sure why you quoted me; I don't use Wikipedia for evidence, but rather as an overall summary of a topic. What I'm mainly referring to are scientific articles and peer-reviewed research conducted by both tobacco companies and the health industry that make claims counter to the "publicly-accepted" studies that claim secondhand/environmental/sidestream smoke (whatever they call it nowadays) is a horribly dangerous hazard.

 

[OutforEC]

I'll continue to be ignorant

It's just a shame that willful ignorance is the reason why smokers are social pariahs now.

 

[Demonicdan]

I dislike smokers because they are harming other people, if they want to kill themselves thats fine by me.

 

[thom_cat_]

SNIP
Enough said

There are only a few ep's of Bullshit! that get on my nerves and that's one of them.
"The US Surgeon General, in his 2006 report, estimated that living or working in a place where smoking is permitted increases the non-smokers' risk of developing heart disease by 25?30% and lung cancer by 20?30%."

"in 2004, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization (WHO) reviewed all significant published evidence related to tobacco smoking and cancer. It concluded:
These meta-analyses show that there is a statistically significant and consistent association between lung cancer risk in spouses of smokers and exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke from the spouse who smokes. The excess risk is of the order of 20% for women and 30% for men and remains after controlling for some potential sources of bias and confounding."

There's ton's of this shit that you can find through the citations on wikipedia.

You DO realise that you can find just as many studies claiming that the risks of exposure to secondhand smoke are negligible from the pro-smoking funded groups as you can studies stating that secondhand smoke is deadly from the anti-smoking groups, right?

Just saying, the studies are pretty statistically non-conclusive either way.

I think you should just be able to think. Smoking is carcinogenic. It's also many more harmful things. Now it's obviously worse to directly inhale the stuff, but it's fairly obvious that what doesn't get sucked into the smoker's lungs and comes towards me is still harmful. Just say the risks weren't as high as mentioned in the cited things (of which there are many), even if it was a 1% increase of risk I still have a right to be pissed off at smokers. And if that risk didn't exist then I'll still be pissed off to have to breathe it in. If some of the population walked around covered in manure I'd go to the same lengths to restrict what they can do while covered in the shit. But it's still just shit; not poisons and other harmful substances.

Yeah... Ummm... If you want to cite scientific evidence I wouldn't be using Wikipedia. I mean any fool can write anything there. Wikipedia has it's uses, but never cite it as proof of anything. It just make you look kinda... what's a nice word for it? Gullible?

Ontop of what the other guy said, the thing you have to do while going on to Wikipedia is use the CITATIONS. You know, all those little numbered links? Hence what what being said in the posts you quoted.

 

[gillebro]

thought i'd chuck in my two cents.

i'll occasionally smoke if the people i'm currently hanging out with are. it's not some bullshit peer pressure thing - it's just something i enjoy with certain other people. the same thing applies with drinking. i never drink or smoke alone, and since i'm alone most of the time, that means that i very rarely drink or smoke at all and i consider myself a non-drinker non-smoker.

i think smokers have as much right to smoke as any of the rest of us have to do whatever 'bad' habit we engage in. i cannot claim to be a fan of someone smoking, then blowing the smoke into my face, when i'm trying to enjoy a slice of cake or whatever. but i'm even less of a fan of people who think they are so much better, more ethically sound, whatever else, than smokers, because they are non-smokers. i do not like it when people label smokers as unclean or stupid. i had a friend of mine say that she finds smokers 'rude and cruel', and i was beyond insulted. personally i think her saying that makes her ruder and crueller than the smokers.

essentially, i'm pro-choice, and pro-education. people should be aware of the health impacts of smoking, and if a smoker wants to quit, every possible resource needed to help them quit should be made available to them. but if a person chooses to ignore all of that and smoke anyway, it's their choice, and the rest of us have no business trying to intervene or guilt-trip.

Where's a "thanks" button when you need one? Good post.

Aww, thank you. to be honest though, it's not an entirely selfless opinion. I have other reasons for saying that people's choices are their choices and they should be allowed to make those choices without being made to feel as though they've somehow failed at life. But anyway, glad you liked my thoughts, such as they were.

 

[Devornine]

-snip-

Family is different than strangers. I have a sister who was very obese. I have talked to her about it, as she did about my smoking. Did we listen. No. We just got angry and more set in our ways. It wasn't until we found the SELF motivation to do it that changes actually happened. You can't change other people. Only yourself

I agree, lecturing strangers is rather insane. But really - the majority of people simply don't have self-motivation. It's why they get stuck into such unhealthy habits in the first place. People should be able to listen to each other and comment on each others weaknesses so they can self-improve. Then again, as humans we are all pretty stubborn... and we can be stuck on such petty arguments when you know the other side has a fair point.[/quote]

A lot of people don't have self motivation yes... some people even like smoking. I get that and I know it is in everyone's best interest to quit. But talking to strangers about it when they already get it from the media and family, not the best way. When I smoked people would come up to me and say "Do you know smoking kills?" or the like. And I would laugh at them. I never listened to them. Just leave the smokers be. They will change when they want to. Or not. It is their right to do whatever they want!

 

[Devornine]

I will post these again! Please watch them before trying to tell people that second hand smoke kills!

 

[MordinSolus]

I think that those people who hate smokers just hate them because their different. It's in any living being's nature to respond to something that is unusual to what they typically do.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

No, I certainly think smokers are still let off easy, and their constant defensiveness whenever challenged is something I find endlessly annoying. I have NO tolerance for smoking and I'm not shy about letting you know it- if you smoke near me I will pointedly move away from you.

