This is topic Are you a smoker? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 03-02-2010, 07:40 AM:
Is that question too personal? Well, I'd say I already have "too much information" about some of the people in this group so, why not?
If you are a smoker, what do you smoke? How often? (We can limit this discussion to legal substances, of course.)
As for me, I'm not a smoker but, wow! When I was a teenaged usher in the 1980s they allowed smoking in our lobby and... wow!
(As a related question, is there a place where smoking is still allowed in movie theatre lobbies?)
Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 03-02-2010, 09:07 AM:
Smoked two cigarettes in my life, when aged about eight. The first tasted disgusting, and the second was no better, so I never smoked again.
Smoking is now banned by law in just about all enclosed spaces, other than the home, in England.
Posted by Richard P. May (Member # 3598) on 03-02-2010, 09:51 AM:
Nope.
Posted by Matt Johnston (Member # 5457) on 03-02-2010, 10:07 AM:
Never have and never will.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-02-2010, 10:25 AM:
I never became a smoker, in part because of the memory of my mother's father dying of lung cancer. The last time I saw him his left lung had been removed. One afternoon my grandfather was resting on the couch, shirtless. A thick bandage was strapped to his rib cage and gooey yellow mucus was oozing out from underneath the bandage. Really gross. That image didn't fit with all the cool advertising imagery I had seen about smoking up to that point. Both of my parents were smokers, but they quit "cold turkey" after seeing what it did to my grandfather.
Oklahoma ranks 3rd in the nation (behind Kentucky and West Virginia) in highest prevalence of smoking among adults. Still, the state has improved to where 3 out of 4 adult residents do not smoke.
Oklahoma lags in a number of other areas. We still allow smoking in bars and certain other enclosed spaces. Although one sports bar and another tavern in town have gone smoke free. Restaurants in Oklahoma can allow smoking only if they have a separately ventilated smoking area. Pretty costly proposition. That basically means the vast majority of restaurants are smoke free.
AFAIK, you can't smoke in movie theaters at all in Oklahoma. Although I occasionally see an asshole or two light up inside a theater while the movie is going. The last couple times I've seen it happen other audience members have either directly told the person to put out the cigarette or alerted management about it.
Many of my coworkers and local friends have quit smoking simply because the cost of the habit has become way too expensive. Still, I think hell might freeze over before our accountant and chief neon tube bender quit smoking willingly. Those two guys are just going to keep smoking until cancer, COPD, heart disease or something else kills them.
Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 03-02-2010, 10:43 AM:
Speaking of slick advertisements, I recall that in the early 1980s at the UA theatre in Long Beach, California we distributed one of those freebie entertainment magazines called “Moviegoer” and all of the ads in the thing were for cigarettes. Then, about a year after we started putting those in the lobby, the manager had us put a 35mm commercial for Kool cigarettes into some of our trailer sets. It had been a while since anyone had ever seen any kind of moving-picture-and-sound ad for cigarettes and many of the employees thought it was very strange. The complaints from customers were immediate and, as I recall, the ads were pulled pretty quickly.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-02-2010, 10:59 AM:
I have never even considered smoking any kind of substance. To me, the thought of smoking is simply disgusting. I do not understand what the appeal is. What makes anyone think "Hey, yeah, this will be a good idea!"? I don't like it when people smoke around me or smoke on their own before being around me. I don't even let smokers ride in my car because they will stink it up by contacting their clothes to me seats. Sorry, you'll have to take the bus... bye!
I barely even touch alcohol as well. There are a few things I like to drink from time to time, maybe once or twice a year, but I have never really acquired a taste for the stuff. That just means that I am more likely to get killed from a drunk driver since the drunk ones always seem to do the killing AND the surviving. Great people, those drinkers. I really wish the ones who drink and drive would die more instead of kill.
Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 03-02-2010, 11:02 AM:
I've always wondered this too.
I'm a social smoker. Although it's technically illegal to smoke anywhere indoors in Ohio except in your own home or hotel rooms, I've a few favorite "Smoke Easies" that still allow the habit. So I'll have a few cigarettes every other month for kicks.
I worked at one theatre, the Detroit in Lakewood Ohio, that used to allow you to smoke everywhere except the theatre itself (including the booth, including the lobby, including the restrooms, and including the ticket office outside) until I think 2003.
I could probably still smoke up in the booth if I wanted to, but, frankly, theatre projection rooms were the first places after churches to ban smoking (before hospitals) because of the danger of booth fires when they were running the highly inflammable nitrate stock.
Although we universally use safety film (or worse, digital) these days, I am NOT going to contribute a source of dust to the booth.
IDK WTF got into projectionists to smoke around a $2,000, perishable product that is susceptible to dust; cigarette smoke is a fine, adherent dust.
What I want to know, for those projectionists that work in Nevada, Las Vegas specifically, can patrons from the casinos smoke in the theatres?
Only time I've seen someone smoking in a theatre auditorium (though I've heard stories) was the Don Draper character in the AMC television series "Mad Men" (shot on 35mm film by the way).
I've heard stories about certain former AMC managers lighting up when doing screenings of new films to check for splicing errors, but this was back in the '90s, maybe even the '80s.
I've also heard stories, that are recent, post 2000 about projectionists, literally lighting up in the booth using a Xenon bulb as a "lighter" and the projector exhaust pipe as a "ventilator."
It was, and I assume still is allowed in some theatres, but on the off chance that a patron (probably a poor little kid) looks back and sees you, is it really worth it to get that fix?
IDK, I have a love-hate relationship with smoking; it has killed my grandmother and father, given my other grandfather a bad heart, lungs and a pacemaker, but at the same time, enjoyed in moderation, cigarettes cause basically no harm.
You can smoke a pack a day until you're 30, quit cold-turkey, and you are statistically no more likely to suffer any form of smoking-related illness or cancer than never-smoked-a-cigarette-in-my-lifers. TRUE STORY.
I used to work in a bar, on and off after the 2007 Ohio Smoking Ban, and I used to let people light up in there anyway. We charged a dollar an "ashtray" (a plastic cup filled with water in case we got fined or they did a health inspection), and it was great.
Another true story, auto exhaust is worse than outdoor second-hand smoke, for states inclined like California to ban outdoor smoking next.
WHAT THE FUCK??? You can smoke weed in Caly ("medicinally") but not cigs?!?!
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-02-2010, 11:04 AM:
Paragraphs, man. Look into it.
Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 03-02-2010, 11:26 AM:
quote: Jonathan Smith
You can smoke a pack a day until you're 30, quit cold-turkey, and you are statistically no more likely to suffer any form of smoking-related illness or cancer than never-smoked-a-cigarette-in-my-lifers. TRUE STORY.
Tell that to my dad's oxygen generator. Sure, he quit smoking when he was still a very young, single man and his doctor didn't tell him that his heart and lung problems today are smoking related... but I still don't think it's worth the risk. Also, where's the guarantee that you'll be able to quit cold turkey at the magic age of 30?
Anyhow... I don't mean to lecture you or anyone else. I don't want this to become the "volunteer to let us beat you up" thread.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-02-2010, 11:38 AM:
Montana banned smoking in indoor public places (except bars and casinos) five years ago, and last year the ban extended to bars and casinos as well. Results are mixed: The air in the bars is a lot nicer, but now the smokers are standing around outside and littering their butts on the streets. Also, many smokers have stopped gambling because "smoking and gambling go hand in hand," so apparently they're going to the Indian reservations or something, because state tax revenues from gaming are way down.
My parents both smoked. My dad died of a heart attack brought on by pneumonia, but his condition was aggravated by the smoking. I think it's safe to say he'd have lived somewhat longer if not for the smoking.
My mom used to smoke all the time, and quit many years ago. However, I think she still smokes a little -- she just can't completely give it up. She said that "anyone who thinks it's easy to quit smoking has probably never smoked." She said that even if you go years without a cigarette, you NEVER stop craving one. I suppose different people have different results.
I experimented a little when I was in my 20s, and actually enjoyed the "feel" of the smoking, but knew it was a stupid thing to take up so I just stopped before it became a habit. I guess it's nice to know "how" to smoke in case I ever become a dramatic actor, but that's as far as it's going to go with me.
I don't exactly see why anybody would take up smoking these days, not only for the health risks but because it's so hard to find a place to enjoy the habit. And, you tend to be repulsive to many members of the opposite sex. And, it's horrifically expensive. But yet teens still pick up smoking. More than anything else, this proves that many of them are idiots.
Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 03-02-2010, 11:48 AM:
As stated above, "never have, never will."
Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 03-02-2010, 11:48 AM:
Way to judge an age group that is trying to be "cool" for the same bad habit that many of us picked up at that age.
Like I said, I've quit. I smoke maybe once every other month. If that kills me, so be it.
But to criticize people who smoke (our president is a smoker) is just silly. . .
You're not snorting crack, or popping pills. There are far worse things for your health than smoking.
Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 03-02-2010, 12:32 PM:
To put things in perspective, my high school had a school-sanctioned STUDENT SMOKING SECTION up until the mid-eighties. And anyone of any age could smoke there.
We had an auditorium in town with smoking allowed until just a few years ago. Billy Joe's Picture Show, a low-rent dinner/bar operation, would show Harry Potter movies with whole families sitting around a table, kids eating pizza while mom and dad lit up. Iowa has since banned smoking pretty much anywhere indoors that isn't a casino or private residence, and Billy Joe's has since closed.
I never took it up even though my parents did, my sister did, most of my girlfriends did, and Wife #1 did. (And yes, that's what killed her).
Posted by Sean Weitzel (Member # 244) on 03-02-2010, 12:33 PM:
I'm just old enough to remember when smoking was still pretty much everywhere here in California - restaurants, theaters (lobbies only) airplanes, even my high school had a smoking section for the seniors who were over 18 (and had a permission slip from the parents).
I smoked when I was in high school because we all thought we were cool. Nobody on either side of my family ever had a smoking habit so it wasn't a parental influence. I also looked old enough that the local liquor store had no problem selling me hard packs of Marlboro when I would go on my breaks from the video store. My parents caught me a few times and really made me feel like shit so I stopped for a while.
My first job after high school was a computer repair shop run by a retired old school superintendent who had a two pack a day Viceroy habit. We worked in a small shop in an industrial park and by the late afternoon you couldn't see the back shop area from the front lobby due to Jack's smoke haze hanging over everything. It also didn't help when Jack would sit down to wrench on an apple II and his ashes were falling into the keyboard. I picked up the habit again briefly while working there and soon after got it in my head to switch to a tobacco pipe. I really enjoyed that pipe. The flavor was wonderful and I felt i might not be doing as much damage as I would with conventional cigarettes - plus pipe tobacco is cheaper.
A year or two later, I got REALLY sick with tonsillitis and was in so much pain that I stopped smoking entirely for a couple weeks. It was enough to break the craving that I really didn't think I had at the time. I never smoked again and can't even remember what it felt like to crave a smoke. I still enjoy the smell of pipe tobacco if I am around it. If not for the negative health effects I would probably still enjoy smoking a pipe.
My only 'vice' so to speak is my appreciation for good wine and beer. I've been home brewing for 10 years and quite enjoy it. I figure beer and wine in moderation will be a little less likely to kill me young than smoking would.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-02-2010, 12:42 PM:
quote:
Way to judge an age group that is trying to be "cool" for the same bad habit that many of us picked up at that age.
[snip]
But to criticize people who smoke (our president is a smoker) is just silly. . .
No it's not. The current crop of teenagers have FAR MORE information being thrown at them in more ways than any generation in history, but yet some still choose to start smoking. They also make the dopey choice to text while they're driving. They just haven't learned yet, and nobody can tell them anything because they think they're invincible. I never said it was their fault for their age-related mental incomepetence, it's just a fact of life.
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 03-02-2010, 01:06 PM:
I smoked a pack a day from 17yr till 20yr old, then stopped cold turkey and never smoked one again. I don't drink because I am alergic to alcohol -- my body reacts very badly to it. I get drunk and sick on two - three beers. It's not a pretty sight.
Now even the faint whiff of cigarette smoke makes me cringe. Even outside, if someone is walking with 50 feet in front of me smoking, I find it almost suffocating. I have a theory that that short period when I was smoking as a kid has made me hypersensitive to second hand smoke now. I can't even get near a smoker who has the stink of it on their clothes. When I was "freelancing for companionship," they're being a smoker was a definate deal breaker....as in, "Buh-bye."
