Poll: Should smoking be made illegal?

[Madara XIII]

Taxes.
Taxes.
And more taxes.

If you want to slowly kill yourself, find another way or be rich.

Indeed Mwahahahaha!! Dig down in those pockets! Hehehehe

 

[Sikachu]

That's not way faster than any medicine. That's the same speed as any number of medicines distributed by the same mechanism.

So you quoted my entire post, just to point that out? Fair enough, I'll revise it: It's way faster than any over-the-counter medicine currently available. And seriously... How many times have you been asked to inhale medicine?

I had asthma for years and took inhalers twice daily...

 

[Sikachu]

Smoking isn't a vice. It's a decision that you make for yourself. The concept of 'vice' is just an old attempt by people like C95J to force their opinion of what you should do with your life on everyone else.

So is gambling or alcohol or drugs or sex addiction or or books or video games or this forum. All are decision yet all of these are vices for people. A Vice is something you use to escape from the troubles in your life.

'fraid not. A vice is a bad habit. If you decide that the positives of something outweigh the negatives, and accept that there is no objective morality, then that thing is not a vice.

 

[neoman10]

I'll let Shakespeare take care of this animosity towards smokers

If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that.

OT: No, it should not be illegal. I've been in the cold countless times for a smoke and if it gets any worse than this, damn it, I will move to Laos

On a side not, people are dicks to smokers in other countries apparently. Finland seems fine with us (barring the government)

 

[lacktheknack]

Guess what? Smokers aren't mind readers. Until the government start issuing out stickers to those they deem weak (shouldn't be too long after tobacco gets banned), there is no possible way we could know about your issues.

Must suck to have weak lungs, i have sympathy, but at the end of the day it's your job to take care of yourself. Sauntering through the street under the assumption that all smokers should give you a wide berth because they should know about your "condition" is silly.

Oh, I keep out of their way, but then a bunch of them get offended, which leads to all kinds of incredibly stupid problems.

I must apologise, I read the words you wrote, rather than skimming along the surface making stuff up - I guess that's reading too deeply. Allow me to walk you through the hysteria point.

You wrote:
"breathing in smoke puts me in hospital"

Then some other random sentence. Then you wrote:
"So if you smoke near me, you kill me."

This kind of high-speed exaggeration is exactly the sort of behaviour exhibited usually described as 'hysterical'.

Finally, 'in hospital' is not the same as 'dead'. That's the kind of hysteria I was askingnn you to dial down.

Now dealing with your new substantive points:
1. Carcinogens cause cancer, so unless each time you take this little hospital trip of yours they fix you up with a bit of chemo or radiotherapy, it's pretty unlikely that's relevent.
2. There's this amazing thing called medical science where they train doctors, and some of them practice medicine, and some of them do research on what causes disease and how to fight it. Rather than testing on yourself, this 'medical science' can often provide answers for you. When you are so severely allergic to something that either you must immediately go to hospital or you immediately die (depending on your particular level of hysteria at that time) these doctors usually make a pretty solid effort to work out what it is that causes the reaction. 4000 different chemical in cigarette smoke, and not a single one of them unique to cigarette smoke... you must live in fear of going near anything else that combusts. You know how many chemicals come out of a car exhaust? Probably not, that won't have been in the PSA you've been pulling your entire 'argument' out of.

Well what am I supposed to say? I get cigarette smoke, my lungs fill with mucous. End of.

I find it interesting how you complain about my "hysteria" making it hard to take me seriously, but then you take everything I say that potentially has a seam (in your mind) and attack it as hard as you can. I am also a person with an opinion that's just as valid as yours, and I'm forced to stop respecting anything you say because of your reactions.

You're supposed to have reacted like a normal human being and thought 'hmmmmm if I can be hospitalised/die from the tiniest bit of cigarette smoke, I wonder if there's anything else I should probably avoid?' and ask your doctor. None of the chemicals in cigarette smoke are unique to cigarette smoke, that's why I wanted to know what it was that you were claiming to be susceptible to. The fact that you are so blase about it being just cigarette smoke that causes this makes it look like you're lying. Your opinion isn't just as valid as mine because my opinion is the product of an enquiring mind, the sort of mind that when it gets threatened with death is compelled to find out a little more about how to avoid this.

But let us leave all that aside and assume that you will magically die if a particle of cigarette smoke reaches your lungs, why does that mean that the hundreds of millions of smokers shouldn't be allowed to smoke on the street? What if (for argument's sake) I would instantly die if I saw an orange t-shirt? Would that be an argument for banning the public wearing of orange t-shirts, or an argument for me moving somewhere isolated so I can leave all the normal people to get on with their lives?

So first I'm hysterical, then I'm blase?

Not that it even means anything. I know tons of people who are blase about this sort of thing. It doesn't effect credence.

