Cigarettes should be illegal.

[DocBot]

MY major complaint with making things that are staples in people's lives is that then criminals would smoke them. As much as I hate people who really don't care blowing smoke in my face, I hate the idea that we are smuggling in and killing people over the business of smuggling these stupid little sticks. Love them or hate them I'd rather not see people die over trying to sell them.

People do die when smoking though! That is very true, the wrap sheet of health issues caused (or augmented) by smoking is a mile long. But, it's their choice, and the power of choice is huge! I can choose to stuff my face, shoot up, smoke, drive drunk or even cut myself. And, until we get to Minority Report status, it will remain that way. If you look at the broad spectrum of things you find you can kill yourself in the most interesting ways known to man, and no one will be able to freaking stop you if you have the will to do it.

Smoking is a hot button because glorification and demonetization of the same substance has been happening for so long. If you take a step back, you really see that if smoking goes so do alot of other things will for the same reasons.

I hate smoke, but if I say it should be illegal we are going down a path of losing things I may not mind, or even love to do. Video games and movies should be banned because some people believe they present ideas that people shouldn't be exposed to. They are a waste of time. While you may love them and enjoy them immensely some people could loathe them.

 

[Hazy992]

Oops, double post.

Mmm... lovely fags.

I hope an American reads that who doesn't know what the hell you're on about

 

[Calibanbutcher]

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.

Now, we know that there are a lot of smokers.
There are even more who do not smoke.
Of this majority, a few are truly ANTI-smoking.
Wouldn't it make more sense just to kill them?
There are fewer of them than smokers, so less people would have to be put down.

 

[Earlybuddy]

It's not just about these people hurting themselves. I mean come on, is nobody going to mention the very important and dangerous second-hand smoke that causes cancer?

Quite a few have mentioned it. On this page alone.

Yeah it's my mistake. I didn't read all the comments.

 

[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.

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.

Now, we know that there are a lot of smokers.
There are even more who do not smoke.
Of this majority, a few are truly ANTI-smoking.
Wouldn't it make more sense just to kill them?
There are fewer of them than smokers, so less people would have to be put down.

I am looking for discussion. I am not looking for quotes and reversals that do not relate to the spirit of the argument.

Is this an extreme view? Definitely. Am I willing to back off or concede a point or two? Certainly. I am sure their are plenty of smokers who are courteous and diligent enough to indulge their suicidal tendencies without annoying and endangering the rest of us, and so may be left alone. My real issues lie with the idiots and asshats who still smoke in the house with young children, who smoke next to malls, schools, hospitals, and all other busy public institutions. Fine them, restrict them, jail them, euthanize them, whatever it takes to stop the local pollution and danger to other people.

Are both of you smokers? Would you disagree that second hand smoke is poisonous? Do you enjoy harming others with your habit?

If you are both non-smokers speaking up for those who practice the habit, do you not get angry with every errant breath of carcinogen-laden cigarette smoke? I believe you should. I believe you should be seeking ways to be rid of such reckless public enadngerment, one way or another.

 

[DocBot]

I am looking for discussion. I am not looking for quotes and reversals that do not relate to the spirit of the argument.

Is this an extreme view? Definitely. Am I willing to back off or concede a point or two? Certainly. I am sure their are plenty of smokers who are courteous and diligent enough to indulge their suicidal tendencies without annoying and endangering the rest of us, and so may be left alone. My real issues lie with the idiots and asshats who still smoke in the house with young children, who smoke next to malls, schools, hospitals, and all other busy public institutions. Fine them, restrict them, jail them, euthanize them, whatever it takes to stop the local pollution and danger to other people.

Are both of you smokers? Would you disagree that second hand smoke is poisonous? Do you enjoy harming others with your habit?

If you are both non-smokers speaking up for those who practice the habit, do you not get angry with every errant breath of carcinogen-laden cigarette smoke? I believe you should. I believe you should be seeking ways to be rid of such reckless public enadngerment, one way or another.

If we decided to kill or make sterile everyone we disagreed or didn't like. The human race would be wiped out. You can hate something all you like, doesn't make what you do any better to someone else that they wouldn't want to wipe you off the planet.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

Tobacco is an addictive and highly unhealthy drug shamelessly abused by MILLIONS of people the world over. Unlike alcohol you CANNOT smoke safely as alcohol is only harmful when used in excess, while tobacco is harmful simply for what it is- you're concentrating and inhaling poison. Tobacco is also the worst of ALL drugs because it spreads its harmful effects to innocent non-users around the user- the amount of passive tobacco smoke I have to put up with in the average day literally makes me ill. It stinks, it ruins your health and appearance (seriously smokers, you're fucking disgusting, I can't even stand to be within 2 metres of you), it has no positive effects and it pollutes land, air and water.