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-02-2010, 02:22 PM:
quote: Mike Blakesley
I don't exactly see why anybody would take up smoking these days, not only for the health risks but because it's so hard to find a place to enjoy the habit. And, you tend to be repulsive to many members of the opposite sex. And, it's horrifically expensive. But yet teens still pick up smoking. More than anything else, this proves that many of them are idiots.
I feel the same way.
Today so much more information about the hazards of smoking is available to the public. Cigarette advertising is nowhere near as visible as it was back in the 1970s and earlier. Culturally speaking, smoking is now seen by most people as a filthy, unhealthy activity rather than something that is grown up or "cool." Back when I was a kid smoking was far more romanticized in popular culture than it is today.
My guess is some teens and college age people still start smoking as a form of rebellion. They're told not to smoke and that it is dangerous to smoke, so they do it anyway because it's something they're not supposed to do.
Some women start smoking or continue to smoke because the activity works as an appetite suppresant. OTOH, some of the women I see smoking around this area of the country are as big as blimps. I see smoking as a turn-off. It tastes pretty nasty if you kiss a woman who has just been smoking. Ugh. Get some Listerine or something!
Pollution just adds to the problem, and I don't mean the smoke. It's all those damned discarded cigarette butts. So many smokers finish a cigarette, drop the spent butt on the ground, step on it and then leave it there. It's too much to ask them to put their garbage in a trash can. Like I said, smoking is a filthy habit. Great Plains Technology Center (a vocational-technical school in Lawton) banned smoking on its entire campus due to the extra time and cost its janitorial crews were having to spend cleaning up cigarette trash in the hallways, parking lots and across the grounds.
quote: Jonathan Smith
You're not snorting crack, or popping pills. There are far worse things for your health than smoking.
Nevertheless, smoking carries a high cost. 66% of smokers in Oklahoma are lower income people with no health insurance. So when they get cancer, heart disease or smoking related illnesses and have no way to pay for treatment the taxpayers get to foot the bill. I don't think that's fair.
Heroin or crack can certainly kill you, but it often does so quickly. It didn't cost the taxpayers a fortune when Alice in Chains lead singer Layne Staley died from a heroin overdose. Neighbors simply discovered his body from the smell of it decomposing for a week. Funeral costs were the main thing involved there. Talented singer, but a crazy idiot for adopting a very deadly habit.
Posted by Gordon Bachlund (Member # 124) on 03-02-2010, 02:30 PM:
I am down to one cigar a week these days from several a day years ago.
I fondly recall lighting up on the glowing and of the positive carbon after turning off the lamp. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 03-02-2010, 03:20 PM:
I gave up smoking 41 years ago when I got out of the Army alive.
Virginia has banned smoking in all establishments except private clubs. That caused quite a stir at the local American Legion when they thought the bar would become smokeless. It didn't.
We twice cruised on a smokeless ship. The cruise company gave it up because non-smokers don't tend to drink or gamble enough.
On our recent cruise smoking was restricted to only certain ares of the ship including bars and the casino. Passengers could smoke on their cabin balcony if so equipped.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-02-2010, 03:28 PM:
quote: Jonathan Smith
You're not snorting crack, or popping pills. There are far worse things for your health than smoking.
That's like saying eating a pound of lard isn't that bad a thing to do because eating arsenic is much worse.
Posted by Ian Parfrey (Member # 5122) on 03-02-2010, 03:40 PM:
Partner: "Do you smoke after sex?"
Me: "Don't know, I've never looked."
Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 03-02-2010, 03:40 PM:
I picked-up smoking when in the U.S. Army (Uncle Sam Ain't Released Me Yet). When I got out, I continued to smoke for about 3 years while doing the clubbing/bar scene...you know, picking up cute "Hubba-Hubba" guys at gay bars. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[thumbsup]](graemlins/thumbsup.gif)
Even though I knew smoking was stupit, I did it at that time cuz I thought it was kewl! (Yeah, I know...I was such a dumbass!) HA!
I gave up smoking about 20 years ago and glad I did. It's funny though, every once in a while I still get a craving to smoke a cigarette. Never gave into to that though...
I think most kids/teens/20-somethings smoke cuz they think it's "cool", not because they are rebellious.
OBTW: Even though I gave up smoking, I ***STILL*** cruise the gay bars for a "connection"... (J/K) HA! ![[beer]](graemlins/beer.gif)
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-02-2010, 04:37 PM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
It's too much to ask them to put their garbage in a trash can.
I wonder if they are even physically capable. Nobody calls them on it, either. It's like being a smoker is a license to litter. Smokers absolutely do not care about anyone but themselves. They prove this every time they deposit their buts anywhere but the trash.
quote: Jonathan Smith
You're not snorting crack, or popping pills. There are far worse things for your health than smoking.
I honestly do not care if a person decides to snort cocaine, shoot Clorox into their veins or mix their grandpa's ashes into a Vodka with a roofie. That's 100% their choice. Just don't do it around me, don't try to get other people to do it with you and do not let it affect ANYONE else's life. By that I mean do not drive under the influence of anything, don't barf on my driveway and don't die in my goddamn nightclub or its sidewalk.
Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 03-02-2010, 04:53 PM:
I smoke. I staretd when I was 13 (Im 27 now) I smoke Marlboro's maybe 2 packs a day. I want to quit and have tried before.
I try to be respectful of others and do not smoke around people who don't. I also never enjoyed smoking in a restaurant. I hate smoking near my food and don't do it at home. I also gave up drinking when I was 21. I found that I had trouble just drinking socially or one or two drinks. I decided I should just not drink at all. I also tried smoking pot but hated it. It made me paraniod and sick and I have never really done it even though I have friends that do.
One thing that amazed me was how prevelant pot smoking is (at least in the north east) As a kid I always thought it was this terrible thing that only "junkies" did. As I got older I found out that my friends parents smoked pot and that it was a lot more common than I ever realized.
I also never smoked in a theatre, or booth. I had amanager that did and I would constantly yell at him for smoking in the booth. It is one of the worst things you can do to film, optics, or electronic equipment
quote: Jonathan Smith
You're not snorting crack, or popping pills.
I don't know if you were trying to be funny or not but you don't snort crack. You smoke it. You snort cocaine. Crack is a "cooked" form of cocaine. I don't smoke crack either!
Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 03-02-2010, 05:16 PM:
The old joke:
Bill the smoker: "Quitting smoking is easy, I've done it hundreds of times".
When I was young, someone handed me a cigarette. I take a puff off it, and it tasted terrible. I said as such, and the person who handed me the cancer stick said "you have to get used to it". That did not make any sense to me, so I never started smoking. This was before most of the current info about how bad smoking is had come out.
I like all the laws restricting smoking. I don't smoke, and no one should be able to force that crud down my wind pipe, and effect my health with their nasty habit. Some people just don't understand that their rights end where everyone else's rights begin. No sense of personal responsibly.
Posted by Don Furr (Member # 1469) on 03-02-2010, 05:17 PM:
I started smoking after joining the Navy in 1965. I quit cold turkey in 1985 and haven't touched one since. I was never a "heavy" smoker but always smoked more when drinking booze.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-02-2010, 05:19 PM:
quote: Sean McKinnon
It made me paraniod and sick and I have never really done it even though I have friends that do.
Pot did that to you? I think that (the paranoia part) could mean that you got some that was contaminated with something else you didn't know about. It's pretty common, what with dealers often selling multiple types of drugs.
What do you mean by it making you sick? Like nausea/vomiting? If so, that's also a bit of an odd reaction. A big use of medical marijuana and THC (in the form of the synthetic dronabinol) is stopping vomiting. Maybe you got some that wasn't clean? Who knows.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-02-2010, 05:34 PM:
quote: Sean McKinnon
As I got older I found out that my friends parents smoked pot and that it was a lot more common than I ever realized.
It is incredibly common despite that it makes you smell even nastier than cigarettes. But alas, these people need weed in order to have fun because otherwise they'd find themselves incredibly boring without their minds being altered. I don't need an artificial high, I'm just naturally wacky. I do wish weed would be legalized so I wouldn't have to listen to the constant whining about it being legalized. People really, really, really need this stuff something fierce, I guess. And not for medicinal reasons. Also, doesn't hemp make a great material of some kind? Isn't that outlawed as well? That always seemed kind of dumb to me.
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 03-02-2010, 05:44 PM:
I don't smoke and never have. My grandmother on my father's side of the family smoked for years and died of emphysema very young (before I was born). Having someone in your family or a close friend die early because of smoking is the best anti-tobacco advertisement that I can imagine. I also don't particularly like the residual smell (particularly, rental cars and hotel rooms previously occupied by smokers).
Even so, I am annoyed by all of the anti-smoking legislation that has been passed in the last decade or two. I'm fine with prohibiting smoking in public buildings and in confined spaces (airplanes, public transportation, etc.), but I'd prefer that owners of private establishments (restaurants, office buildings, etc.) be allowed to make their own rules. Obviously, smoking should not be allowed where there would be a safety issue (e.g. movie theatres and other crowded space, or anywhere with flammable vapors or material).
Smoking in a projection booth is just dumb (because film, electronics, and lenses don't mix well with smoke), and is illegal in Massachusetts.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-02-2010, 05:52 PM:
quote: Joe Redifer
Also, doesn't hemp make a great material of some kind? Isn't that outlawed as well? That always seemed kind of dumb to me.
Yep. They've selectively created a new sub-species that is only used for the industrial purposes. It has tons less THC (so little that you'd have to smoke pounds of the leaves to get high) and its fibrous stem has more fiber content than the other grown for the drug purpose.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-02-2010, 06:28 PM:
Cigarette smoke is very bad for electronics. Our company's accountant has gone through several desktop computer systems over the past decade due to his chain smoking. The smoke and ash settles and accumulates anywhere air can flow. Then it degrades and eventually shorts out circuitry. He has a separate office in our old factory building; we don't allow anyone to smoke in our main office area.
Our neon guy has had his XBox360 serviced at least 4 times, once for the Red Ring of Death issue but then again for optical drive issues. Then the Blu-ray drive in his PS3 went on the blink. I'm convinced his constant smoking is a culprit.
On the topic of pot smoking, lots of people in Oklahoma smoke it. Those boys from Oklahoma roll their joints all wrong. They're too damned skinny and way too long. Marijuana can be found growing wild in many places, but it doesn't have any potentcy. You have to control how it is grown for it to develop a desireable level of THC. Recently criminals associated with Mexican and Salvadoran street gangs were discovered growing large quantities of pot in rural areas of Oklahoma.
I don't mind if marijuana is legalized, but am not in favor of legalizing harder drugs such as heroin or methamphetamine. Those substances are much more dangerous and far more addictive. Pot isn't even proven to be addictive, unlike nicotine in cigarettes.
With all the brutal violence happening in Mexico, I certainly would not spend any money supporting the illegal drug industry. I would feel like I was endorsing and enabling bloodshed by doing so. OTOH, I don't really have a choice in the matter. Our business has a company-wide random drug and alcohol screening policy. You get piss tested and blow into a breathalyzer. As lawyers and insurance companies continue to battle each other further I think we'll see that drug testing thing become common in a lot more businesses. It's a liability thing.
quote: Scott Norwood
I'm fine with prohibiting smoking in public buildings and in confined spaces (airplanes, public transportation, etc.), but I'd prefer that owners of private establishments (restaurants, office buildings, etc.) be allowed to make their own rules.
The situation could be different in other areas of the nation, but around here if the smoking policy was left 100% up to restaurants and other businesses they would never be able to prohibit smoking. They would lose too much business to rivals who encourage smoking. A widespread ban or restriction delivers a more level "playing field" for various businesses.
Oklahoma has a lot of militant smokers. One of my former co-workers falls in that camp. She absolutely will not visit any restaurant or bar where smoking is prohibited. Harlows, a local bar here in town, can't allow anyone to smoke because it is located inside a hotel and its main entrance is in the hotel lobby. Some people still try to light up in there and a few of those folks throw a big shit fit when the bartender tells them they can't smoke, "it's my right to smoke, dammit!" The bartender usually tells them about a big fine if members of ABLE commission make a surprise visit and that the big fine will go on that customer's tab. No one keeps smoking after getting that warning.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-02-2010, 06:53 PM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
With all the brutal violence happening in Mexico, I certainly would not spend any money supporting the illegal drug industry.
Not to make this too political, but one could argue that the notion you're supporting (banning these hard drugs) itself supports that industry. People no longer kill others for the ability to sell beer/wine, but that did happen when they were prohibited.
Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 03-02-2010, 07:01 PM:
I used to smoke a pipe and cigars when I was younger but no longer do anymore. I had smoked cigarettes too but not much. When I used to smoke, I rarely inhaled so that was the reason I was able to quit without any problem. I loved my pipes and still do but my dentist made me give it up when he had noticed it was irritating the roof of my mouth and suggested I quit or risk getting cancer. I did and I am fine today. My greatest pet peeve right now is when I am forced to breath other people's cigarette smoke at places like bust stops and other public places where smoking is still allowed.
-Claude
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-02-2010, 07:41 PM:
quote: Chris Slycord
one could argue that the notion you're supporting (banning these hard drugs) itself supports that industry.
If I don't give drug dealers any money at all I'm not supporting their industry regardless of what soft or hard drugs they're selling.
I don't have a problem with anyone advocating the legalization of drugs. That's their choice. However, if they're buying the stuff while it is still illegal they are contributing to the problem which includes the blood shed associated with the illegal drug industry. So many Americans got their blood boiling when they heard of terrorists in the Middle East brutally murdering defenseless people in front of video cameras. The drug gangs in Mexico are committing the same grisly acts on a larger scale and the brutality is not getting nearly as much of an outcry.
I liked the end of The Untouchables where Elliott Ness is asked what he's going to do since prohibition was going to be repealed, "I think I'll have a drink." He was just interested in upholding the law.
I don't think consequences would be too serious if marijuana was legalized. However, a strong case can be made against the legalization of harder, more highly addictive drugs. The United States has already tried it. Over 100 years ago the United States was dealing with an epidemic level of legal drug use. Millions of mothers were hopped up on opiate-laced laudanum and they were spooning this stuff into their kids to get them quiet. Thousands of Civil War veterans were addicted to morphine. The Bayer Aspirin company developed Heroin as a treatment for morphine addiction. The "cure" turned out to be even worse!
Many of the United States' current drug laws grew from legislation passed early in the 20th century. The ban on alcohol grew from that as well because there was such an upheaval of disgust over what was happening.
I think if drugs, hard or not, are legalized in widespread fashion we'll see the same problem of widespread addiction take place again. And there's no guarantee the illegal drug trade and peripheral street crime will stop either. Prescription drugs are legal in the technical sense, but their use is restricted to the discretion of a doctor. That creates the underground market for those legal drugs. What do we do about that? Sell stuff like Oxycontin over the counter to anyone who wants it? A fellow with a bad addiction to "Advil brand Smack" won't be able to hold down a job, so he's going to be mugging people and burglarizing houses anyway to get his fix.
I also fear widespread legalization of drugs could be very bad for business. My company already has a hard enough time as it is finding good quality employees. We live in a global economy now. We didn't 100 years ago. Entire industries can uproot and move to where the best labor pool is located.
Posted by Carey Barber (Member # 1586) on 03-02-2010, 07:41 PM:
Regarding the littering issue...Cigarettes seem to be the one thing that people still find acceptable to just toss on the ground. For many (or most) smokers, the world is their ashtray.
I think that starting a couple decades ago there was a big push for people to stop littering and I believe it has had an effect. Very few people would just toss their McDonalds cup out the window anymore. But cigarettes...that is a different story. And these are things that have been in contact with some stranger's mouth and spit.
I remember as a Boy Scout we would do litter clean up in the parking lot of the building where we had our meetings. We were actually forbidden to pick up cigarettes because of the hygiene concerns. But of course the most common form of litter was...you guessed it...cigarettes!
I find the used butts way more disgusting than the smoke itself. Also, I think that stale smoke is more offensive smelling than someone actually actively in the process of puffing on one. If somebody is a really heavy smoker their house will often have a constant stale, musty smoke smell and their curtains will be a wonderful shade of yellow-brown.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-02-2010, 07:57 PM:
Oh man! That reminded me of a really nasty memory. This sound guy named Dave who I worked with at a TV station in Albany, GA decided to quit smoking. He cleaned the walls in his office. I thought the walls were painted yellow, but that was just the smoke stains. Worse yet, he took his office window screens out to the studio loading ramp and hosed them off. A lot of thick, yellow and brown crap was coming off the screens. GROSS! Dave met all the disgusted reactions with loud laughter.
Another thing on the cigarette butts, I find the damned things along the curb side in front of my house. Someone down the street is probably emptying their car's ashtray into their driveway and hoping it washes into the storm drain. Not all of it does.
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 03-02-2010, 08:36 PM:
Man, you should have seen what cigarette smoke did to the cabin pressure outflow valves on airliners back in the days before smoking was banned on most flights. The tar would build up so thick the valves would stick, sometimes open, sometimes shut, sometimes making it impossible to control the cabin altitude.
Same thing for flight deck instruments, especially vacuum-driven gyro-based ones (like attitude and heading indicators). Stators, vanes, and bearings all gummed up from tar. Yuck.
Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 03-02-2010, 09:21 PM:
quote: Greg Anderson
As a related question, is there a place where smoking is still allowed in movie theatre lobbies?
When I was getting my MA in Poland ('07-'09) smoking was still acceptable in most restaurants & cafes. The vast majority didn't even have non-smoking sections. But even there I can't recall smoking being allowed in cinema lobbies. Although, now that I think of it, one (Kino Kijow) had a bar upstiars in the lobby, perhaps smoking was allowed up there?
When I first started as an usher ('93), the union projectionist at the 2-plex I worked at would smoke from his perch in the hallway that overlooked the lobby. And a number of the managers would smoke in the office.
I think the last time I saw (smelled) somebody smoking in an actual customer-filled auditorium was at the Thunderbird in Urbana, IL. This was probably '96 or '97 and it was set up as a Brew & View at the time. I don't know whether it was allowed by law, or just not enforced.
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 03-02-2010, 09:36 PM:
Like others...I have never smoked and never will.
One negative aspect of the smoking ban indoors is that instead of smoking areas, people now smoke near the entrance (get that last drag before going inside or waiting for a table or, in my case, smoking between their turn at bowling).
So now, instead of the smoking being sectioned off in a room I don't go into...I now have to walk through that cloud of smoke to gain entrance to the building or when I leave. I believe there is something about how close you can be to an entrance but I've yet to see anyone follow that.
Honestly, I would prefer if they kept the smoking room for those that choose to light up...it would be easier on us non-smokers.
Steve
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-02-2010, 11:36 PM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
If I don't give drug dealers any money at all I'm not supporting their industry regardless of what soft or hard drugs they're selling.
I disagree. You may not directly support that industry, but the prohibition itself (which you said you support to at least some extent) creates that industry.
quote: Bobby Henderson
And there's no guarantee the illegal drug trade and peripheral street crime will stop either.
1) If you legalize drugs then automatically the illegal drug trade has stopped because there's no such thing anymore.
2) Yes there's no guarantee that the street crime would stop. But we have examples of countries lifting bans on drugs and focusing all their efforts on treatment and prevention rather than banning. And they had a precipitous drop in that same crime. Although gangs could just switch to fighting over something else.
3) There's also the notion that people are often attracted to things they are not supposed to have. For instance, recent surveys indicate that 35-40% of high school seniors in the US have smoked pot at some time in their life (and the real number likely slightly higher since some people still assume surveyors are gonna report them) whereas in Amsterdam only 15-18% said the same thing.
But I doubt I'll convince you.
quote: Steve Guttag
One negative aspect of the smoking ban indoors is that instead of smoking areas, people now smoke near the entrance (get that last drag before going inside or waiting for a table or, in my case, smoking between their turn at bowling).
At least in Washington, the law was that you had to be 25 feet away from any "open to the public" facility to smoke, though in downtown Seattle that would literally have you standing in the road.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-03-2010, 12:29 AM:
So are you a smoker, Chris?
Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 03-03-2010, 12:37 AM:
I'm a smoker but not of tobacco. ![[evil]](graemlins/evil.gif)
Actually I do indulge in cigars when at my annual Ren Fest. I used to smoke a clay pipe at the Fest but it was a pain to keep it from getting lost/broken/stolen.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-03-2010, 01:16 AM:
quote: Joe Redifer
So are you a smoker, Chris?
Absolutely not. I just remember at the time they banned it in all Washington, one guy went in downtown Seattle and spraypainted a line 25 ft away from the bars, which was in the middle of the street.
I hate smoke. I don't like being around it at all. But I also feel that private businesses should be able to decide for themselves. No one forces me to go to a bar that's allows cigs (plus I rarely go to bars anymore even with smoking banned here too).
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-03-2010, 01:22 AM:
I think it is 25 feet away from the entryway instead of any wall of the building itself... at least that's how it should be. And it should be closer to 15 feet. Personally I don't mind walking through it really quick, it is never really bad for more than a couple of seconds (during which I hold my breath). I'll put up with that if I can be inside and breathing relatively clean air.
As for smoking indoors being decided by the venues, that really makes concerts hard to attend if smoking is allowed because concert halls WILL allow it if they can. I am glad that they can't allow it now as the concert experience ends up being MUCH more enjoyable. I remember coming home from an Eric Johnson/Joe Satriani concert and I had to shower right away, wash my clothes right away, leave my shoes outside overnight and air my car out for days (because I sat inside of it with the smelly clothes). If smokers just can't go for a few hours without a cigarette or whatnot, then they really have a problem and their suffering is well-deserved. The thought that non-smokers won't patronize a place and the establishment will change their own policies because people are voting with the almighty dollar is ill-conceived at best. The concerts won't have a no-smoking night, and if you want to see it you MUST put up with the smoke. That is absolutely wrong.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-03-2010, 01:31 AM:
It depends on your location. For instance, I know that in NYC downtown a few bars reported having drops of like 40% after the ban (although they could just be exaggerating). But in the eastside of Seattle, the bars I went to on occasion increased their numbers significantly after the ban. But that's more to do with the fact that the middle-to-upper-class people there all tend to be anti-smoking. And it does indicate why maybe individual locations should be able to choose based on your demographics.
And WRT concerts, I seriously doubt the managers are stopping people from smoking. Hell, I've been to plenty of shows before where people were clearly smoking pot. The rent-a-cops don't at all care.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-03-2010, 01:36 AM:
I don't care if bars remain in business or not. If they all went out of business overnight, I would not weep for anyone. But yes, they absolutely exaggerate. They did it in Colorado as well. They would all say business is so far down that they may close. They all stayed open.
Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 03-03-2010, 02:25 AM:
I never did and didn't want to - after seeing my grandfather hack up blood for the last two years of his life (and he died at an early age of 67 in the mid 60's where my father (his son) is still very healthy at 84 from living a clean life..) from the ravages of emphysemia due to his nicotine habit, I asked myself that question, "Is having this habit really worth it? If I'm gonna die, I'd rather go knowing that I took care of myself than dying in misery like that."
Also, had an uncle who, after 40 yrs of 4 packs a day, finally quit, but it was too late and had a lung removed and survived another 15 years on one lung. He asked for a picture of the bad lung - coal tar black it was..
..gee, not a pretty picture at all no matter how you look at it.
-Monte
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-03-2010, 02:32 AM:
quote: Chris Slycord
I also feel that private businesses should be able to decide for themselves.
That would never work for bars/casinos, though. Studies say that a majority of people who gamble also smoke. And a lot of people smoke when they drink. So, if Casino A allowed smoking, a majority the patrons from the non-smoking places would flock there. Hence, all the casinos and bars would allow smoking, given the choice.
This might not be true in big cities if there was a large enough pool of non-smoking drinkers/gamblers to draw from.
What's funny to me is, in Montana they gave the bars/casinos FOUR YEARS notice about the ban. But even with that, all the smokers waited until the ban went into effect to start complaining. Apparently they thought someone else would do it for them.
Posted by Manny Montes (Member # 5639) on 03-03-2010, 10:59 AM:
I smoke every once in a while, never before work, I hate the smell and I always like to put on my best for work.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-03-2010, 11:17 AM:
quote: Joe Redifer
I don't care if bars remain in business or not. If they all went out of business overnight, I would not weep for anyone.
You might do some weeping if your taxes skyrocketed, which they would if a lot of bars closed. You'd probably see at least a couple of points higher sales tax, at least. Those "vices" are big $$$ to the government.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-03-2010, 11:30 AM:
Very true. But I think Montana should pay all of the country's taxes.
Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 03-03-2010, 12:18 PM:
Nevada banned indoor smoking too, except in casinos (those with unrestricted gaming licenses). Over the years several casinos have tried to either go completely non-smoking or at least provide a non-smoking pit. None of those attempts were successful. Gambling and smoking do seem to go together.
Smoking is banned even in bars here, unless they can claim to be a gaming establishment by having an unrestricted gaming license (i.e. have more than eight gaming devices).
What Joe said. Montana is rich beyond our wildest dreams!
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-03-2010, 01:01 PM:
One of the main purposes of smoking bans in bars, restaurants and other businesses is protecting the health of people who work there as well as customers who don't smoke. Not everyone gets to hand pick where he or she wants to work. It's pretty unheathly for an employee to be exposed to second hand smoke for his or her entire shift.
I strongly doubt smokers by and large will permanently stay away from businesses like bars, restaurants or casinos if they are unable to smoke in those establishments. What are they going to do otherwise? Stay home 100% of the time just so they can smoke?
With the costs of liability insurance, worker's comp insurance and health insurance continuing to rise significantly, pressure will increase on businesses to cut risks to reduce cost. That means making work places safer with things like smoking bans. Some companies are refusing to hire smokers because of what it can cost them on their health insurance policies. Obesity may become another target.
quote: Chris Slycord
If you legalize drugs then automatically the illegal drug trade has stopped because there's no such thing anymore.
The illegal drug trade will be eliminated only if controls for all drugs are removed, including prescription drugs. If anyone stands in the way of a drug's availability, such as a doctor and his prescription, the criminal street trade for the drugs will persist. Here in Lawton last week, Dishman's Pharmacy was robbed at gunpoint. The criminal didn't demand cash; he wanted Oxycontin and made off with a big jar of it.
quote: Chris Slycord
Yes there's no guarantee that the street crime would stop. But we have examples of countries lifting bans on drugs and focusing all their efforts on treatment and prevention rather than banning. And they had a precipitous drop in that same crime.
Which countries have lifted bans or controls on all drugs? In what developed nations is it legal to buy hard drugs like heroin or cocaine?
Many people think Holland has legalized drugs, but that's not accurate. Holland's laws tolerate cannibis use in certain shops but they still have strict laws against growing it and possessing it. Although a number of European countries do put a greater emphasis on treating and rehabilitating drug users those countries still have tough laws against the trafficking of hard drugs.
Differences in crime rate between nations may have much more to do with broad differences in culture and demographics rather than whether certain drugs are legal or not.
quote: Chris Slycord
There's also the notion that people are often attracted to things they are not supposed to have. For instance, recent surveys indicate that 35-40% of high school seniors in the US have smoked pot at some time in their life (and the real number likely slightly higher since some people still assume surveyors are gonna report them) whereas in Amsterdam only 15-18% said the same thing.
Such surveys are not scientific. Another problem is you're talking about marijuana, a drug that AFAIK has not been proven to be addictive. A pot smoker has more freedom of choice to abandon that pot smoking activity at will since there is no physical addiction involved. The same is not true for most other legal and illegal drugs. Most proponents of drug legalization pay very little lip service to the soul crushing, imprisoning effects of drug addiction.
That gets to the bigger issue: far more people die from substance abuse than street crime associated with the illegal drug trade. Look for that death toll to climb sharply higher if the controls on prescription drugs were removed and hard drugs like heroin and crack cocaine were ever legalized.
We have a bad enough time with socially acceptable legal drugs. Look at alcohol for example. The CDC says the United States had 13,050 alcoholic liver disease related deaths in 2006. That same year, the US had 22,073 alcohol induced deaths -that figure excludes accidents and homicides. On a personal note, my next door neighbor Susan died last August from liver failure related to alcoholism. She was only 42 years old. Her death and none of those other deaths make any big headlines like a drug dealer related shooting.
Cigarette smoking creates a yearly death toll that numbers in the hundreds of thousands in the United States alone.
Instead of making more drugs legal, I think our nation (and many others) need to be working harder to convince people not to be so stupid with substance abuse in the first place.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-03-2010, 01:24 PM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
Which countries have lifted bans or controls on all drugs? In what developed nations is it legal to buy hard drugs like heroin or cocaine?
Well, my pharmacology teacher had mentioned that Portugal lifted bans on hard drugs and funneled all their money into treatment rather than bans. And the country hasn't gone to hell in a hand basket.
quote: Bobby Henderson
That gets to the bigger issue: far more people die from substance abuse than street crime associated with the illegal drug trade. Look for that death toll to climb sharply higher if the controls on prescription drugs were removed and hard drugs like heroin and crack cocaine were ever legalized.
Now you can tell the future? Just because something is available to the public doesn't mean that people will use it and all kill themselves. You predict that more people will die whereas I predict that less people will use and therefore less people will die. And with your previous statement of just giving lip service to the problem of addiction... did you miss the fact that I think we should spend the money we waste on the drug war and use it on treatment? Oh and btw, the more money we've spent on keeping drugs out, the more drugs have made their way in.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Instead of making more drugs legal, I think our nation (and many others) need to be working harder to convince people not to be so stupid with substance abuse in the first place.
Finally, you say something I can agree with. I'm all for giving people more education.
quote: Mike Blakesley
That would never work for bars/casinos, though. Studies say that a majority of people who gamble also smoke. And a lot of people smoke when they drink. So, if Casino A allowed smoking, a majority the patrons from the non-smoking places would flock there. Hence, all the casinos and bars would allow smoking, given the choice.
1) Even if it was true that bars were extremely likely to allow smoking due to their clientele, why is it wrong for a business to cater to their clientele?
2) It is patently false that no bars would decide to disallow smoking if given the choice. Before Washington State issued the state-wide ban, there already were several bars that were smoke-free. Some businesses make money by catering to a smaller, but loyal clientele.
Posted by Julio Roberto (Member # 4976) on 03-03-2010, 01:51 PM:
Not a smoker here. Of anything. Ever.
For the longest time, since my youth, Spain had total alcohol access to minors and consumption of ANY drug was de-penalized (i.e. you could USE drugs, just not sell them or buy them, for that matter).
The laws have changed with times, whether at times it was "more or less illegal than before" each time a new "reglament" was passed.
The laws keep changing and it's become confusing, but I think the way it stands now is that alcohol can not be sold to under 18's except in supermarkets or restaurants (i.e. not in bars) and before 10pm (they had problems with people buying alcohol for impromtu parties at night and bothering neighbours around stores).
Of course, all McDonalds and Burger Kings or alike sell beer or wine. Supermarkets carry all types of alcoholic drinks right next to the sodas.
And a friend's son was recently stopped by the police while carrying a significant amount of hachis (about 5 doses he had just bought to share with friends, he's 15yo) and I helped with his defense, so I know for sure the law right now allows for the possesion of drugs under a certain amount but NOT its transportation (and thus, not in public) or sale.
As I said, the current law is confusing, but if you are cought with drugs in public, two things can happen: if it is under a certain amount, and you don't claim otherwise, they assume it's for personal consumption and you just get a (small) fine of under €300 (but up to €6000 if the amount is large-ish and you have been caught for a 3rd time), similar to a parking ticket (i.e. no criminal offense). We ended up having to pay only a €150 fine in his case.
If the amount of drugs you are caught with is over a certain point or you admit to be selling it to others, then it's a criminal offense (up to 2 years in prison for first time offenders, depending on amount etc).
But you are FREE to use or have small amounts all you want, just not in public, as while "outside", you are considered to be "transporting" it (that includes your car).
You can grow up to 2 marihuana plants in your house. The selling of seeds is 100% legal and there are plenty of shops around to purchase them freely. Not sure about cocaine. I guess the same limits applies (seeds=ok, plants=2-per-house-limit).
The reasoning and what they are trying to legislate (more or less successfully), is that you can take whatever you want, as it's your body, but you can't try to influence others to do the same, thus you can't sell the stuff or have too much around to give away. Keep it to yourself and you are fine. But don't take it in public or give it or sell it or grow larger amounts that you need for yourself.
In the past, laws were even more permissive. Let me assure you that most youth in Spain didn't even give a second glance to drugs or alcohol as it was so easily accesible. I've gotten (really) drunk only twice in my lifetime during my youth, but drank moderately plenty on pubs and discos from age 16 to 20 or so. Drinking or taking drugs was always a non-event and thus you weren't "cool" because you did it. Just normal or stupid.
Lately, it has become a bit worse, with a larger % of youth overusing alcohol or drugs, but still not "alarming". My daughter drank alcohol freely (but very moderately) since she was 14 in pubs and discos around the area with my full knowledge and permission (law allowed 16-and-over, but it wasn't enforced back then). If you think that 15yo's in the USA don't drink because it's forbidden, I have news for you.
The first time I went to the USA as a HS student I clearly remember a conversation among the seniors. A guy said something like: "Wow, yesterday we had a full 6-pack of beer". And I recall thinking: "This sounds good, I want to hear the rest of the story". Well, that was it. That was the whole story. The big deal is that a bunch of them kids had gotten hold of a 6-pack and drunk it all. I couldn't understand what was going on. I could walk into any supermarket and buy as much beer, vodzka, wishkey or anything I wanted at any time, day and night, during all my childhood and nobody would've given a damm.
So I do think it works to an extend the theory that, once something isn't "cool" or "forbidden" and your parents teach you to use it either moderately or, preferably, not at all, like (most) adults do, it works 95% of the time.
Now you are ALWAYS going to find kids "addicted" to alcohol or drugs, but I'll bet there are fewer of those in Spain, where it's (quite) legal and easy than in the USA, where it's VERY illegal, specially under age 21 (for alcohol).
On the other side, driving is not allowed in Spain until age 18, so that takes care of drinking and driving by minors. If you drive, you are not a minor
Smoking was recently banned in most public places. They are allowed to have a separated area for smokers. Not sure how the law is now, but I think some bars were allowed to have smokers if they had tables outside or something. Again, the laws keep changing and it's confusing. But I know in most places for the past 5 years or so, smoking is prohibited unless properly handled (indicated by signs and separated from other areas).
Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 03-03-2010, 01:52 PM:
I think you may be right Chris about the pot being laced with something because not only did it make me paranoid it made me feel like I was urinating myself constantly (which I was not) and it caused my hearing and vision to pulse like, if I turned my head it would be choppy instead of one fluid motion. A little while later I got very sick to my stomach and ended up vomiting. I am glad that I had that reaction because I know a lot of people who smoke pot and they waste a lot of time and energy at it. I have no preoblem with it tho if that is thier choice.
I beleive pot was outlawed more to help certain industries than because it is a dangerous drug. I have seen hemp used for everything from paper to clothing to ship sails.
I also beleive that all drugs should be legally sold by a pharmacist in a licensed pharmacy. I think a person of legal age should be required to sign off on a paper of the health risks, and tisk of addiction of a particular drug before being allowed to buy it. We spend so much money on the "war" on drugs that could be spent on other things. The only people that benefit are the drug dealers. They make huge profits for very little work (they do have high risk). I think crime would fall because the prices of the drugs would go down as they became legal. They could be taxed like booze and butts.
I hate smoking in restaurants even tho I smoke. But I think that we live in a free enterprise/capitalist country. If there is enough demand for smoke free establishments the market will bear it out. If enough people don't go to places that allow smoking they will close or change. If businesses can't find employees because they allow smoking they will have to change or close. I just dont think legislation is the answer. Allow the free market to determine what the people want. Most places went voluntarily no smoking before the laws were passes in Mass anyway. In N.H. you can still smoke in bars and restaurants but the majority of the do not allow it voluntarily. I think if the laws didn't exist most businesses would be non smoking anyway because most people prefer it. Maybe a few niche places would allow smoking (Smoke shops, cigar bars) but most would not allow it at all. Also, I think it should be one way or the other no smoking and non smoking sections because the smoke just drifts over to the non smoking section anyways. Just my opinion.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-03-2010, 03:06 PM:
quote: Chris Slycord
Now you can tell the future? Just because something is available to the public doesn't mean that people will use it and all kill themselves. You predict that more people will die whereas I predict that less people will use and therefore less people will die.
I'm basing my guess on the United States' past failures 100 years ago when hard drugs like heroin, morphine and other opiates were legal and widely available. Our nation's failures with other legal drugs like alcohol and prescription medicines add to that.
It sounds like you're basing your guess on examples of other countries like Portugal. However, Portugal is a much smaller country than the United States and has different demographics and a different culture. What works there may not necessarily work here.