And lastly, I haven't gone to a doctor over it because it only flared up recently. I'm surrounded by crack smokers, not-remotely-green cars, and the like, but only cigarettes do it. Maybe I'm allergic to nicotine.

No, you were blasé when you had your mysterious 'death/hospital-trip' experience and weren't bothered to find out what it was that caused by and if there were other types of smoke you should be careful of. Then you were hysterical when you escalated the consequences of cigarette smoke being blown in your face from 'hospital trip' to 'death' in three sentences. This may not "effect credence" but it certainly does affect credibility as it is exceptionally unlikely that someone would behave the way you have described.

Oh, screw it. No point in continuing if you don't even believe what happened... HAPPENED.

 

[Gitty101]

No! No no no! I love my Cigars! I can understand wanting to ban them in public places etc, but it should be an individuals own business whether they smoke or not.

 

[Xero Scythe]

Ever hear of Prohibition? Gov. tried to outlaw alcohol, ended up losing millions of dollars in revenue to 'Speakeasies.' The same thing will probably happen with smoking if they try to ban it.

 

[SovietSecrets]

No. If smoking is banned then drinking has to be banned as well.

Smoking harms you and others around you.

Drinking only harms you.

Both are done by choice, so any third consequential damage (like driving under the influence and running over a guy) would hold that person accountable. Smoking however, doesn't make you guilty for causing other people to breathe in your smoke involuntarily.

These are two different things we're discussing here. One is harmful to the public in general and the other is harmful to the user only. I'd have no problem with smoking being banned from small confined public spaces and keeping alcohol law as it is.

The damage is still done overall. The person who got hit by your car isn't choosing to be hit by your car. You just happened to hit him because you were drunk. There is no way you can say just because one does less then the other, only one should be banned. What applies for deathly causing goes for all.

 

[Binerexis]

My opinion on this is that the government shouldn't create a moral compass for everyone to follow. If they're going to tax the living daylights out of something like tobacco and alcohol, I don't see why they don't do the same for other illegal substances too especially if we're living in a democratic or 'free' country. If a country is truly free, we should have complete freedom to put whatever we want into our bodies at any time.

 

[killcheese]

It should be up to the individual to choose whether to smoke or not. To me smoking (cigs or weed) is as much a personal choice and as dangerous as drinking is. Non of them are good for you, they can all kill you if abused(weed not so much), but like anything they can be used safely with moderation. If a group of retards want to smoke 6 packs a day or pickle their liver that is their choice and should not interfere with mine or your ability to smoke or drink. To be honest, I use to smoke more and drink regularly, and have friends who still smoke and drink much more then me. That is their choice and its different then mine, that is fine, we are different people. What i tend to notice is those who are anti-smoking are the ones who have trouble accepting the believes of others. I am agnostic but i can not tell you how many times my more conservative friends have lectured me on why there is a god and how i should be (enter a religion here). This seems out of context but these are the same friends who are anti-smoking, drinking and in some cases sex. I don't like arguments so i just agree with them smile and nod, but if everyone could just accept each others choices we would not need to waste time with this.

 

[Danpascooch]

No. If smoking is banned then drinking has to be banned as well.

EDIT: Everyone who is quoting me are you all idiots or something? The bottom of this? Heres the bottom, drinking causes just as much problems as smoking. Ever hear of drunk driving, bar fights, abuse due to alcohol, poor judgement under the influence, or alcohol poisoning? Or do all of these just fly past your heads? You don't cancer right away from smoking, you get it later on. ITS THE SAME WITH DRINKING. IF SMOKING GETS BANNED THEN DRINKING SHOULD AS WELL. Fucking hell, think people think

Just to make sure everyone sees it before quoting me again.

EDIT 2: I am not saying that drinking is worse then smoking. As the second person I quoted figured it out, I was saying if one harmful thing should be banned, then the others should be too as well. I was just using alcohol as an example of that because it was the next leading cause of death due to abuse that I know of. I just didn't extend that to all things. Now can you morons finally understand? Its just me saying if one harmful thing should be banned, then the rest should too. Thank you last two people who understand somewhat at what I was getting at.

Now is everyone ok? We all good? Your asses don't hurt anymore?

Huh, your argument is the same one I use to say Marijuana should be legal.

Because its a valid argument. A damn good one at that as well. This is why smoking should not and will not ever be banned.

I'm not saying it's not valid, I actually think it IS valid.

I do think there should be a fine if you smoke around other people who aren't smoking though, there is no reason other people should suffer second hand smoke from your habit.

 

[jack583]

the fact is that some people DO use pain killers self-destructively, weither it is for not caring about the instructions ("more i take the faster it works"), trying to commit suicide, and other reasons. people are stupid by nature.

you can get lung cancer from second-hand smoke. not just adults but also children, and kids aren't exactly known for having super immune systems and would be more likely to get cancer from second-hand smoke.

