Cigarettes should be illegal.

[Ignatz_Zwakh]

But how else would people alleviate their ever-present death-drives? I mean, I guess there's always amusement parks, and rock-climbing, and....well, none of those are quite as chic as ciggies!
Not that I smoke. Disgusting habit, really.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

I'm not particularly for the banning of either marijuana or cigarettes, but seriously, how the hell do they make marijuana illegal but not have any beef with the one that gives you lung cancer.

 

[BlumiereBleck]

Hey, anyone else remember the politics and religion section? Ah, just me.

 

[IamGamer41]

I think alcohol should be illegal also.Yes yes I know it has been done before but if your going to take a persons right away to smoke something that is harmful to them,for that very reason,then it should be for booze as well.

A drunk driver will kill you faster then second hand smoke ever could.

I am not for making alcohol illegal only that people have the right to choose.Like those goddamn TRUTH commercials.Those fucking kids in them protesting cigarettes,I bet you 100 bucks they all smoke pot and go out to get shit faced drunk.Just who the fuck are they to tell me wtf I can do.I don't give a goddamn how many dead rats they drop on my doorstep I'm still going to light up because its my goddamn right to.

sorry for the rant.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Let's all just ban everything potentially harmful that people like doing, forever. No sports. No fast food or comfort food. No video games or films. No music that isn't easily digestible sugary bollocks. Sex is only for reproduction.

HERPDERP HERR DERR.

I DON'T LIKE IT, ALL THE PEOPLE WHO DO LIKE IT ARE WRONG!

Most of us live wrapped in cotton wool as it is. Arbitrary age limits and rules on what you can and can't do with your own body are beginning to really piss me off. Go away.

 

[Dr. Dice Lord]

Weed is less harmful than cigarettes. At least weed help people in a way. That and it's natural unlike the thousands of chemicals in the average cigarette. And in what way does a cigarette help anybody. If you know a way please tell me. But they should just ban them without hesitation.

Well, cannabis has side effects similar to alcohol. We have enough problems with drunk driving I don't want to add them to the mix. The cigarette industry produces jobs as well and if you read and/or watch the news at all you can tell that jobs are in demand.

The same could be said about the currently illegal cannabis industry in the US. If taxed and regulated, it would produce more jobs and economic well-being than the tobacco industry. In addition to that, hemp could eliminate our dependence on trees for fibers and paper products. Not to mention that while not benign, marijuana use is magnitudes less addicting and harmful than cigarette use.

I can't speak for everyone, but driving under the influence of cannabis is nothing like drunk driving. It is true you shouldn't do either, but you retain much more awareness and control high than if you are drunk. I believe the fact that tobacco and alcohol are legal and cannabis is not is a long-standing and tragic mistake for our country.

 

[nerd killer247]

We cant ban it but we could limit the amount each smoker is allowed to buy each day or week the amount would be debatable but would help both sides and we should have better ways of stopping kids from smoking.

 

[Tanakh]

4. And in what way does a cigarette help anybody. If you know a way please tell me.

4. They don't, but neither does any addictive substance.

Not that i care about this thread since the OP and most of the rest seem to just be talking out of their asses (ie. not showing a single research or citation supporting their ideas); just wanted to point out there are beneficial effects to smoking tobacco, weed, drinking wine, just to name a few addictive substances.

If you want specifics on nicotine, i would suggest looking in MD journals, you can for example start reading:

WEST, ROBERT (1993) Beneficial effects of nicotine: fact or fiction?, Addiction 88
JARVIK, M.E. (1991) Beneficial effects of nicotine, British Journal of Addiction 86

I found those 2 some years ago, interesting reads; medicine not being my field i didn't dig farther. It would seem that a solution of vaporized nicotine is a viable treatment in some mental aliments.

 

[Mindless1]

I really couldn't care enough to read this book of thread responses.
jus tell me, why in the hell do you want to outlaw my retirement plan?
I know these things can and will kill me at an early age, and I'm banking on that.
You ever look to see how much people in your generation or going to need to have invested and saved in order to retire out? I buy pipe tobacco, tubes, and I roll my own. If we wanna suck down a cancer stick, why would you even care? It's cool that you don't smoke man, but please... PLEASE just stop. I'm tired of being segregated for what I put in my body, it belongs to me. Joe Camel didn't make me smoke, I did.

P.S: I may be a two finger typist, but I'm typing this with my middle finger.