And despite all this, it's not only tolerated but COMMONPLACE worldwide just because it's been around for hundreds of years (in one form or another). Guess what- so was SLAVERY before it was finally abolished. And no, I'm NOT comparing smoking to slavery, but I AM pointing out that just because something bad has been around for a long time that doesn't meant it's any less bad, nor that a lot of people thinking there's nothing wrong with it makes them RIGHT (America had to fight a CIVIL WAR to abolise slavery). I mean, can millions of people possibly be wrong? Stupid question; of course they can!

Wow bro, calm down.

Why don't you take up a war on world hunger, serial killers, Communism, child pornography, soap operas, fast food restaurants, dangerous cults, terrorism and always online DRM before raising banners against smoking? Or are you just too lazy to pick a better target?

Rage against something worth raging about!

Why don't you make threads about that so I can rage about them there? Or do you have some AGENDA for having a go at me over raging against smoking in an anti-smoking thread? It's not like I declared smoking to be the prime evil of our time, but it's the one that most often affects me from day to day so I have a RIGHT to be angry about it. You will not silence me with your lame "there are worse problems so we shouldn't do anything about this one" argument.

 

[Mandalore_15]

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, no. Cannabis is, in fact, much more harmful than tobacco. I have an article to prove it an everything!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2419713.stm

That article is even pretty old... there was also an article in the BMJ this month about new research showing that chemicals in cannabis are very carcinogenic, and could be up to FORTY TIMES more dangerous than cigarettes. That's not even touching on the mental issues that develop through prolonged use!

 

[NezumiiroKitsune]

I hope OP has learned something from this. Just because something is dangerous, doesn't mean it should be illegal. Of course if it can harm people passively there should laws to protect people (such as regulating where it is appropriate to do it, and allowing people to designate spaces for use of their drug), but criminalising a drug is a futile waste of time, as I'm sure many people have argued coherently and reasonably, quoting the appropriate sources.

Say no to the war on drugs, lets get that tax money going to something even a little bit productive.

I'm sure we all feel enlightened today.

 

[samaugsch]

I do not really think they should be banned. Who am I to tell someone how to live their life? It all comes down to the question "Do people have the right to harm themselves? And if so, to what extent?"

You do know about secondhand smoke, right?

 

[Pegghead]

Yeah, and let's ban hamburgers too, make Maccas sell carrots.

If you don't like smoking that's something you gotta deal with, the people who do smoke are doing fine as they are and don't need to be babied by others.

 

[NezumiiroKitsune]

-snip-

I'm not trying to build an argument for pro-criminalisation of cannabis here, but lets say rat models will produce similar ratios to monkeys in LD50 experiments, so we can convert from intravenous to inhalations volumes. So for a monkey, the LD50 of THC, intravenously administered is about 128mg/kg (I'm told this is the lowest LD50 of the group). For a rat it's 29mg/kg for intravenous administration and 42mg/kg for inhalation, so a ratio of 1:1.448. That means, if this wild assumption is on the money, we're looking at an LD50 through inhalation for a monkey of 185mg/kg.

Now lets take an upper range THC concentration from a dry weight of high THC-content "sinsemilla" (17%) and you specified smoking so the delivery method will be a joint (28% efficiency). We put 1g of cannabis in the joint. That means for every joint 47.6mg of THC is inhaled.

Now lets just take the average female body weight of a women from Brazil, 62.5Kg. We now can extrapolate that, if we can assume a monkeys sensitivity is similar to that of a human (which I get is a bit of a stretch), the LD50 of THC for the average Brazilian women is 11.6g.

That's the equivalent dose of THC that you'd inhale from 243 joints.

However plasma [THC] regularly falls below 5ng/mL after 3 hours of smoking, so you'd have to work fast. Not the stoners specialty. You'd also need to smoke a harvest that would make a manufacturer very comfortable for a while.

captcha: perfect world

 

[Belated]

What a person wants to do to their own body in their own home is entirely their business. The argument should end right there. If you want to smoke, you should be able to.