Yeeees... people DO use pain killers self-destructively, although I was more hinting at recreationaly but whatever. Yes people are stupid, (not by nature I might add, but by our own doing and removing natural selection and creating a molly coddle society) but I don't quite get what your getting at? Are you saying we should ban all drugs known to man (including the prescribed ones you mentioned that are so easy to get apparantly even though you need a prescription thus an actual need for them) or are you against banning smoking?

And I've explained this second hand smoke thing so many times in this thread that I think this will be the last. There are very few situations where second hand smoke is going to do ANY damage WHATSOEVER to your precious body.

Now take hede (head, heed, yes heed I think thats it) everyone else who is likely to end up using passive smoke as their main argument. Here is a list of occasions where passive smoke will acctually harm you.

1) This is the most common out of all of these and also one that I agree strongly that it should be stopped. When parents smoke around their children. Now unless both the parents and the child live in quite a small falt or something and the parent(s) in question smokes quite a few a day the acctual smoke itself won't do any permanent harm physicaly. But what is very common is that the child will later on in life start smoking as a result.

2) Your trapped in a lift with a smoker and a few cartons for days. Well it's a very small space and you will be there for a long period of time. However you will recover. Very quickly after the ordeal, provided the smoker hasn't killed you because all smokers are evil and discusting apparntly.

3) Your trapped in any other small confined space for a long period of time with a smoker and a supply of cigarets. See 2.

4) You frequent a bar/pub that allows smoking. However for you to receive any permanent damage from the smoke you would have to spend enough time at this bar that you either love drinking orange juice or because you are a regular and your already fucked because of the amount of drink you consumed waiting around for lung cancer from passive smoke just to prove a point.

5) See number 1 but not for children. The reason this is differant is that you have a choice in this one where the child doesn't.

I don't know where all this extreme amount of ignorance is coming from. But I'll try to educate you.

The smoke from a cigaret is not a death sentance. A good thing to compare it to would be radiation or car fumes. You are all exposed to these things every day (just incase you don't know much about radiation the sun is radioactive, as are Aberdeen and Cornwall) but you don't claim that these things are killing you do you? That's because they're not (unless you live in certain parts of China with the smog) it's all in very small doses so the cumilative effect isn't great enough to do any/much harm. And any harm that his done, your body recovers from very quickly, because your body heals, if it didn't you would be dead right now. Oxygen, one of the things essential to living is poisoness for fuck sake. But it's diluted so your body can handle it, use it and then manage the damage that it does.

Anyway the point I'm trying to get at is that if you smoked one cigaret your body would heal very quickly, if you smoked 100 cigarets in your lifetime your body would recover, even if you smoked 1000 cigarets in your life time your body would recover back to full health. And 1000 cigarets is not enough to get you addicted before you start. Now take second hand smoke, that smoke has dispersed into the air so you are only getting a portion of that draw on the cigaret, the size of portion depending on the area of container you are in. So unless in the circumstances above (sorry I forgot to include a pregnant mother smoking, appologies) you are never going to recieve any damage worth mentioning from passive smoke.

The reason that smoking CAN and not DOES cause lung cancer is because of the long time expossure to the harmful chemicals (all of them) in a cigaret so the body does can't recover because it is constantly fighting it and doesn't get enough of a break to fix the problem. But for you non-smokers this is not a problem.

If you've gotten this far before just giving up and continuing to shout rubbish without acctually listening to anyone else then thank you for reading.

I've got a few other things to bring up though.

Firstly why is smoking "discusting"? I don't quite get that. Stupid and harmful but disgusting? A fat guy scratching his arse is disgusting, mushy peas are discusting, slimey things are discusting I don't get why smoking his discusting.

Secondly hopefully Ive now educated the people who for some reason think that people smoking outside are not harming you.... unless they have a gun.

Thirdly, why should we pay more tax than we already do? We already pay a stupid amount of Tax anyway, why more. Why shouldn't fat people pay for two seats then? Raise drink tax aswell while your at it. What about people into extreme sports, thats dangerous. Raise VAT on snowboards. Oh and road tax because large fast moving metal boxes are pretty dangerous to, especially if a drunk is behind it. Oh and what about guns? Scissors? Really, there are much worse things out there than smokers. Where not really doing anything wrong so can't people just leave us in peice?




Sorry for the vast amounts of grammatical errors in this, I'm not very good in that area. So please don't be a grammar nazi, I know it's shit already. And everyone knows that correcting grammar is a pathetic cop out from thinking of a comeback.

i'm just saying that anything tcan be addictive so determaning how something is better or worse then soething else based on addictivety is pointless. also there are some painkillers that you don't need a perscription for.

you really think there is no real damage caused by second-hand smoke? i had a grandmother that died from lung cancer due to second hand smoke, and years before she died her husband died from tar in his heart caused by first-hand smoke. just because bad things don't happen to people you know does not mean they don't happen.