Popular culture in the United States champions excess. Consume mass quantities. A guy who eats healthy or follows a vegan diet is met with laughter and called a pansy. A real man shoves steak into his face and doesn't worry about heart disease. Our country operates the same way with substance abuse. The United States consumes more marijuana, cocaine and heroin than any other nation. Moderation? What the hell is that? Add to the problem the growing number of kids being raised by their TV sets, gaming consoles and "cool kids" at school rather than their absentee parents. The lack of positive role models raises the risk for a teen or young adult to experient with the wrong thing and end up hooked for life over that mistake. This is a larger, fundamental problem that desperately needs attention. Much of our nation's problems with crime are growing directly because of how the nation's youth is being neglected.
Portugal hasn't totally legalized drugs either. They still bust drug dealers and high volume traffickers. What Portugal has done is place a far greater emphasis on treatment and rehabilitation of drug users. That's not so different from other Europeans nations. Portugal believes decriminalization will remove much of the stigma of drug abuse and bring users out of the "underground" to seek treatment. I'm not so sure about that. Stigma is a social thing. No one likes admitting he is an alcoholic. Addicts to hard drugs are seen in an even more negative manner.
I think the United States would do far better with treating drug addicts rather than throwing them in prison. However, I think the country can do that without widespread legalization of all drugs. It costs more to keep a man in prison for a year than the yearly tuition & board at most American universities. Rehab programs save money and jail space.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-03-2010, 04:16 PM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
A pot smoker has more freedom of choice to abandon that pot smoking activity at will since there is no physical addiction involved.
This is what always confuses me. There may be no proven addiction, but then why do pot smokers worship it? Why do they want it so damn badly? It seems to be almost the only thing some users like to think about. It's not like it's a cheeseburger or something as awesome as that.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-03-2010, 04:28 PM:
I think it is more of a cultural/fashion thing. Some people are really into Star Trek and love hanging out with other people who are crazy for Star Trek. Certain pot smokers come off the same way. Plus, Star Trek and pot both have great merchandising industries!
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-03-2010, 07:24 PM:
quote: Chris Slycord
2) It is patently false that no bars would decide to disallow smoking if given the choice. Before Washington State issued the state-wide ban, there already were several bars that were smoke-free. Some businesses make money by catering to a smaller, but loyal clientele.
I never said NO BARS would disallow smoking. That's why I included the following disclaimer in my post:
quote: Mike Blakesley
This might not be true in big cities if there was a large enough pool of non-smoking drinkers/gamblers to draw from.
I can tell you that if the ban were reversed here, at least 95% of the bars in Montana would go back to allowing smoking, guaranteed. The only ones that wouldn't are SOME of the ones in the larger towns, where there are enough non-smoking drinkers/gamblers to support them. Lots of small town bars are in serious financial difficulty because of the ban. (NOTE: I still support the ban, however.)
Joe: We can't afford to pay all the taxes, but we're doing what we can with our out-of-sight income and property taxes.
Posted by Cameron Glendinning (Member # 3516) on 03-04-2010, 12:09 AM:
quote: Joe Redifer
This is what always confuses me. There may be no proven addiction, but then why do pot smokers worship it? Why do they want it so damn badly?
Probably because they tend to mix it with cigarette tobacco. Nicotine is more addictive than heroin.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-04-2010, 03:12 AM:
quote: Joe Redifer
This is what always confuses me. There may be no proven addiction, but then why do pot smokers worship it? Why do they want it so damn badly? It seems to be almost the only thing some users like to think about. It's not like it's a cheeseburger or something as awesome as that.
You're looking at it in a way that says "the only reason people do drugs is because they are addictive." But the reality is that even with addictive drugs, people often do them because of other reasons. Like people with certain mental conditions will often gravitate towards specific drugs, because the effects of the specific drug offset the effects of their condition. Lots of people self-medicate in this way. Similarly, lots of people gravitate towards pot because of some of the actions it has.
For instance, THC has analgesic properties so it can help people with glaucoma and it helps stop vomiting for cancer patients under chemotherapy. And obviously it helps create a euphoria as well, which lots of people like. In fact, on the euphoria notion, it's been shown that the "runner's high" is not due to release of endorphins, but actually due to our endogenous canabanoid system. Yep, that's right. You create neurotransmitters that resemble THC.
quote: Mike Blakesley
I can tell you that if the ban were reversed here, at least 95% of the bars in Montana would go back to allowing smoking, guaranteed.
And as I said earlier:
Even if it was true that bars were extremely likely to allow smoking due to their clientele, why is it wrong for a business to cater to their clientele?
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-04-2010, 09:33 AM:
In this day and age it's "wrong" because the business will be exposing itself to various liabilities if it deliberately allows or encourages smoking.
Catering to the smoking customer's wants and needs is besides the point when it comes to smoking bans in public places and service oriented businesses that cater to the general public. The safety of the employees who work there day in and day out takes priority. Some consideration must also be made to other customers who are very sensitive to cigarette smoke, such as people with severe allergies or acute asthma.
If I was jobless and had a choice, I wouldn't work at any of our local casinos, bars, bowling alleys and a number of other places for the virtual fog of cigarette smoke that develops in those places from all the chain smoking customers. But a lot of people don't have a choice. They have to take a job wherever they can get one and worry about the huge amount of second hand smoke they'll be breathing in later.
Even without smoking bans being enacted for certain kinds of businesses (such as casinos and bars) I can see those businesses being forced to go smoke free anyway because of jacked up rates for worker's comp insurance premiums and other liability insurance premiums. It's kind of like having a diving board in your own private back yard pool. Your home insurance premiums go sky high to where you can't afford to have one.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-04-2010, 10:52 AM:
Maybe it's just me but every bar I went to that allowed smoking had staff who themselves smoked.
And sure, letting people smoke opens businesses to possible liability, but that's offset by the fact that they'll be catering to the clientele who will be coming in to buy your stuff. Using the business liability argument, we should ban skydiving businesses because those guys are opening themselves up to liability. And opening themselves up to a liability is a choice the business should be allowed to make.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-04-2010, 10:57 AM:
quote: Chris Slycord
And as I said earlier:
Even if it was true that bars were extremely likely to allow smoking due to their clientele, why is it wrong for a business to cater to their clientele?
The biggest argument among the smoking opponents is that allowing smoking "forces" employees to work in the smoky environment. Of course they don't consider that most of the employees smoke too.
There is a bar next door to my theatre. I swear, the employees there spend more time outside smoking, spitting and littering than they do working.
Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 03-04-2010, 01:37 PM:
My time in the showrooms on the Las Vegas Strip was of course a smoker's paradise. Customer smoke, carbon arc followspot smoke, plus all the pyro smoke we used for many of the acts. Sure, as a non-smoker I noticed all of that, but it didn't particularly bother me (didn't think of secondhand smoke issues, just like I didn't think about all the asbestos we used to literally roll around in when working up above the ceilings in those days).
Then, I took a job in the SoCal aerospace industry and worked/lived in a relatively smoke-free environment for four years. When I returned to working in 'Vegas showrooms, that's when I noticed the smell. In my clothes, and in my hair, every night coming home from work. Never noticed that before. Guess you just get used to it.
And about Mike's comment on smoker breaks, I kinda sorta envied the smokers in our lab. Seemed like they took breaks every hour. I took breaks too, but not like that. Fortunately I loved the work I did (as I generally do) - it didn't seem like work to spend hours on end in my cube.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-04-2010, 01:58 PM:
If you smoke, you get extra breaks that non-smokers are not privy to. Smokers NEED more breaks. Therefore smokers are less efficient human beings.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-04-2010, 04:00 PM:
quote: Chris Slycord
Using the business liability argument, we should ban skydiving businesses because those guys are opening themselves up to liability. And opening themselves up to a liability is a choice the business should be allowed to make.
There's a big difference. If someone visits a sky diving business or most any other business helping its customers engage in an inherintly dangerous activity the customer usually signs at least one or more release forms.
I've never been asked to sign a legal release form upon entering a bar, casino, bowling alley or any other place liable to be infected with copious amounts of second hand cigarette smoke.
Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 03-04-2010, 10:43 PM:
<----Does this face look like a smoker?
I'll answer that: Never.
My dad was a heavy smoker, but my two sister and I never took up the habit.
Posted by Carey Barber (Member # 1586) on 03-05-2010, 07:33 AM:
quote: Joe Redifer
If you smoke, you get extra breaks that non-smokers are not privy to. Smokers NEED more breaks.
Thank you!
Here is another case where the actual smoking is less annoying to me than the other irritants that inevitably go with it.
I have always said that the non-smokers should get a 5-10 minute 'nose-picking break' every hour or so. We should just go out back and put our fingers up our noses, while we stand in a huddle and chit-chat. No company would entertain that idea, but it seems just as fair to me as the constant smoke breaks.
I have a very poor sense of smell, so I guess I am lucky regarding smoking. (Not sure if I have a deviated septum or something, but I also have trouble breathing through my nose when I go to bed). Unlike some others here, the smell of someone actively smoking does not bother me too much. Perhaps because I have known so many friends and family members that smoked I have become less aware of it.
Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 03-05-2010, 10:00 AM:
[QUOTEIf you smoke, you get extra breaks that non-smokers are not privy to. Smokers NEED more breaks. Therefore smokers are less efficient human beings. [/QUOTE]
I always allowed my employees to take a 5-10 minute "Fresh Air" break one at a time if they chose to every couple of hours or so. This stopped the issue of why do the smokers get to take extra 5 minute breaks that I don't. The only thing was you had to go outside you couldn't just hang around the lobby. Most of the non smokers realized right away that freezing your butt off in the middle of January because you have an addiction is no real prize!
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 03-05-2010, 10:29 AM:
NYC has had no smoking regs now for a decade and has extend them to bars in the last few years; they originally were exempt. When the ban was extended to cover them, the owners cried and moaned about how much business they would loose. It was all, do I dare say, a smoke screen -- business dropped slightly here and there at first, but that was just and adjustement bump and then it leveled off and was back to normal. Most registered BETTER business -- all those who stayed away from bars because they couldn't stand smoke now were free to patronize them.
Like I said, I react really badly to second hand smoke. I don't drink, but bars and clubs were the places you had to go to meet people but I just couldn't do it. On the occasions when my friends dragged me to a bar or a club, within 20 minutes my eyes would get so irritated and inflamed that I would be squinting thru swollen lids with the eyes tearing profusely within 45min my throat was horse and lungs burning, feeling like I was suffocating. It wasn't fun and it certainly wasn't an attractive sight. It sure didn't get me dates. So I gave up on it. Why put myself through that torture just to get some?
Now that smoking is banned in every business in the city and in every public building, on occassion I MIGHT be persuaded to go to a sports bar or the like. I imagine there must be lots of people who are in the same boat who now can go to those traditionally smoke-filled establisments where before they couldn't.
As for the casinos, that seems like it would be a great experiment -- two addictions, let's see which one is stronger! Those who have a gambling compulsion have no choice but to go to the cassios; if they are addicted to cigs, then they would be forced to go outside and break up their game maybe in the middle of that high they get from winning. What would be really fun are the people who have really bad addictions to both -- you could make it a game with your friends -- just wait and watch to see when their heads would explode...hehe.
Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 03-05-2010, 02:55 PM:
When I was about 10, me and my cousin took a cigarette to try. I took almost 1 puff and coughed and gagged, that was it. Reminds me of a few years ago in China. I was sitting outside a shop, enjoying a beer, and the shop owner had to go inside. His son (about 5 years old) found his cigarettes and sat down and lit one up. He coughed and gagged for about 30 seconds, then threw up in the street. I was sitting there silently laughing my ass off. He then started stomping on the pack
Second hand smoke doesnt bother me. My mom smokes about 3 packs a day, I'm used to it. If you really want to experience second hand smoke, go to an AA meeting.
Posted by William T. Parr (Member # 677) on 03-05-2010, 04:03 PM:
Never have have smoked and hopefulyy never will.
Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 03-05-2010, 04:14 PM:
I've never been a smoker, but I grew up around many smokers. My mom finally quite when I was about 15-16 after watching my grandmother go through lung cancer after never smoking a day in her life.
I can't say I've never smoked a cigarette myself because I tried it a few times when I was younger and wanted to be "cool". I have also taken a drag off other's cigarettes when drinking. All told, I've probably smoked 10 cigarettes in my life.
When it comes to businesses like bars, I'm really surprised they can't see the up side to banning smoking. The majority of the population doesn't smoke and many people, like me, are less likely to enter a business that allows smoking. I guess there is an argument for the bars that cater to the alcoholics who show up by 10am any given day of the week.
