Thread: Anti - anti-smoking rant

Originally Posted by Bruno

Of course this only works if the parents don't smoke.

It's not a fact.
My parents don't smoke, and never smoked.
I smoke since 14 years old.
And now, my wife never smoked, and my daughter(age 19) doesn't smoke.

Originally Posted by manah

It's not a fact.
My parents don't smoke, and never smoked.
I smoke since 14 years old.
And now, my wife never smoked, and my daughter(age 19) doesn't smoke.

No but I meant if the parents smoke, kids grow up with smoking as standard behavior.
And parents who smoke have no moral high ground for telling their kids not to smoke.

Originally Posted by 1OldGI

I don't disagree that for a lot of years smokers operated pretty much with impunity not knowing or caring much if people around them objected to the smoke. Suddenly there were smoking and non-smoking sections in restaurants, no smoking on airplanes or buses. OK, fine that seemed reasonable. Then there was no smoking in restaurants at all. Then public events outlawed smoking and many companies went tobacco free which meant you couldn't smoke on company time. Soon, many cities adopted ordinances outlawing smoking in public parks and on beaches (outside!) of course, when the legalize marijuana bunch wanted to have a rally, these bans were temporarily suspended. The point is that the rules have become increasingly intrusive on people's personal choice. If people don't want to smell pipes and cigars in the confines of an airplane, I get that. If people don't want smoke being blown in their faces while they're eating, I get that too. But when I can't smoke in a bar or while walking through a public park or beach (that my tax dollars help maintain) I think it's swung too far the other way. I think we could do far better with creating compromise where both sides could give a little. As it currently stands, smokers have taken a non-stop beating for the last 20 years or so and the anti tobacco movement has just gotten their way, by default, without much consideration of the smokers rights. I'm just saying there's got to be more middle ground than is being presented.

I do not disagree with you there.

That is partly to blame on the fact that political compromise is simply not the US way (no offense).
So you end up with anti smoking laws that are indeed fairly insane and draconian.
I mean I am very anti-smoking, but even I think your laws miss their mark by a wide margin.

Originally Posted by Bruno

That's just bad parenting.
I don't smoke. My wife does not smoke, and my children will not smoke.
They grow up with the message that smoking kills.
If they ever feel like trying it, I will confront them with pictures of tumors in dissected lungs, I will ground them, and I will withold all allowance.

Of course this only works if the parents don't smoke. If they do, then the kids rightfully think that they're being hypocrites and the parents will lose all basis for disciplining them.

And even then this is no garantee. If someone really wants to do something that's bad for them....there's just no way you're ever going to be able to stop them.

In fact, your focus may (unintentionally) even drive them towards a curiosity of smoking and wish to try it for themselves. People can be funny that way.

Wow, this one's grown legs. Interesting points. i had previously typed "arguments" as opposed to points, but as ever on here, I'm pleased to see people conducting themselves with civility and having a grown up discussion. Had this have been the OT board on one of my old guitar forums it'd be "F**k YOU NOOB" or "How about i come over there and put my size 10 so far up your a** you could scratch your nose with it" etc etc. So well done everyone

I'm going to wade in again. As already stated, i smoke. and i'm not going to try and defend it. I wish I'd never started, it's the bane of my life and i want to stop before i develop serious health problems. I'm basically an ashamed smoker, i don't smoke in my apartment, i like bars and restos not smelling of smoke (because the smell drifts, even if there's a separate section) i take great care not to smoke around kids, and will only light up in a smoking section outisde the bar, or if i'm well away from people. None of these are because of Big Pharma or govnts trying to push me to stop, in fact i support the smoking ban in the uk, it's because i know first hand what smoking related lung cancer looks like (my grandfather wasting away when i was 11 over christmas, finally passing 2 minutes to midnight on new years 1990). It's because the independent studies (neither funded by cig companies nor pharma) and meta studies clearly show the health risks.