1.) smoke sticks to your clothes even if you don't smoke. i work as a dishwasher an before kansas banned indoor smoking i would always come home reeking of ciggarette smoke just from being a=near people that do smoke.

the level of radiation coming from the sun is a level we have adapted and gotten used to. the only danger comes from staying out to long.

cells die when they break down. when a cell divides it becomes less stable. when you have to heal from an scratch or an illness, cells have to divide to heal that spot. speeding up the proccess. i'll admit it's not much, your average scratch might take off at least a second off your life, but still, we cause harm to ourselves everyday from things we can't control, why not reduce what we can?

it's not oxygen that is harmfull to us, the random particals in the air the float around with the oxygen that harmfull. if pure oxygen was poisinouse to humans then why don't people die when usin oxygen masks for things like sucba-diving or in hospitals, they use nothing more then O2 tanks. that is just oxygen in those tanks.

and second-hand smoke is dangerous in medium to large amounts and i've rarely seen a person smoking alone. smokers always seem to smoke in groups.

smoking is disgusting because not everyone likes the taste or smell of it. heck the smell alone is almost enough to make me vomit. and there are many others just like that. if someone suck in the smoke of his or her first cigarette and hates the taste, then i highly doubt they would continue. thing is some of the people whom are addictted to cigarettes prbably hate the taste, they only keep doing it because it's more of a phycological addiction.

as for the tax, i don't know about other countries but tobacco is one of the few things america doesn't have to get from other countries.and since mot of our industries have been sold to other countries--china--the government needs to find all the money they can get their hands on "legally", because proper money management is not a congressmen's best skill, and it's going to stay that way until more people start putting more thought into whom they vote for. and what exactly is the image you have for fat people? walking lard mountians? anyone that is actually fat enough to take up two seats wouldn't be able to walk far enough to check the mail. put simply, if you can fit in one seat why pay for two? and as for people buying weapons, instead of increasing taxes on them, there are strict laws against using them. you need a permit to buy them, and another one to take it off your property. different guns use different bullets, examine the bullet and you can find what kind of gun was used, then chck store records and permit records to find the possible owner. and guns aren't bought everyday in large numbers. think about how many cigarettes you smoke a week, then look up the the ratio of smokers to non-smokers, then look up the rounded down number of people living in your counrty, do his and you will see that any country that has smokers in it can make a lot of money off of those who smoke. and that is what contries do, they increase the taxes on the most used items.

and as for the grammer errors: i won't correct them unless you ask.

 

[killcheese]

Your opinion isn't just as valid as mine because my opinion is the product of an enquiring mind, the sort of mind that when it gets threatened with death is compelled to find out a little more about how to avoid this.

This made my laugh, even though i agree with you the guy is a fucking retard, your opinion is not any more valid. Don't wast your time on this idiot, he is wrong and is just trying to troll.

 

[Sikachu]

Your opinion isn't just as valid as mine because my opinion is the product of an enquiring mind, the sort of mind that when it gets threatened with death is compelled to find out a little more about how to avoid this.

This made my laugh, even though i agree with you the guy is a fucking retard, your opinion is not any more valid. Don't wast your time on this idiot, he is wrong and is just trying to troll.

And succeeded

 

[jack583]

you do bring up a good point. but there is another option rather then turning off the music or smoking in a crowd. for the music the person could be asked to turn it down, just enough so that person can hear but not loud enough to bother everyone else. as for the smoking, the smoker could be asked to turn around so his/her back is to the non-smokers (inside) or stand down-wind (outside). i do aggree that you have just as much of a right to smoke as i do not to smoke, but the conflict arises when one violates the others' rights.

are you saying that you do not need cigarettes and only like the taste? if so good for you. but i would like to ask if you feel you need them.

Yeah, of course I agree that the actual right thing to do in these situations is for everyone to be reasonable and minimise annoyance. If you and I were in a bus shelter and I wanted to smoke the right thing for me to do is always to stand where least smoke will go near you, but I think both sides are a bit touchy because holier than thou non-smokers have become so aggressive in the last couple of years and smokers have been hounded out of being able to smoke in perfectly reasonable places (like ANYWHERE on an open train platform?!) and so often we're quick to over-react (because we are being persecuted).