I am also old enough to remember when you could still smoke most places in California. In fact, I was a busboy/dishwasher at a restaurant when they had to eliminate their smoking section and go all non-smoking.
Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 03-05-2010, 04:29 PM:
Don't smoke and never have. In Nov. of '92 I went to the emergency room with light chest discomfort, they immediately hooked me up to all the usual monitors which showed nothing outside of normal, about 10 minutes later I started having excruciating chest pain and pushed the button for assistance. Ten seconds later the cardiologist came in, took a look at me and the monitor, injected a clot dissolving med. listened with the stethoscope and asked me whether I smoked or ever had, I said no, his response was that increased my chances by about 80% and that in the next 30 to 60 minutes I would need all the lung capacity I had plus some to survive. A couple days later after I got a triple bypass I asked about his statement that I would need all the lung capacity I had. He said that about 70% of heavy smokers would have died.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-05-2010, 05:12 PM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
I've never been asked to sign a legal release form upon entering a bar, casino, bowling alley or any other place liable to be infected with copious amounts of second hand cigarette smoke.
The whole idea behind the release form is to give an official thing saying that you've been informed of the risks involved in whatever activity is going on. It's based on the fact that the risks involved may not be immediately obvious, whereas with a bar that allows smoking it will be both obvious in the sense that you'll see people smoking and in the sense that the risks involved with being around smoke are common knowledge. Like if you go to a sushi bar, no one makes you sign a release form that eating some sashimi is risky because it's expected that raw food can have a risk.
And many places are required to post if there is the possibility of chemicals/substances around that have some risk. Same rule could've just been applied to cigarettes. Or simply require a sign that says "This is a smoking establishment."
Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 03-06-2010, 04:59 PM:
Class action lawsuits are being carefully formed by business owners and (and big tobacco is surely helping) against government bans claiming lost revenue. A group of bar owners here in Iowa have been carefully documenting revenue since our smoking ban was put into affect. They are losing gobs of money from not selling cigarettes at the bar, smokers going outside to smoke instead of staying inside and drinking, utility cost increases from the doors being opened more frequently and all the extra heat being created in the winter by burning cigarettes, and bartenders having to go outside to smoke, thus leaving customers with empty glasses.
Personally I hope they win and the law gets overturned. There are bars around here that were non-smoking before the ban. They are nice places that did great business.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-07-2010, 12:42 AM:
quote: Chad Souder
Class action lawsuits are being carefully formed by business owners and (and big tobacco is surely helping) against government bans claiming lost revenue.
There is absolutely nothing more important than money. Not even your mom. You may think you love her, but trust me, money matters more to the world. It is more powerful than any individual, nation or even the entire world itself, even though it's value is completely imagined. It is only valuable because we say it is.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-07-2010, 11:32 AM:
quote: Chad Souder
Class action lawsuits are being carefully formed by business owners and (and big tobacco is surely helping) against government bans claiming lost revenue.
That'll never go anywhere. In most places the smoking bans were voted-in by the people; and if they weren't, and get overturned by some lawsuit, the law-makers can just run an election and the 80% of the public which doesn't smoke would vote the ban right back in.
Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 03-11-2010, 05:59 PM:
I can't speak for all states, but in Iowa there was no vote. Oddly enough, according to polling, a great number of non-smokers are either apathetic or solidly against smoking bans in bars. I would guess they simply oppose the idea of a legal activity being banned in a private business that people have the option of patronizing.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-11-2010, 06:23 PM:
Oklahoma is getting pretty close to banning the use of all tobacco products (including dip, snuff, etc.) from state funded college campuses. One state lawmaker and a former Oklahoma State University President wrote an amendment attached on current legislation. The proposed law would also make it possible for violators to be fined.
Some schools in Oklahoma have already banned tobacco use on campus. Second hand smoke gets most of the headlines, but the issue of cleaning up after tobacco users is a growing concern. Cigarette butts and brown tobacco juice spit wherever does create a mess. Here in Oklahoma, discarded cigarettes (often thrown from vehicles) start a significant number of wild fires.
Posted by David Favel (Member # 1125) on 03-11-2010, 06:37 PM:
Smoker, and loving it.
Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 03-11-2010, 09:46 PM:
Yes I still am a smoker
this is the only propper way to eq a room
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-12-2010, 12:03 AM:
LOL @ Sherlock Holmes pipe.
Posted by Manny Montes (Member # 5639) on 03-12-2010, 12:24 AM:
I am digging the pipe!
Here in Florida we do have a ban on smoking indoors (except on indian gaming land and casinos). A bar can apply to have smoking indoors, but only in the bar area, and I believe a large majority of their sales must come from alcohol. Though most bars/restaurants have not done this as many people enjoy the ban. As a smoker, if I want a smoke I'd always go outside anyway out of courtesy. The bartender doesn't need to inhale my smoke, and neither do fellow patrons. I would go outside, smoke and go back in, or I'd just wait until after I finished eating.
Also the legislation was on the ballot, so in Florida it was voted on, which is probably why it isn't a huge "debate" over here.
Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 03-12-2010, 12:22 PM:
one thing I think I should add is that in Massachusetts private clubs are still allowed to have smoking. So a lot of people who like to go to bars and smoke while they drink have joined thier neighborhood A.O.H., V.F.W., K.O.C, P.L.A.V. etc... I have heard from a few people that the smoking ban was a boon for private clubs and is even credited with saving a few local chapters!
Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 04-13-2010, 05:42 PM:
Let me try to get this straight; smoking bans are good because it is the only way to force casinos to be non smoking so non smokers (who seem to also be non gamblers) can go to the casinos and not gamble but breath clean air?
I don't smoke and I am 100% against smoking bans. Not because I enjoy going to smoke filled places but because I believe it is the proprietor's place to make that decision, not the government's. You can argue this point or that point, but that is all peripheral as far as I am concerned. All the non-smoker arguments can be flipped around anyway. You don't want to go see your favorite band because some other people cant go a few hours without smoking? Boo hoo! You can either go a few hours and deal with it or not go. It is that simple. It is easy to say you are ok with banning something that you don't like, but there is a ratcheting effect to government intervention, it only goes one way and eventually something you enjoy will be on the radar. I hate velveeta "cheese" and I wish more than anything that it would go away, but I am not going to support a ban on it.
One thing that I have always found interesting is how smoking has never been a major target of the environmentalists. Cigarettes are a major major contributor of greenhouses gases, methane mostly which is way worse than C02. I understand that smoking is starting to become less accepted in the liberal doctrine, but I guess not enough to make them go after smokers and leave decent hard working meat eaters alone.
And vegans are pansies, that is just something one must accept when choosing to be vegan, tough titty. I wonder about the effects of veganism on the evolution of humanity. Human evolution was spurred by the invention of cooking and eating meat. The likelihood of any evolutionary change is slim because no matter how much you try to brainwash your kids, they will probably eat meat anyway because it is good. Or simply because women are not attracted to guys that weigh less than 100lbs and they don't ever get laid.
Posted by Ian Parfrey (Member # 5122) on 04-13-2010, 05:49 PM:
If humans were designed to be vegans, then why are cows made of meat?
Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 04-13-2010, 06:03 PM:
Gordie's pipe pic reminded me of when I was a college freshman. My buds and I decided to be "Joe College", be super-cool, and start smoking a pipe...ya know for THAT college image thingie.
So we went out and bought pipes and "Cherry Blend" tobacco... I was NEVER soooo f*cking dizzy and sick in my life! YIKES! ![[puke]](graemlins/puke.gif)
Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 04-13-2010, 06:28 PM:
Just the idea of 'Cherry Blend' tobacco makes me ill...let alone actually trying the stuff.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-13-2010, 07:01 PM:
quote: Chris Hipp
One thing that I have always found interesting is how smoking has never been a major target of the environmentalists.
More than a few so-called "tree huggers" smoke cigarettes and pot. However, I have seen some environmentalists bash cigarette smoking for its role in causing wild fires.
quote: Chris Hipp
Cigarettes are a major major contributor of greenhouses gases, methane mostly which is way worse than C02.
The total amount of cigarette smoke exhaled by people is insignificant compared to exhaust from automobiles and exhaust from industrial activity. The farts from livestock (pigs, cows, etc.) probably put more methane in the air than cigarettes.
Chlorofluorocarbons are the biggest enemy to ozone in the upper atmosphere. CFC molecules come apart in the upper atmosphere. The stray carbon atoms combine with ozone molecules to form carbon dioxide. Stray fluorine atoms can combine with oxygen to form oxygen difluoride.
We have too little ozone in the upper atmosphere, but get way too much of it at ground level. Car exhaust is the primary contributor there. People can debate "climate change" and the "greenhouse effect" all they like. Ozone alerts are real. Ozone is bad for anyone to breathe and especially bad for people with asthma or other breathing problems.
quote: Chris Hipp
And vegans are pansies, that is just something one must accept when choosing to be vegan, tough titty.
Some vegans are very obnoxious. At least I don't have to worry about them helping drive up my taxes, health insurance premiums and workers comp premiums due to an unhealthy lifestyle choice. Most of the smokers in my town don't have health insurance. Considering our jails are already at or past capacity good luck to the government on forcing those uninsured (and often low income) people to pony up and buy health insurance. They'll have better luck getting blood out of a stone.
Women certainly aren't attracted to bony guys, although most vegetarians and vegans I've met didn't have the appearance of concentration camp victims. Likewise, women aren't very attracted to obese men either. And there's a LOT MORE people who are obese. Women also don't like men whose dicks don't work anymore due to the effects of obesity, heart disease, adult onset of diabetes, etc. Skinny guy with a working pecker is going to win that contest.
quote: Ian Parfrey
If humans were designed to be vegans, then why are cows made of meat?
If humans were really carnivores why don't we have long meat-tearing teeth like lions, tigers or bears? Why are our teeth more like that of horses? Shit, we don't have fangs like that of other primates.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-13-2010, 08:42 PM:
quote:
Let me try to get this straight;
Well it's impossible to get it straight within the confines of this board, because you'd have to get into politics. Opponents of smoking would love to see it banned completely, but most of them realize that banning tobacco would cost millions of jobs in farming, manufacturing and retailing, and exclude billions and billions of dollars from state and federal treasuries. It would also create a gigantic black market that would make the marijuana industry looking like a puny little kitty in comparison.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-13-2010, 11:19 PM:
quote: Ian Parfrey
If humans were designed
Who said humans were designed?
quote: Bobby Henderson
If humans were really carnivores blah blah...
Humans are omnivores, meaning we eat any and every god damned thing there is. We can eat anything. There is probably a TV show on some random cable channel about some person or people wandering around eating anything they find... wouldn't surprise me.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-13-2010, 11:44 PM:
The Travel Channel has one of those shows. It's kind of disgusting to see some tourist dude chew on a barbecued tarantula.
quote: Mike Blakesley
Opponents of smoking would love to see it banned completely, but most of them realize that banning tobacco would cost millions of jobs in farming, manufacturing and retailing, and exclude billions and billions of dollars from state and federal treasuries.
It doesn't stop there. Without smokers a pretty significant portion of the customer base of our nation's health care system would disappear. We wouldn't need as many oncologists, heart surgeons and other medical specialists that get a lot of their business from smokers suffering from serious, life threatening illnesses. The ripple effect would extend out to fewer McMansions being built and fewer Mercerdes Benz sedans being sold. There's a lot more money to be made off treating serious illness than preventing it.
OTOH, taxpayers would save tens of billions (if not hundreds of billions) of dollars not having to help fund treatment for most cases of lung cancer and a good portion of heart disease cases. That might actually help the economy if the government passed the savings along to the taxpayers.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-13-2010, 11:52 PM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
There's a lot more money to be made off treating serious illness than preventing it.
Truer words could not be said. But there is always some whack job trying to cure profitable diseases, stand in the way of capitalism and destroy America.
Posted by Gracia L. Babbidge (Member # 582) on 04-17-2010, 12:53 PM:
quote: Joe Redifer
quote: Bobby Henderson
There's a lot more money to be made off treating serious illness than preventing it.
Truer words could not be said. But there is always some whack job trying to cure profitable diseases, stand in the way of capitalism and destroy America.
Way to hit all the nails on their respective heads!
Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 04-17-2010, 02:26 PM:
My smoke-easy got popped I guess a few weeks back. When I went there last night someone had also since tried to drunkenly drive his new car through the front door with a car and kill everyone (not a joke) but I digress. . .