A common thing i find with the USA (this is not an attack, please don't get annoyed, just something I've noticed) in many conversations over the years and watching threads like this is if your federal govnt bans something, there's an immediate reaction to it in terms of your civil liberties (as posted on here a few times, i paraphrase "what i do to myself and health is none of your business") even from people who don't or never did the thing in question that's been banned. In some cases fair enough, but in cases like smoking it suprises me, because it's seems it's not about smoking anymore, it becomes about your right to smoke. But nobodies banned you from smoking, just from smoking around people who don't smoke. And even though you (you in the very impersonal sense meaning all smokers) know it's a killer habit, you continue to do it, and get angry that you can't do it when and where you want. The civil liberties thing seems like a convenient smoke screen (boom boom) to justify continuing the habit.

As noted somewhere here, democracy is the will of the majority, and non smokers are the majority these days, although also as noted i agree that the laws in the states have gone way to far the other way to be sensible, thus resulting in i guess the apparent anger on the part of smokers.

Here's a story from my ex, which, while not applicable in the states as you don't have a nationalised health care system in the same way we do, illustrates the damage smokers (and others) can do by believing that it's only themselves they harm.

She was (is) a Cardio thorasic ICU (intensive care) nurse. There's a profile for people in ICU, by an large people in their late 40's and 50's, obese (by medical standards) and smokers. They end up there for heart valve replacements, bypasses etc. there are 6 regular rotation beds in that unit which when occupied cost 6k per day, and another 2 beds for emergency cases. the profile noted above can take weeks to recover from an op, thus taking up bedspace and denying others the chance to have a lifesaving op. Who are the others? just more obese smokers right? no. There was a young man in a couple of years ago, athlete, marathons etc. He had a serious flu and had had complications which resulted in the need for a heart valve replacement, but had to wait months at the bottom of a list of people who's life threatening ailments where entirely preventable as they'd been self inflicted. He went in for surgery, was out of ICU within 12 hours (you stay in ICU while on a ventilator as soon as your off you get shipped to the next level of care down). some of the other cases can spend weeks on a ventilator, and often end up back in ICU back on a ventilator because they have complications with surgery. why? because their bodies are so screwed they can't heal.

In another case a grossly obese mans family sued the hospital (thankfully unsuccessfully but other cases have succeeded) because he died on the operating table during a heart bypass. Why did he die? because when they went in to do the surgery his aorta (or whereever they bypass from) was so clogged it was like a rock, they simply couldn't get the mechanism to bypass in). He was an emergency case, if he didn't have the surgery he would die. And die he did (sadly for the family, my sympathy was with them) but it was not the hospitals fault. he did that to himself.

All of the above costs money, and at the minute the NHS in the uk is a black hole money wise. And one of the largest contributing factors is the money spent on smoking related and obesity related treatment. My Tax pays for that, and i BELIEVE in the NHS i think its a great thing, but just because you have free health care doesn't mean you have the right to treat your body like a dump and then expect someone else to sort it out for you.

I guess that's my point.

The biggest issue here is having responsibility for yourself and your effect on others. You may think your health is noone elses business but yours, but your treatment when you most likely have health issues because of it will be paid for by me the taxpayer (in the UK) or your family (in the USA) when the health insurance company tries to screw you out of the premiums you've been paying for years..

I wish i could stop, but in that area of my life, i just don't have the willpower. Nicotine is more addictive than heroin, and i have no illusions as to why i can't stop, not because i enjoy it, not because it's my choice to smoke, but because i'm an addict.

I've seen a lot of wisdom in this thread, both for and against.
I've smoked since i was teen. Quit cigarettes years ago and ever since i've smoked only pipes and very occasionally, cigars.
My mother died of lung cancer and so did my father-in-law too (although it might as well be the coal dust and asbestos he had to work with when younger). Even this fact has never ever made me think of quitting.