Regarding my smoking, I wouldn't say I never need one in the same way I wouldn't say I never need a drink (incidentally, I drink less frequently than I smoke). Sometimes when I'm really pissed off or stressed out nothing will hit the spot like a ciggie, but those moments are relatively few and far between.

extremist ruin everything. when i see someone smoking in a spot i have to walk by i don't yell at them, instead i just hold my breath and keep walking. now if that person where to start following me and tried to blow smoke in my face, then i would beat the crap out of them. remember the terrorist attack on 9/11? that was caused by muslum EXTREMISTS, people who took thier religion into their own hands and acted agaist what they were taught and said it was for what they were taught. now the rest of the muslum nation has to deal with the problems cause by a few idiots.

everyone deals with stess in his or her own way. i, for one, think in order to calm down. i like to build things out of just about anything--legos mainly--and i like to buils things that provide an engineering challange; i once came very close to a perpetual motion generator, the design i came up with failled, but i had fun trying. all i'm saying is that in case you get yelled at for smoking or are in a situation where you can't smoke; it would be good to have a back up stress-releiver that you can use anywhere.

 

[Sikachu]

the fact is that some people DO use pain killers self-destructively, weither it is for not caring about the instructions ("more i take the faster it works"), trying to commit suicide, and other reasons. people are stupid by nature.

you can get lung cancer from second-hand smoke. not just adults but also children, and kids aren't exactly known for having super immune systems and would be more likely to get cancer from second-hand smoke.

Yeeees... people DO use pain killers self-destructively, although I was more hinting at recreationaly but whatever. Yes people are stupid, (not by nature I might add, but by our own doing and removing natural selection and creating a molly coddle society) but I don't quite get what your getting at? Are you saying we should ban all drugs known to man (including the prescribed ones you mentioned that are so easy to get apparantly even though you need a prescription thus an actual need for them) or are you against banning smoking?

And I've explained this second hand smoke thing so many times in this thread that I think this will be the last. There are very few situations where second hand smoke is going to do ANY damage WHATSOEVER to your precious body.

Now take hede (head, heed, yes heed I think thats it) everyone else who is likely to end up using passive smoke as their main argument. Here is a list of occasions where passive smoke will acctually harm you.

1) This is the most common out of all of these and also one that I agree strongly that it should be stopped. When parents smoke around their children. Now unless both the parents and the child live in quite a small falt or something and the parent(s) in question smokes quite a few a day the acctual smoke itself won't do any permanent harm physicaly. But what is very common is that the child will later on in life start smoking as a result.

2) Your trapped in a lift with a smoker and a few cartons for days. Well it's a very small space and you will be there for a long period of time. However you will recover. Very quickly after the ordeal, provided the smoker hasn't killed you because all smokers are evil and discusting apparntly.

3) Your trapped in any other small confined space for a long period of time with a smoker and a supply of cigarets. See 2.

4) You frequent a bar/pub that allows smoking. However for you to receive any permanent damage from the smoke you would have to spend enough time at this bar that you either love drinking orange juice or because you are a regular and your already fucked because of the amount of drink you consumed waiting around for lung cancer from passive smoke just to prove a point.

5) See number 1 but not for children. The reason this is differant is that you have a choice in this one where the child doesn't.

I don't know where all this extreme amount of ignorance is coming from. But I'll try to educate you.

The smoke from a cigaret is not a death sentance. A good thing to compare it to would be radiation or car fumes. You are all exposed to these things every day (just incase you don't know much about radiation the sun is radioactive, as are Aberdeen and Cornwall) but you don't claim that these things are killing you do you? That's because they're not (unless you live in certain parts of China with the smog) it's all in very small doses so the cumilative effect isn't great enough to do any/much harm. And any harm that his done, your body recovers from very quickly, because your body heals, if it didn't you would be dead right now. Oxygen, one of the things essential to living is poisoness for fuck sake. But it's diluted so your body can handle it, use it and then manage the damage that it does.

Anyway the point I'm trying to get at is that if you smoked one cigaret your body would heal very quickly, if you smoked 100 cigarets in your lifetime your body would recover, even if you smoked 1000 cigarets in your life time your body would recover back to full health. And 1000 cigarets is not enough to get you addicted before you start. Now take second hand smoke, that smoke has dispersed into the air so you are only getting a portion of that draw on the cigaret, the size of portion depending on the area of container you are in. So unless in the circumstances above (sorry I forgot to include a pregnant mother smoking, appologies) you are never going to recieve any damage worth mentioning from passive smoke.

The reason that smoking CAN and not DOES cause lung cancer is because of the long time expossure to the harmful chemicals (all of them) in a cigaret so the body does can't recover because it is constantly fighting it and doesn't get enough of a break to fix the problem. But for you non-smokers this is not a problem.

If you've gotten this far before just giving up and continuing to shout rubbish without acctually listening to anyone else then thank you for reading.

I've got a few other things to bring up though.

Firstly why is smoking "discusting"? I don't quite get that. Stupid and harmful but disgusting? A fat guy scratching his arse is disgusting, mushy peas are discusting, slimey things are discusting I don't get why smoking his discusting.