But naturally I'm also in support of weed, and ending the war on drugs. However, as a pot supporter, you have no right to tell people not to smoke cigarettes. Yes cigarettes are less healthy, but you're saying that you want your substance, yet they have to give up theirs? That's just hypocritical. And besides, if you outlawed cigarettes, you'd start a whole new drug war. I'll gladly support weed, but the best arguments for weed involve personal choice, which is also a cigarette argument. This is a two-way street. You're in no position to ban something when you want something similar unbanned. And again, there'll be a whole other kind of organized crime created the moment you outlaw cigarettes. People don't simply stop doing something fun the moment it's illegal. We tried banning alcohol once. Look how that worked out.

 

[Aprilgold]

Let's ban murder and robbery. That will work perfectly!

Um yeah, those are illegal. If you break the law you go to jail so its a technical ban.

I won't even waste time explaining my post to you because I'm almost sure I would just waste my time.

Your not wasting your time because your post was stupid. You do understand how bans work right? To put it simply, if we banned gambling then any type of gambling would be illegal, however that doesn't mean it would stop. We can't ban murder because murder is one of many things done in many different reasons.

To end it, yes, these things are illegal and as far as I care are technically 'banned' now if your not going to waste your time then why waste your time being sarcastic?

 

[Nash]

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.

Not sure if trolling or just moronic...

You know what else is slow suicide? Life. We're all going to die someday.

You know what else kills other people that we breathe out naturally? Carbon dioxide.

There are those amongst us in the smoking community who are aware of the risks of smoking and respect the rights of others to not wish to be near our smoke, you know.

 

[Sean Steele]

Prohibition in any form, is a flawed and broken system. A lesson learned from Nineteen Twenty to Nineteen Thirty Three.

 

[Alleged Despair]

Well I hate cigarettes but I don't think that defending weed is a good argument against them. However I must admit that cigs are a good source of economic stimulation ._.'

 

[MPerce]

Whoa...I didn't know people get so up in arms over this.
This thread is fucking HUGE.

Uh, I am of the opinion that one should not be illegal while the other is legal. I am no expert on the properties of marijuana, but I doubt it's more harmful than tobacco/alcohol.
And if people wanna smoke tobacco/weed or drink some booze, and they're consenting adults...why stop them? It's their life. I wish people wouldn't smoke tobacco because it's fucking terrible for you, but it's not the government's business to stop them because I don't like it. Same goes for weed.

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

I find it curious that you attack cigarettes, and not alcohol, when clearly the latter is the greater evil.

EDIT: I don't disagree though... Just realized that that didn't really come through in the post.

Not trying to be offensive, honest!

I've had relatives live into their 90s who drank heavily their entire lives, they were fine, you smoke a cigarette, anyone around you can get cancer as well as you, this is compounded by the heavily chemically addictive nature of nicotine, and how it causes a habitual and psychological addiction which is made worse by how socially accepted smoking has been especially in the last century, due to advertisements and media. No it's not the tobacco, that is the most harmful thing, if it was grown and produced in a natural way it wouldn't be that bad really, it's the tons of shit they spray on the plants including radioactive materials and other hazmat in order to keep bugs from eating their oh so valuable cash crops... Also they add even MORE bullshit including cyanide, formaldehyde, and battery acid. just to name a few.

Also, if you're stupid enough to drink enough that it kills you, either it's doing humanity a favour, or your life musta been pretty fuckin shitty to drive you that far anyway, and it just saved your family money that it would've cost them cleaning up all the blood, or the horror of finding you hanging from the ceiling in your room/closet.
People are already not allowed to drive drunk, so that's just down to people's overall lack of personal accountability, and the fact that a ton of people are STUPID enough to drive after imbibing a mind altering substance, this isn't the fault of the substance.

Whereas cigarrettes are produced to be highly addictive, and the fact that they cause tons of horrible problems in a person's body without even using it excessively, hasn't perturbed the tobacco companies in the slightest, in fact they've just been adding more and more shit over the years.

The OP has a valid point, no need to bring alcohol prohibition into this.

 

[Godhead]

I agree with this. In fact we should ban breathing as well! I mean, I doubt that the carbon in the CO2 we breathe out came from magical fairies, THAT AIR IS TAKING AWAY OUR BODY!

(but seriously, cigarettes shouldn't be banned. It is already heavily regulated in the fact that they can no longer target small children with marketing, are required to put on a health hazard label on each pack to show all of the dangers of tobacco, and can't be smoked indoors or at sporting events or concerts outside of designated areas. It's already heavily regulated in America, but people still choose to smoke.)

And yes captcha: pie are round