I can easily understand why some people do not like the smell of the tobacco smoke. I've never liked it myself. It is annoying and might be harmful indoors to people around you. We used to have separate rooms in restaurants & pubs for smokers and it was good system. Nowadays there are only few places left and people have to go outside on the pavement to get their smokes. That looks ridiculous and such a smoking crowd generates so much smoke that people living above those pubs surely get their share of passive smoking. I cannot understand if this was what politics -in their wisdom- wanted.

Anti-tobacco laws have gone little too far on some cases, imho. Tobacco smokers are sort of 2nd class people. It is a shame. As long as it is legal (and i will believe that it will never get banned, not at least in my lifetime) there should be a way to find a reasonable compromise from both sides. We all die of something after all. My great maternal aunt smoked heavily since she was twelve and died at the age of 96 yo when she fell from ladders. She was about to go and clean her roof from tree leafs, such an iron lady.

If there's other people around, i rather step little further away to get my pipe. I've heard older woman accusing smokers for smelling bad (there was no health issues mentioned). This is mob behavior. I never would accuse of someone smelling bad if he smelled of garlic or too much aftershaves. Before last election one of our (luckily now ex-) politicians blamed tobacco smokers as terrorists. I thought it was barbaric and slapping in a face of the victims of real terrorists. Luckily voters thought the same.
Giving such names to some legal group, be it smokers or anything only tells that we are doing too fine nowadays if we really have to find the names for our bad mood from the war zones.

I think my smoking has been a role model for my kids. At least they do not smoke at the age of 17 and 20. When at home i used to smoke at my garage or at my back yard terrace only. Nowadays i have one room with separate AC to blow the smokes out. I still do not like tobacco smoke around the house. My wife smokes cigarettes and she does it wherever she wants, specially when kids aren't home. I do not like it, but she has a right to do so, and i wont bother to worry about her manners.
What i'm most worried and sad is that people in their holy rage doesn't even want to find the compromise. It is scary.

Originally Posted by Bruno

No but I meant if the parents smoke, kids grow up with smoking as standard behavior.
And parents who smoke have no moral high ground for telling their kids not to smoke.

Both of my parents smoked cigarrettes, I never have. And since when did kids start listening to their parents?? Generally kids are about a third the age of their parents, but already think they know 3 times more.

Let's just cut to the quick here: everything that's dangerous to the point of being able to cause death, regardless of how far in the future from its use, must be outlawed. Gotta keep the folks safe, doncha know.

I sure am going to miss those hamburgers and all the other stuff. At least I won't have to clean my gutters - no more ladders. Oh, and don't worry about the bygone steak because the steak knife will be bygone too, and the fork as well. Life's going to get a lot simpler when we start eating grass on our hands and knees.

Originally Posted by Bruce

Let's just cut to the quick here: everything that's dangerous to the point of being able to cause death, regardless of how far in the future from its use, must be outlawed. Gotta keep the folks safe, doncha know.

I sure am going to miss those hamburgers and all the other stuff. At least I won't have to clean my gutters - no more ladders. Oh, and don't worry about the bygone steak because the steak knife will be bygone too, and the fork as well. Life's going to get a lot simpler when we start eating grass on our hands and knees.

Sorry, that won't work either. E. Coli ya know.... It's gonna be Soylent Green for everyone!

There's another paradox in this whole anti-smoking discussion. All the time we get to hear how dangerous and addictive nicotine is = ban the tobacco. Yet it is socially acceptable or even recommended to get your nicotine shots from bandaid, chewing gum or pills that taste like Fred Flintstones a$$.

Modern cigarettes aren't exactly tobacco at all but there's lot of other chemicals added. Some being more dangerous and more addictive than nicotine. That is why i use pipe. Real thing with no inhale. Of course the problem of passive smoking remains, but with thoughtful behavior (from both sides) both smokers and non-smokers live in the same planet.

At the same time EU banned snus (excluding Sweden) although i've never heard anyone getting affected to passive snus using. Where's the logic? The only consequence in this idiotic snus prohibition law was that now there's huge black market going on. Nothing learned from history.
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