Secondly hopefully Ive now educated the people who for some reason think that people smoking outside are not harming you.... unless they have a gun.

Thirdly, why should we pay more tax than we already do? We already pay a stupid amount of Tax anyway, why more. Why shouldn't fat people pay for two seats then? Raise drink tax aswell while your at it. What about people into extreme sports, thats dangerous. Raise VAT on snowboards. Oh and road tax because large fast moving metal boxes are pretty dangerous to, especially if a drunk is behind it. Oh and what about guns? Scissors? Really, there are much worse things out there than smokers. Where not really doing anything wrong so can't people just leave us in peice?




Sorry for the vast amounts of grammatical errors in this, I'm not very good in that area. So please don't be a grammar nazi, I know it's shit already. And everyone knows that correcting grammar is a pathetic cop out from thinking of a comeback.

i'm just saying that anything tcan be addictive so determaning how something is better or worse then soething else based on addictivety is pointless. also there are some painkillers that you don't need a perscription for.

you really think there is no real damage caused by second-hand smoke? i had a grandmother that died from lung cancer due to second hand smoke, and years before she died her husband died from tar in his heart caused by first-hand smoke. just because bad things don't happen to people you know does not mean they don't happen.

1.) smoke sticks to your clothes even if you don't smoke. i work as a dishwasher an before kansas banned indoor smoking i would always come home reeking of ciggarette smoke just from being a=near people that do smoke.

the level of radiation coming from the sun is a level we have adapted and gotten used to. the only danger comes from staying out to long.

cells die when they break down. when a cell divides it becomes less stable. when you have to heal from an scratch or an illness, cells have to divide to heal that spot. speeding up the proccess. i'll admit it's not much, your average scratch might take off at least a second off your life, but still, we cause harm to ourselves everyday from things we can't control, why not reduce what we can?

it's not oxygen that is harmfull to us, the random particals in the air the float around with the oxygen that harmfull. if pure oxygen was poisinouse to humans then why don't people die when usin oxygen masks for things like sucba-diving or in hospitals, they use nothing more then O2 tanks. that is just oxygen in those tanks.

and second-hand smoke is dangerous in medium to large amounts and i've rarely seen a person smoking alone. smokers always seem to smoke in groups.

smoking is disgusting because not everyone likes the taste or smell of it. heck the smell alone is almost enough to make me vomit. and there are many others just like that. if someone suck in the smoke of his or her first cigarette and hates the taste, then i highly doubt they would continue. thing is some of the people whom are addictted to cigarettes prbably hate the taste, they only keep doing it because it's more of a phycological addiction.

as for the tax, i don't know about other countries but tobacco is one of the few things america doesn't have to get from other countries.and since mot of our industries have been sold to other countries--china--the government needs to find all the money they can get their hands on "legally", because proper money management is not a congressmen's best skill, and it's going to stay that way until more people start putting more thought into whom they vote for. and what exactly is the image you have for fat people? walking lard mountians? anyone that is actually fat enough to take up two seats wouldn't be able to walk far enough to check the mail. put simply, if you can fit in one seat why pay for two? and as for people buying weapons, instead of increasing taxes on them, there are strict laws against using them. you need a permit to buy them, and another one to take it off your property. different guns use different bullets, examine the bullet and you can find what kind of gun was used, then chck store records and permit records to find the possible owner. and guns aren't bought everyday in large numbers. think about how many cigarettes you smoke a week, then look up the the ratio of smokers to non-smokers, then look up the rounded down number of people living in your counrty, do his and you will see that any country that has smokers in it can make a lot of money off of those who smoke. and that is what contries do, they increase the taxes on the most used items.

and as for the grammer errors: i won't correct them unless you ask.

I'm sorry your grandmother died but there's literally no way you could know that her lung cancer was caused by second hand smoke. She is far, far more likely to have been exposed to asbestos which they used to use in building insulation and plenty of other places until they discovered its incredible carcinogenic properties. Or any of the literally millions of carcinogens that are out there. It is certainly possible that the build up of years of passive smoking did contribute, and I can't rule that out either, but read what Bobbossa's saying very carefully, he's got the science right.

 

[Sikachu]

extremist ruin everything. when i see someone smoking in a spot i have to walk by i don't yell at them, instead i just hold my breath and keep walking. now if that person where to start following me and tried to blow smoke in my face, then i would beat the crap out of them. remember the terrorist attack on 9/11? that was caused by muslum EXTREMISTS, people who took thier religion into their own hands and acted agaist what they were taught and said it was for what they were taught. now the rest of the muslum nation has to deal with the problems cause by a few idiots.

everyone deals with stess in his or her own way. i, for one, think in order to calm down. i like to build things out of just about anything--legos mainly--and i like to buils things that provide an engineering challange; i once came very close to a perpetual motion generator, the design i came up with failled, but i had fun trying. all i'm saying is that in case you get yelled at for smoking or are in a situation where you can't smoke; it would be good to have a back up stress-releiver that you can use anywhere.