 

[Dr. Dice Lord]

1. Weed is less harmful than cigarettes.
2. At least weed help people in a way.
3. That and it's natural unlike the thousands of chemicals in the average cigarette.
4. And in what way does a cigarette help anybody. If you know a way please tell me.
5. But they should just ban them without hesitation.

1. In small doses yes. But how often do you hear of people ODing on cigarettes?

2. The only way I can think of weed helping people is as a painkiller when conventional drugs won't work.

3. You've obviously never had cut or spiked weed.

4. They don't, but neither does any addictive substance.

5. Oh, cause prohibition was such a great idea last time. I can just imagine it... Governments worldwide outright ban smoking. Smog clears, lung cancer patients are suddenly cured, people on the internet stop complaining. The next day, major population centres across the world burn as hundreds of millions of people experience nicotine cravings all at once and collectively go mad.

Now excuse me, I have a jar of "I can't believe how terrible your ideas are!" to eat.

1. It is literally impossible for a human to overdose from smoking marijuana, look it up.

2. Conventional painkillers do immediate harm to your liver and body, marijuana if taken as a pill doesn't.

3. Cut or spiked marijuana are terrible things, but not marijuana's fault. This is the result of it being unjustly labeled a schedule 1 narcotic and being pushed into the same light as cocaine and meth. If regulated and taxed, you would get spiked weed as often as you buy a pack of camels and its full of scorpions.

4. They don't, but neither do videogames, alcohol, soda, the aforementioned cigarettes, sun-tanning, fast food, driving race cars, riding skate boards, ect, ect, ect by that logic. Nearly everything recreational or indulgent is bad for you, should it also be illegal?

5. Prohibition of anything is a bad idea. What one or more consenting adults choose to do in the privacy of one's home should never be subject to control by the government or anyone else. For those who want to live in a nanny-state, go live in the UK or Europe somewhere.

EDIT: Two topical quotes.

"If you substitute marijuana for tobacco and alcohol, you'll add eight to 24 years to your life." - Jack Herer

"The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world." - Carl Sagan as Mr. X, published in Dr. Lester Grinspoon's Marihuana Reconsidered (1971)

 

[razor343]

Whether cigarettes should or should not be illegal is one thing. Ever heard of the prohibition though? Banning alcohol didn't end well so this wouldn't either.

 

[Nuke_em_05]

10 pages, eh? Yeah alright, why not?

I'm going to respond to the actual intent of the thread: "Waaaaaaaa! Why is smoking is okay when I want to smoke weed? Waaaaaaaah!"

Freedom of choice: if someone wants to do something that they know is hazardous to their long-term health, so long as they are indeed educated about it first, then they can go right ahead.

Legalize it, regulate it, and tax the crap out of it.

The problem may lie in the conspiracy theories. Like how Prohibition was about slowing down alcohol based fuel research long enough for Big Oil to take over not about any moral or health issues related to alcohol; perhaps there is potential in the weed plant for an oil alternative that is being shunned.

That, or the shit really is worse for you than cigarettes. I don't really know, I'm not an expert, but I partake of none of the above so I don't really care either way. Except that the "war on drugs" costs me way too many tax dollars.

 

[SongsOfDragons]

How does alcohol actually help people? It's the same argument.

O/T, and apologies if it has already been mentioned in some way: I know of a way it can indeed help you, even save your life. Ethanol is the cure for antifreeze poisoning (ethylene glycol, IIRC) and in lieu of medical-grade ethanol, vodka will do quite nicely. Or whiskey, or gin, or...

But that's indeed a specific situation, and mostly unrelated to how most people generally treat alcohol. It just amused me when a medical student told me of it. ^^

Well you learn something new every day

But even so, it's kind of a silly argument. Just because it's not helping people doesn't mean it should be banned. And people smoke to relieve anxiety and stress and things like that.

Exactly, and you can flip that argument too. They use heroin occasionally to help people who dying and make them comfortable in their last hours. Just because it has a medical use doesn't mean it should be legal.

Diamorphine. I don't think they still use it in the States, but I think it's still available for hospital prescription in the UK. The speed at which it works, its duration and its level of working make it useful - but its addictive tendancy makes it dangerous. But for end-of-life or pallative care it's great. I think there are other painkillers of that magnitude, but they're derived from far more unnatural sources than processed poppies and also have iffy side-effects.