Apparantly, one of the guys there said this girl had come in one night (they think she is the one that called the health department) and said "Gee, you shouldn't be allowed to smoke in here." and left.
Now everyone (since 99.9% of the bar's patrons smoke) are forced to go out in the freezing cold to smoke.
They ought to make that bitch go and have her own special outdoor section.
For purposes of health insurance, if you smoke, you should be 100% responsible for carrying your own extra coverage for smoking-related disease, and there should be a reasonable amount of ventilation in indoor areas that let you smoke, but to delegate to a group of people who all smoke despite the dangers, is ridiculous.
I am going to join a private club myself, need to dig up my relative's discharge paper and try and get into a VFW post.
Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 04-17-2010, 03:34 PM:
A lor of the smoking bans were never voted on by the public. They were policies put in place by local health departments who said if you want to keep your license to sell food and beverage you cannot allow smoking. The local law (that was voted on by the city council) in the community where I was employed as a taxi driver before said the driver was not allowed to smoke WITH A CUSTOMER IN THE CAR. The local health department came down and slapped stickers all over the cars saying "No smoking" and posted a notice saying drivers who allowed thier passengers to smoke or were caught smoking with or without a passenger in the car would be fined $300.00. Even though I am a smoker I agree that Taxi's should be non smoking at all times because the smell does not go away but if the health department wanted to do this they should have went to the city council and petitioned them to change the law. Instead they make up thier own rules without any taxpayer oversight. Local health boards in Mass are appointed not elected. So what if the taxi company decided that the health board did not have the authority to enact this policy and refused to follow it? The health department would come down and close thier office for "Health Code Violations".
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-17-2010, 09:48 PM:
quote: Sean McKinnon
A lor of the smoking bans were never voted on by the public.
Are smokers so sure they want the issue of smoking bans put forth to the general public to vote on it? Smokers are a dwindling minority. Even here in Oklahoma, a state with one of the highest percentages of smokers, 1 out of every 4 residents is a smoker. How many of the 75% who don't smoke will see things the smoker's way?
I'm sure some will see the issue of personal freedom being more important. However, more than a few people share my feelings that tax dollars spent treating uninsured smokers suffering from a variety of smoking related illnesses is a type of welfare and generally a big waste of money. Anyone suffering from lung cancer needs to be treated, but future cases need to be prevented to ease the burden on taxpayers. Discouraging smoking by prohibiting it in many places (as well as placing heavy taxes on the product) can help do just that. Many of my coworkers have quit smoking because of those steps. Fewer insurance claims may help lower our insurance rates.
This is why alcoholics aren't put on liver transplant lists. My next door neighbor died last year of liver failure relating to her alcoholism. I certainly didn't wish for her to die, but I think it would have a big mistake if she had been given a liver for her self-inflicted disease while someone else needing a liver for another reason did without and died. Mickey Mantle got a liver transplant thanks to being a celebrity and died a year later. Pretty outrageous stuff. That high profile case is part of what toughened the rules.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-18-2010, 01:00 AM:
If I controlled the government, I'd tax the living hell out of cigarettes. Maybe 2,000 to 5,000%. What are smokers going to do? Complain? Or quit? Nah, they'll complain. They can't quit. Suckers. Except for the ones who do quit, of course. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 04-18-2010, 07:19 AM:
Back on topic: Nope, I'm not even on fire. Louis
Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 04-18-2010, 07:47 AM:
quote: Joe Redifer
If I controlled the government, I'd tax the living hell out of cigarettes. Maybe 2,000 to 5,000%. What are smokers going to do? Complain? Or quit? Nah, they'll complain. They can't quit. Suckers. Except for the ones who do quit, of course
The problem is that if you tax cigarettes too much then the smokers will just get them tax free at indian reservations and/or a HUGE black market for untaxed cigarettes will be created for the drug gangs and organized crime to serve.
What needs to be created is a smoking disease health insurance fund and everybody that purchases cigarettes needs to sign up and get some kind of card. Then everytime they purchase a pack they turn in their card and a certain amount of money gets charged (like a tax) and goes directly to their smoking insurance premium. Doing it this way solves the issue that such a high percentage of smokers are low income and aren't going to get health insurance no matter what the law says.
Although I don't subscribe to Bobby's "conspiracy theory" that smoking isn't banned in order to create more medical patients, it is very true that a majority of young people (under 50 years old lets say) that have major medical issues are smokers. Since it is an indisputable fact that smokers are much more likely to need expensive medical care, a system like the one I suggested should be implemented so that those that choose to smoke pay their own medical costs.
As a non-smoker that can't stand the smell of smoke I don't support smoking bans in restaurants/bars. There should be a regulation that if you allow smoking there needs to be a specification for proper ventilation and air filtration but the market should decide if smoking should be allowed. I know down here (south florida) there were many non-smoking restaurants before it was banned. The problem with the smoking bans is there is a slippery slope where the same arguments about public health can be made to ban something else (like that proposed salt ban in NY).
I hope I was successful in keeping politics out of this thread. I think my comments are OK since smoking is not a typical party line type of issue. If I accidentally veered into political territory I'll be happy to edit.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-18-2010, 11:25 AM:
quote: Lyle Romer
The problem is that if you tax cigarettes too much then the smokers will just get them tax free at indian reservations and/or a HUGE black market for untaxed cigarettes will be created for the drug gangs and organized crime to serve.
Smokers don't get cigarettes enitrely tax free at tribe operated smoke shops. The customers do avoid certain state taxes, but most federal related taxes still apply and are collected from the distributor rather than the cash register. That can push the price of a pack of cigarettes past the $6 per pack level. I know this because we have plenty of tribe run smoke shops around here and know people who still go to those places for their cigarettes. It's pretty bad if you have a 2 pack a day habit, sort of like having a car payment and no car to show for it. Even a 1 pack a day habit really adds up in cost. This is exactly why many of my coworkers have quit smoking.
I don't see gangs and organized crime being able to do much with selling cigarettes. There's not enough money in it for them. And cigarettes don't get the user high either. Anyone who is willing to venture out finding a dealer will probably get something with a little more kick to it.
quote: Lyle Romer
What needs to be created is a smoking disease health insurance fund and everybody that purchases cigarettes needs to sign up and get some kind of card. Then everytime they purchase a pack they turn in their card and a certain amount of money gets charged (like a tax) and goes directly to their smoking insurance premium. Doing it this way solves the issue that such a high percentage of smokers are low income and aren't going to get health insurance no matter what the law says.
I don't think such a system would work. Such a system would be heavily dependent on keeping as many smokers in the program as possible when odds are more likely a growing number of people would drop out of it.
The medical costs of cigarette smoking are so high such a tax/insurance program would make a pack of smokes cost $20 per pack or more. The current taxes collected don't come anywhere near offsetting those costs. Let's also not forget the costs for health care are rising far faster than the rate of inflation and income growth in America.
quote: Lyle Romer
Although I don't subscribe to Bobby's "conspiracy theory" that smoking isn't banned in order to create more medical patients, it is very true that a majority of young people (under 50 years old lets say) that have major medical issues are smokers.
Our health care system and the general public's vices are not so much a deliberate conspiracy as it is a very complex business plan that evolved into its current state. The fact does remain that the United States' health care system is grossly deficient in terms of preventative care and far more geared to the highly profitable reaction to disaster model of treatment. The general public helps out in this by living irresponsibly and only going to the doctor when something serious finally happens.
quote: Lyle Romer
As a non-smoker that can't stand the smell of smoke I don't support smoking bans in restaurants/bars. There should be a regulation that if you allow smoking there needs to be a specification for proper ventilation and air filtration but the market should decide if smoking should be allowed.
I have yet to see a smoking ventilation system that actually worked on eliminating the smell of cigarette smoke, much less eliminating the smoke itself. The smoke still drifts around, getting into the eyes, noses, hair and clothes of everyone nearby before it finally gets sucked out of the ventilation systems in the ceiling. And the smokers puff out a constant supply of new smoke making the "ventilated" environment smoky anyway.
Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 04-18-2010, 11:37 AM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
I don't think such a system would work. Such a system would be heavily dependent on keeping as many smokers in the program as possible when odds are more likely a growing number of people would drop out of it.
Such a system would not be voluntary. My idea would be that you must present your cards to get charged the premium/tax in order to buy cigarettes. Of course the cost per pack to insure smokers would be quite high but if you are going to deliberately ingest something that makes it orders of magnitude more likely that you will need expensive medical care then you should pay for that right, not me in my insurance premium.
I know the same can be said for obesity but until you get to morbidly obese levels, the risks of major medical issues doesn't go up anywhere near as high as smoking makes it go.
Hey, I've got an idea......instead of us non-smoking, in decent shape people subsidising smokers and other high risk behavior people's medical care through our insurance premiums, let's return to the way things were 30 years ago when my parents had "major medical" coverage (which was cheap) for the unlikely things like terminal diseases, major illnesses and unlikely accidents. Normal medical care was paid out of pocket and was MUCH cheaper on a yearly basis than insurance coverage is now.
I've been to a Doctor maybe 5 times in the last 10 years (and once was to get a tetanus booster shot). Even if it was $250 a visit my care would have cost under $1300 for 10 years. Instead it has cost me/my employer thousands PER YEAR. I would imagine that there are a very high percentage of middle aged and younger people that would end up spending under $100 per month on major medical coverage and out of pocket regular care.
Of course now it will be illegal for me to do that and I'd have to pay a fine starting a few years from now.
Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 04-18-2010, 12:16 PM:
If smoking was put to a national vote and outlawed all together it would really suck for me but it would sit a lot better than a quasi governmental agency making up "laws" as they go along without any taxpayer input. I don't disagree with the bans so much as I disagree with how they were implemented. As I said earlier in this thread I feel that the free market system would take care of this issue in itself. If there is a large enough market for non smoking establishments they will be created. If enough non smokers choose not to patronize smoking establishments then business owners will have to go non smoking to stay in business.
What I find interesting is that they villify cigarettes for hurting the health of smokers and non smokers through second hand smoke. I don't drink so I see alcohol the same way. Alcohol use harms the liver and other parts of the body. It can cause cancer of the mouth, liver, throat, and stomach which also puts a burden pn the country's health care system. Some alcoholics due to thier disease are unable to hold down a steady job with health insurance so when they get sick from alcohol related illness they have to be treated at emergency rooms on the public dime. Smoking in and of itself does not affect one's ablility to hold down a job or pay for health insurance. Alcohol also hurts people who choose not to use it through drunk driving, alcohol related assault, etc...
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-18-2010, 04:20 PM:
I'm not really a fan of outlawing anything outright, but most smokers themselves cannot be considerate so they must be forced to be. They do not care if someone else might be bothered by their smoke. So why should it matter who gets bothered, smokers or non-smokers? Either way, someone will be bothered. Let's bother the minority. But I agree with Sean, it should be put to vote. I believe it was on the ballot 4 or so years ago here in Colorado and the ban passed.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-18-2010, 06:54 PM:
quote: Lyle Romer
Such a system would not be voluntary. My idea would be that you must present your cards to get charged the premium/tax in order to buy cigarettes.
I wasn't clear in what I was saying. My term "drop out" of the system basically means the smokers would give up the habit because it was too expensive. And then the smokers who have been smokers for the long term still have some considerable chance of developing lung cancer anyway. That also turns out to be one the justificiations some people I know use to continue smoking.
quote: Lyle Romer
I know the same can be said for obesity but until you get to morbidly obese levels, the risks of major medical issues doesn't go up anywhere near as high as smoking makes it go.
That's not true. Lots of fairly thin people drop dead of massive heart attacks. You don't have to be obese to have high cholesterol and clogged arteries.
quote: Sean McKinnon
If there is a large enough market for non smoking establishments they will be created. If enough non smokers choose not to patronize smoking establishments then business owners will have to go non smoking to stay in business.
The problem is many non-smokers have simply tolerated smokers in places like bars and restaurants because they didn't want to get involved in any confrontation. There's at least a few smokers who get angry and even violent if someone nearby says their smoke is bothering them. It's either that or the person complaining about the smoke is called a pussy for having problem with it. This cultural factor is part of why the smoking bans are implemented. But even they don't entirely remove the element of confrontation. I've seen militant smokers raise all kinds of hell when told they couldn't smoke at Harlows, a local bar that has to have a non-smoking policy due to its entrance being in a hotel lobby.
quote: Sean McKinnon
I don't drink so I see alcohol the same way. Alcohol use harms the liver and other parts of the body. It can cause cancer of the mouth, liver, throat, and stomach which also puts a burden pn the country's health care system.