You'd be surprised how effective just rolling is

 

[Fwee]

I think most smoking should be heavily taxed until it is universally socially unacceptable.

i'm fine with people smoking weed, but cigarettes are disgusting and you shouldn't smoke them where people can see you. You should be too ashamed. But it is reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally fun to cough at smokers when running by them

What makes marajuana better than cigarettes? Marajuana is in fact worse for your lungs and overall health than cigarettes are. Big gaping hole in your argument.

From the one with no backing to their statement. Just sayin'...

 

[Yossarian1507]

Nope. Yeah, I know it's bad for health, but that's my decision if I want to ruin my lungs or not. Also, as hundreds of people here mentioned already, that would only lead to more crime.

I admit, I'm a smoker, but I always watch out to not puff the smoke toward my friends who doesn't like it. Also, I avoid smoking in public places. The main source of the problem are (as always) people acting like a douchebags, not cigarettes itself.

 

[jack583]

the fact is that some people DO use pain killers self-destructively, weither it is for not caring about the instructions ("more i take the faster it works"), trying to commit suicide, and other reasons. people are stupid by nature.

you can get lung cancer from second-hand smoke. not just adults but also children, and kids aren't exactly known for having super immune systems and would be more likely to get cancer from second-hand smoke.

Yeeees... people DO use pain killers self-destructively, although I was more hinting at recreationaly but whatever. Yes people are stupid, (not by nature I might add, but by our own doing and removing natural selection and creating a molly coddle society) but I don't quite get what your getting at? Are you saying we should ban all drugs known to man (including the prescribed ones you mentioned that are so easy to get apparantly even though you need a prescription thus an actual need for them) or are you against banning smoking?

And I've explained this second hand smoke thing so many times in this thread that I think this will be the last. There are very few situations where second hand smoke is going to do ANY damage WHATSOEVER to your precious body.

Now take hede (head, heed, yes heed I think thats it) everyone else who is likely to end up using passive smoke as their main argument. Here is a list of occasions where passive smoke will acctually harm you.

1) This is the most common out of all of these and also one that I agree strongly that it should be stopped. When parents smoke around their children. Now unless both the parents and the child live in quite a small falt or something and the parent(s) in question smokes quite a few a day the acctual smoke itself won't do any permanent harm physicaly. But what is very common is that the child will later on in life start smoking as a result.

2) Your trapped in a lift with a smoker and a few cartons for days. Well it's a very small space and you will be there for a long period of time. However you will recover. Very quickly after the ordeal, provided the smoker hasn't killed you because all smokers are evil and discusting apparntly.

3) Your trapped in any other small confined space for a long period of time with a smoker and a supply of cigarets. See 2.

4) You frequent a bar/pub that allows smoking. However for you to receive any permanent damage from the smoke you would have to spend enough time at this bar that you either love drinking orange juice or because you are a regular and your already fucked because of the amount of drink you consumed waiting around for lung cancer from passive smoke just to prove a point.

5) See number 1 but not for children. The reason this is differant is that you have a choice in this one where the child doesn't.

I don't know where all this extreme amount of ignorance is coming from. But I'll try to educate you.

The smoke from a cigaret is not a death sentance. A good thing to compare it to would be radiation or car fumes. You are all exposed to these things every day (just incase you don't know much about radiation the sun is radioactive, as are Aberdeen and Cornwall) but you don't claim that these things are killing you do you? That's because they're not (unless you live in certain parts of China with the smog) it's all in very small doses so the cumilative effect isn't great enough to do any/much harm. And any harm that his done, your body recovers from very quickly, because your body heals, if it didn't you would be dead right now. Oxygen, one of the things essential to living is poisoness for fuck sake. But it's diluted so your body can handle it, use it and then manage the damage that it does.

Anyway the point I'm trying to get at is that if you smoked one cigaret your body would heal very quickly, if you smoked 100 cigarets in your lifetime your body would recover, even if you smoked 1000 cigarets in your life time your body would recover back to full health. And 1000 cigarets is not enough to get you addicted before you start. Now take second hand smoke, that smoke has dispersed into the air so you are only getting a portion of that draw on the cigaret, the size of portion depending on the area of container you are in. So unless in the circumstances above (sorry I forgot to include a pregnant mother smoking, appologies) you are never going to recieve any damage worth mentioning from passive smoke.