I'm a medical geek... ^^ I once wanted to be a doctor (as in, at primary school) but in the end didn't. Perhaps the right wording is 'controlled', rather than blanket 'illegal'.

Another interesting thing: When I had pharyngitis a few winters ago, my doctor prescribed me a cough medicine that I had to look up before I took it because it had no leaflet. It was called Pholcodeine - it's Schedule I in the States, yet one can buy it in formulations aimed at children over the counter here.

 

[2clueless]

I am going to take this an entire step further.

Not only should cigarettes be banned, people who smoke should be euthanized.

For the moment, ignore other drugs. I am also ignoring the impact on economy (taxes vs future extended care). Focus on the single aspect of smoking.

When a person smokes, he or she is knowingly pumping harmful chemicals into their body. They are putting themselves through incredible physical trauma to sustain what is or very soon will be their habit. All this simply on inhalation. On the exhale, you are now sharing all those particles and chemicals with the people around you, poisoning and inflicting upon them the same trauma you are doing to yourself.

To my eyes, smoking is akin to slow suicide, and attempted murder to those around you. With every cigarette, you are doing yourself and the people around you even more harm.

If you do not respect yourself enough and your friends, family, general public, to prevent and protect from widespread debilitation and harm, you should be put down.

 

[Adultism]

I smoke cigarettes but I only smoke American Spirits and it has no additives. I think that all that crap in the regular cigarettes should be banned but I think tobacco and nicotine should remain legal

On the marijuana side I doubt it will be legalized anytime soon. But I hope it is decriminalized.

 

[Adultism]

I think smoking them outside should be curbed, or at least reduced in the areas near public areas, but not banned. Due to the ban on smoking inside smokers now just crowd around the entrance in large numbers instead.

I dislike when I go to somewhere like a hospital or shopping centre and I have to walk through the cloud of smoke caused by all the smokers.

A law was passed in Indiana, you have to stand like eight feet away from establishments when you smoke, or is that only bars?

 

[Calibanbutcher]

And weed really isn't all that harmless.
It might not give you cancer, but more often than not you can get yourself a bad psychosis.

"More often than not"?

I'm sorry to be the one to point this out but that's not true. "Far less often than not" would have been a better choice of words.

Soo, the people I met whilst working in a psychiatric institution who where there due to weed destroying their brain had no psychosis (well, psychotic episode WOULD have been the correct term, I admit).

Interesting.

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/157/1/25.short

http://psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&uid=1935-04602-001

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673687926201

Enjoy.

 

[DocBot]

I am going to take this an entire step further.

Not only should cigarettes be banned, people who smoke should be euthanized.

For the moment, ignore other drugs. I am also ignoring the impact on economy (taxes vs future extended care). Focus on the single aspect of smoking.

When a person smokes, he or she is knowingly pumping harmful chemicals into their body. They are putting themselves through incredible physical trauma to sustain what is or very soon will be their habit. All this simply on inhalation. On the exhale, you are now sharing all those particles and chemicals with the people around you, poisoning and inflicting upon them the same trauma you are doing to yourself.

To my eyes, smoking is akin to slow suicide, and attempted murder to those around you. With every cigarette, you are doing yourself and the people around you even more harm.

If you do not respect yourself enough and your friends, family, general public, to prevent and protect from widespread debilitation and harm, you should be put down.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

 

[Jzolr0708]

Cannabis is a completely different animal than cigarettes. Cigarettes tend to be for those who want to relax and reach a zen state, but without any mental disfunction. Cannabis is more towards the point of experiencing life through a mentally disfunctional state. Both should be legal, as it really isn't our responsibility to monitor someone else's life.

 

[Skratt]

Weed is less harmful than cigarettes. At least weed help people in a way. That and it's natural unlike the thousands of chemicals in the average cigarette. And in what way does a cigarette help anybody. If you know a way please tell me. But they should just ban them without hesitation.

Actually you are completely incorrect. For reference, I support the legalization of Marijuana, but smoking it is as bad if not worse for you than cigarettes. Why do I say this? Tar. The crap that collects in a pipe also collects in your lungs.

Not to mention that pretty much putting any form of smoke into your lungs is not good for you. There is a reason that animals run from smoke and fire.

As for other forms of consumption, you could write an entire term paper on the pros and cons for each. From a health standpoint, neither is really "good" for you, but some of the effects of Marijuana can be beneficial in specific circumstances.

I disagree with banning cigarettes for two reasons - taxes and prohibition.