And I am SO SICK of smokers defending themselves with the same meaningless and irrelevent arguments they keep spamming out any time someone dares question their right to poison the world and everyone around them. "Cars and industrial pollution do far more damage than cigarette smoke" they whine. "Cars and industry are necessary evils of modern day human existence," I counter "while cigarettes are a meaningless, totally optional and thoroughly disgusting luxury product. There's a huge difference between shooting wild animals and destroying their habitats to make an area of land safe to live in and farm wheat on, and shooting wild animals and destroying their habitats to make fur coats and farm cannibis."

I also think people are a bit too harsh on the smokers, while I do not support smokers, I do not believe they should so publicly hated. People argue that they are killing themselves, but are people drinking alcohol and eating fast food not killing themselves, yet I don't see people being as harsh on these people as they do on smokers. I think that the media also has a large role in effecting how people view the topic as well.

The problem ISN'T that they're killing themselves. Hell, personally I couldn't care less if they're killing themselves- that's their choice, just like people who drink themselves blind or stuff themselves with crap until they need bigger pants. The problem with smoking is that it's invasive and toxic and to make matters worse it breeds an inherent self-centredness in the people who do it. While alcohol can start fights, cause accidents, or be responsible for domestic abuse, at least this varies from person to person and only results from a considerable excessive misuse of it. I drink a little, but I've NEVER been drunk in my life and have NEVER done something I've regretted because of alcohol. But even normal use of tobacco is unavoidably harmful (tobacco is literally nothing less than a poison) which affects not only the smoker but everyone around them. The smoke drifts around in a wide area around the smoker to be inhaled by people who wouldn't smoke a cigarette at gunpoint and they don't even get the benefit of inhaling it through the filter first! And when it comes to parents who smoke around their children or even while pregnant... well, sometimes I wonder why we don't need a license to breed.

And then there's the thing that enrages me the most- WAY too many smokers (not all of them, but the vast majority that I've seen) are dirty, self-centred and lazy. Even if they're not smoking near another person, their poison still drifts into the air and, even worse, their litter end up on th ground or eventually in the water- and they act like it simply doesn't matter. When I see a smoker casually flick a cigarette butt onto the ground and walk away without even bothering to stub it out with their foot when they're standing less than 10 feet away from an ashtray or garbage bin then I have to restrain the urge to chase them down, grab them by the scruff of the neck and scream at them "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!". Fortunately I've managed to control this urge by channelling my rage into a new habit I have, where I pick up the smoking butt, sneak up behind them and drop it into either the open top of any bag they're carrying or, if they don't have one, down the back of their shirt or jacket and beat it before they notice. I think that's what we call "poetic justice".

Yeah, I never really understood it either. So they smoke? What right does anyone have to tell them otherwise.

It's the 21st century. OF COURSE THEY KNOW IT'S BAD FOR THEM. They just don't care. In a way, I admire them for that.

It's bad for everyone else as well and they don't care about that either. So someone drinks? What right does anyone have to tell them they can't drive a car? Oh wait...

Hmm, no, these arguments don't hold any weight at all.

Your direct complaint is the consideration value of others who smoke. How considerate or how inconsiderate they are is not dependent on weather they smoke or not, nor does having a smoke equate to having a low consideration of others.

I see these logical fallacies happening quite a bit and it's unfortunate, but that's how it is I guess.

What I mean is: If someone who is supposedly a representative for a group (in this case smokers) does something inconsiderate, others may wonder "are all smokers actually that inconsiderate?" To make them think that it was out of the ordinary, they would have to see a few smokers being considerate. Should they come across more than one smoker that is doing the wrong thing, well, it then takes quite a lot of smokers doing the right thing to make them decide that those two smokers are out of the ordinary or unusual, rather than 'every smoker is inconsiderate.'

Hmm, well yes I suppose when you look at it from that angle that may be true. Maybe it IS just 99% of inconsiderate smokers who unfairly give the other 1% a bad name?*

(*Numbers adjusted for hyperbolic purposes)

 

[Beliyal]

I think that people are generally maybe too hard on them, but on one hand, I think they "deserve" it, at least a little bit. It's not the fault of only one party; some anti-smokers are too extreme, but also, some smokers are just as bad. I don't hate smokers, but I told my friends that I physically can't stand smoke (up to a point that I can't go to a bar or a restaurant, or even stand next to a person that smokes) and they try to be considerate. However, I can't always avoid it. Problem is, I get headaches and I can't breathe if there's too much smoke around. So naturally, they put me off. My mother has been smoking whole my life and I would end up coughing and feeling nauseous in a matter of minutes after inhaling smoke, so yeah, it bothers me. And I would be very happy if I could avoid hanging around with smokers. Of course, I hang around with my friends that smoke, but smoking is something I regard as a highly negative thing. I understand it's a hobby and your right, but it's a hobby and your right that is affecting me directly. I saw many comparisons with fast food in this thread, but the difference is in the fact that when your friend eats fast food, you don't have too; if your friend smokes, however, you will be forced to inhale smoke. You have a right to smoke, but I have just as much right not to smoke, which becomes a problem because when there's a smoker somewhere in my vicinity, I will be forced to inhale smoke. And I won't go into whether second-hand smoking is really that much harmful (or harmful at all); I can't speak for other people, but smoke as a substance is something that makes me feel sick, despite the fact that it may not be harmful at all. Imagine walking into a bar, being there for five minutes and developing a strong headache, coughing and the feeling of intense pain in the entire nasal region; that's how it feels when I inhale smoke, so naturally, I dislike it very much (and it makes me sad really, because it makes me unable to hang around with people sometimes and when they ask why don't I go with them, I sound like a prick when I say "Because I can't stand smoke". However, they are usually considerate so we sit outside where it doesn't bother me that much, but it's very difficult to avoid it altogether).