The reason that smoking CAN and not DOES cause lung cancer is because of the long time expossure to the harmful chemicals (all of them) in a cigaret so the body does can't recover because it is constantly fighting it and doesn't get enough of a break to fix the problem. But for you non-smokers this is not a problem.

If you've gotten this far before just giving up and continuing to shout rubbish without acctually listening to anyone else then thank you for reading.

I've got a few other things to bring up though.

Firstly why is smoking "discusting"? I don't quite get that. Stupid and harmful but disgusting? A fat guy scratching his arse is disgusting, mushy peas are discusting, slimey things are discusting I don't get why smoking his discusting.

Secondly hopefully Ive now educated the people who for some reason think that people smoking outside are not harming you.... unless they have a gun.

Thirdly, why should we pay more tax than we already do? We already pay a stupid amount of Tax anyway, why more. Why shouldn't fat people pay for two seats then? Raise drink tax aswell while your at it. What about people into extreme sports, thats dangerous. Raise VAT on snowboards. Oh and road tax because large fast moving metal boxes are pretty dangerous to, especially if a drunk is behind it. Oh and what about guns? Scissors? Really, there are much worse things out there than smokers. Where not really doing anything wrong so can't people just leave us in peice?




Sorry for the vast amounts of grammatical errors in this, I'm not very good in that area. So please don't be a grammar nazi, I know it's shit already. And everyone knows that correcting grammar is a pathetic cop out from thinking of a comeback.

i'm just saying that anything tcan be addictive so determaning how something is better or worse then soething else based on addictivety is pointless. also there are some painkillers that you don't need a perscription for.

you really think there is no real damage caused by second-hand smoke? i had a grandmother that died from lung cancer due to second hand smoke, and years before she died her husband died from tar in his heart caused by first-hand smoke. just because bad things don't happen to people you know does not mean they don't happen.

1.) smoke sticks to your clothes even if you don't smoke. i work as a dishwasher an before kansas banned indoor smoking i would always come home reeking of ciggarette smoke just from being a=near people that do smoke.

the level of radiation coming from the sun is a level we have adapted and gotten used to. the only danger comes from staying out to long.

cells die when they break down. when a cell divides it becomes less stable. when you have to heal from an scratch or an illness, cells have to divide to heal that spot. speeding up the proccess. i'll admit it's not much, your average scratch might take off at least a second off your life, but still, we cause harm to ourselves everyday from things we can't control, why not reduce what we can?

it's not oxygen that is harmfull to us, the random particals in the air the float around with the oxygen that harmfull. if pure oxygen was poisinouse to humans then why don't people die when usin oxygen masks for things like sucba-diving or in hospitals, they use nothing more then O2 tanks. that is just oxygen in those tanks.

and second-hand smoke is dangerous in medium to large amounts and i've rarely seen a person smoking alone. smokers always seem to smoke in groups.

smoking is disgusting because not everyone likes the taste or smell of it. heck the smell alone is almost enough to make me vomit. and there are many others just like that. if someone suck in the smoke of his or her first cigarette and hates the taste, then i highly doubt they would continue. thing is some of the people whom are addictted to cigarettes prbably hate the taste, they only keep doing it because it's more of a phycological addiction.

as for the tax, i don't know about other countries but tobacco is one of the few things america doesn't have to get from other countries.and since mot of our industries have been sold to other countries--china--the government needs to find all the money they can get their hands on "legally", because proper money management is not a congressmen's best skill, and it's going to stay that way until more people start putting more thought into whom they vote for. and what exactly is the image you have for fat people? walking lard mountians? anyone that is actually fat enough to take up two seats wouldn't be able to walk far enough to check the mail. put simply, if you can fit in one seat why pay for two? and as for people buying weapons, instead of increasing taxes on them, there are strict laws against using them. you need a permit to buy them, and another one to take it off your property. different guns use different bullets, examine the bullet and you can find what kind of gun was used, then chck store records and permit records to find the possible owner. and guns aren't bought everyday in large numbers. think about how many cigarettes you smoke a week, then look up the the ratio of smokers to non-smokers, then look up the rounded down number of people living in your counrty, do his and you will see that any country that has smokers in it can make a lot of money off of those who smoke. and that is what contries do, they increase the taxes on the most used items.

and as for the grammer errors: i won't correct them unless you ask.

I'm sorry your grandmother died but there's literally no way you could know that her lung cancer was caused by second hand smoke. She is far, far more likely to have been exposed to asbestos which they used to use in building insulation and plenty of other places until they discovered its incredible carcinogenic properties. Or any of the literally millions of carcinogens that are out there. It is certainly possible that the build up of years of passive smoking did contribute, and I can't rule that out either, but read what Bobbossa's saying very carefully, he's got the science right.

then explaine my granfathers heart filling with tar.

also i just had one of those de'javu (probably not spelled right) moments. like i read your response 3 years ago