That's true, but far fewer people in the US die of alcohol abuse. The CDC says 13,000 Americans die every year from medical problems related to long term alcohol abuse. When you count alcohol related accidents and drunk driving deaths the toll is still well under 50,000. Roughly 400,000 Americans die annually due to long term smoking habits. Another 38,000 die every year from heart and lung disease acquired through second hand smoke. A non-smoker in a bar may have a greater chance of dying from second hand smoke than he does from the booze he's drinking.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 04-18-2010, 08:31 PM:
And it's dubious to say that alcohol and second-hand smoke are comparable in that you drinking alcohol near me doesn't give me liver disease.
Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 04-18-2010, 10:28 PM:
You're right chris it is dubious to compare smoking to alcohol. I would assume that you would have to be around someone smoking a pack a day every day for a few years before you had any negative affects from it. A smoker doesn't get cancer from his/her first cigarette so I suppose neither would someone exposed to second hand smoke. On the other hand all it takes i getting hit by one drunk driver to kill not only you but anyone else in your vehicle.
Or let's look at it this way you are driving in a car with me smoking (Let's say I have smokes a whole pack before getting in the car) you have never been previously exposed to second hand smoke as uncomfortable as this may be it is unlikely that you will die from it. Now I am driving this same car and drinking a beer (after drinking let's say only 12 beers not 20 lsike the smokes) what are the chances you walk out of the car alive and not seriously injured?
So more people die a year from smoking but those deaths are after years and years and many hundreds of thousands of cigarettes. Whereas alcohol related death can occur after only a few drinks or can kill someone who has never had a drink in thier life.
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-18-2010, 10:37 PM:
I am a kind of cigarette smoking nihilist. I smoke WHEN and IF I decide to smoke.
I can smoke one cigarette and not smoke again for 2 years. I control when I want to smoke. Tobacco does not control me.
I never smoked until I was 18. My father would have beat the shit out of me if he ever caught me smoking... Literally. He beat the shit out of me for lesser things and he promised me an even more severe beating if he caught me smoking. Then he died. It was about a year after that when I figured that, since he couldn't beat the shit out of me anymore, I could smoke if I wanted to.
The first pack of cigarettes I ever smoked was a pack of Gauloises I picked up while in Paris. I only did it because I could. The old man couldn't do anything because he was dead. Besides, it was legal. (Far be it from me to break the law... ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
)
A few years later, I was smoking an average of two packs of Newports per day. Sometimes I would smoke more. That didn't include the joints I would smoke. What the fuck? Who was going to stop me?
I tried to quit a few times, mainly because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I'd quit for a year then take it back up again. I think I quit two or three times. I don't know for sure. I never really counted.
I would smoke anything. I smoked Marlboro or Winston. I smoked lights or menthols with equal enjoyment. I went through a phase where I only smoked Dunhills and there was a time when I smoked Chesterfield Kings. The ones I liked the best were hand rolled cigarettes made from tobacco I got right out of the fields in North Carolina. (Or, at least, that is what the guy who sold the stuff to me said.)
Then there came a time when I just decided I was done smoking. I don't know... I was bored with it. Smoking didn't float my boat anymore. I only smoked because I was addicted. It took about a year to get down from 2+ packs of cigarettes per day to about half of a pack per day. I'm not certain but maybe my wife had a lot to do with it. After that, I started taking Wellburtin and chewing Nicorette. It took me about 4 months to totally quit. I didn't touch another cigarette for about 4 or 5 years.
Right now, I couldn't care less whether I smoke or don't smoke. In the last year, I have probably smoked about 6 to 10 cigarettes. I don't even remember. If I want to smoke, I'll cop a ciggy. If I don't want to smoke I won't. It took many years for me to come to this place in my life but, looking back, I can't understand, for the life of me, how anybody could let tobacco rule their life. (Mind you, tobacco DID rule my life for nearly 20 years!)
As I see it now, I don't see why a person can't smoke a single cigarette, a pack of cigarettes or even a whole carton of cigarettes if he wants to. But I also don't see why a person HAS to smoke a cigarette if he doesn't want to. If he enjoys smoking, why not? But, if he is smoking just to satisfy a habit, it makes no fucking sense!
Somebody who can't smoke a single cigarette just because he wants to smoke a single cigarette and not feel compelled to smoke the whole pack is a weakling in my book.
Somebody who smokes a cigarette just because he thinks other people will look upon him as "cool" or "though" is just as much a weakling.
Right now, I could take a smoke out of your pack, light it, take a drag from it, inhale it and hand the burning cigarette to you and I would not want to smoke another because I just don't fucking care about tobacco anymore.
As far as I am concerned, I could take it or leave it. If tobacco ceased to exist tomorrow, I would not miss it. If the skies opened up and it rained cigarettes, I would not care. I might smoke one just to see what they tasted like. (They'd probably taste like shit because they've been all over the ground.)
Yes, I know tobacco is addictive. I've been addicted. Honestly, I can't understand why people feel like they have to smoke when they don't really want to. Shouldn't you smoke because you enjoy it?
Bottom line: Smoke if you want. Don't smoke if you don't want. It's no skin off my ass.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-19-2010, 03:38 AM:
Smoking does not intoxicate and impair your judgment and reaction times like alcohol does, so comparisons are really hard between the two.
It is a person's own choice whether to smoke or not, I just wish (in my fantasy world) that nobody desired to smoke via their own free will.
Posted by Joshua Waaland (Member # 287) on 04-19-2010, 09:05 AM:
I used to smoke during different times in my life. I had my first cigarette when I was about 10. I smoked a lot in high school and then stopped when I met my wife in college. It is hard sometimes when I drink or am stressed out to not want a cigarette. I know they say in constricts your blood vessels and should make you more anxious but it always had a calming effect on me.
We put it to a vote here in our county a few years ago and the voters put a ban in place against smoking in public places like restaurants and bars.
Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 04-19-2010, 12:28 PM:
That's my whole point Joe. Both nicotine and alcohol are addictive drugs that cause health problems not only to the person who chooses to use them but also can cause health problems to people around them who choose not to drink or smoke. My point is that alcohol addiction also causes severe mental harm to friends and family members of the addicted person that smoking in most cases does not. Smoking harms both the smoker and people around them but it does it very slowly over a long period of time. Alcohol also causes health problems to the heavy drinker slowly over a long period of time but due to it's intoxicating properties and it's impairment of judgement and motor skills it has the potential to harm both the user and the general public in a more immediate and catastrophic nature. How many cigarettes does it take to get lung cancer? I don't know but would guess more than 12. How many beers does it take to cause a drunk driving accident?
What I am trying to say is that these are two addictive substances that cause long term health problems for the user and can affect the health and well being of those around the user. however alcohol can have a more immediate life ending effect on the user and public where smoking takes many years to kill. Smoking has turned socially unacceptable (which is fine IMO even though I smoke I try very hard not to harm or inconvenience those who choose not
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-19-2010, 04:28 PM:
I don't see nicotine and alcohols as being somehow equal (or alcohol being worse) in terms of deadly nature. And the annual death toll really speaks to that.
Not everyone who drinks alcohol chooses to drive drunk. Not everyone who drinks alcohol gets addicted to it and becomes an alcoholic, much less a terminal alcoholic who dies of it.
I don't know the numbers on it, but I would be willing to bet there are significantly more adults in the United States who drink than smoke. Yet the medical death toll from alcohol related liver failure is only 3%-4% of the death toll from cigarettes. The reason for this is pretty simple: cigarettes are more addictive than alcohol. It's easy to drink in moderation. Most drinkers are only occasional drinkers. A person has to binge drink and do so on pretty much on a daily basis to develop a physical dependency, or addiction, to alcohol. It doesn't take nearly as much effort to get addicted to nicotine. A new smoker can be addicted to nicotine in as little as a couple of weeks of smoking regularly.
Certainly alcoholism and drunk driving are both serious problems. This weekend here in Lawton some older fellow west of town cutting the grass on his riding lawn mower was run over and killed by a 26 year old man who lost control of his vehicle. This accident happened in the middle of the day. The dude driving the car was drunk. The story was all over the news. Violent, tragic deaths are often news-worthy items. The many thousands who die of lung cancer, COPD, smoking attributed heart disease and emphysema don't make the TV newscasts. You only read about their passing in the obituary section if you look for it -or even read stuff printed on dead trees anymore.
Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 04-19-2010, 06:56 PM:
I agree that there are more persons addicted to nicotene than to alcohol but in terms of harm reduction there are more medical options for weening ones self off of nicotene than thier is for alcohol. I am sure a lot more people die from smoking related illness than alcohol related illness but more people also die in auto accidents than from handguns. Some people smoke everyday for 60 years and don't develop canver or emphysema, a lot of people drink everyday and don't get into drunk driving accidents. I just do not see differentiating between deadly addictive drugs. This country has a tendency to do just that to say one thing is ok and another is not. Remember in the 30's you could smoke anywhere you wanted anytime you wanted but having a drink of alcohol was a crime.
Also it may be easy for some to drink in moderation but if someone suffers from the disease of alcoholism it is impossible. Active alcoholics cannot choose to stop drinking once they have started the same way some people can. It is a proven medical fact. Look it up in the DSM Four.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-19-2010, 07:01 PM:
I do not believe that alcoholism is a disease. I'll give it "self-inflicted condition", at best. I wonder what "disease" people who are addicted to nicotine have?
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 04-19-2010, 09:24 PM:
Alcoholism isn't necessarily self-inflicted, though. For instance, genes related to enzymes involved in alcohol metabolism are linked with alcoholism tendencies.
quote: Sean McKinnon
Both nicotine and alcohol are addictive drugs that cause health problems not only to the person who chooses to use them but also can cause health problems to people around them who choose not to drink or smoke.
The problem with making such a statement is that one who is around someone who smokes is automatically affected by the smoke. The nicotine will be sent to me through the air. The same isn't true of alcohol.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-19-2010, 10:21 PM:
quote: Sean McKinnon
I am sure a lot more people die from smoking related illness than alcohol related illness but more people also die in auto accidents than from handguns.
On average 17000 Americans die in alcohol related car accidents yearly, which is roughly 40% of all auto accident deaths in the United States. But that doesn't really have anything to do with 400,000 Americans dying annually of their smoking habits.
Here's an interesting statistic: 430472 deaths as of March, 2010. That toll is the sum total of all American military deaths in combat from World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the wars we have been fighting in the middle east over the last 20 years. That series of conflict spans almost 100 years. Yet it takes only one year for nearly as many Americans to die from a smoking habit. And when you factor in the second hand smoking deaths then smoking surpasses that combat deaths total.
quote: Sean McKinnon
I just do not see differentiating between deadly addictive drugs.
I do. Especially when the death tolls are radically different in scale.
Nicotine via cigarette use is the world's most deadly drug. It kills more people than any other drug. A lot more people. In the United States, cigarettes are the 2nd leading cause of death. Heart disease deaths from poor diet and sedentary lifestyle is the top cause. The top two causes of deaths in the US are preventable causes. But the food industry and America's tradition of camping out on its collective big butt is a broad (no pun intended) and complex problem. The issue with nicotene isn't complex. The tobacco cigarette is the specific culprit, one that is easy to attack and worthy of being attacked.
quote: Randy Stankey
As I see it now, I don't see why a person can't smoke a single cigarette, a pack of cigarettes or even a whole carton of cigarettes if he wants to. But I also don't see why a person HAS to smoke a cigarette if he doesn't want to. If he enjoys smoking, why not? But, if he is smoking just to satisfy a habit, it makes no fucking sense!
I think addictions may affect different people to varying degrees. I'm not going to call a smoker a weakling if he wants to quit smoking but cannot due to his addiction to nicotene. I've never been addicted to nicotene so I don't personally know how hard it is to quit. Based on what I've seen it sure as hell doesn't look easy.
Differences of addiction severity could lie in individual personality and will power. Body chemistry and genetics could be involved. It took my parents seeing my maternal grandfather dying of lung cancer to quit smoking and the sight of that disease process convinced them to quit cold turkey. My boss' older brother had a collapsed lung and spent a week in the hospital due to an illness stemming from his smoking habit. That guy has wanted to quit smoking ever since, but more than 10 years later he's still smoking like a chimney stack.
I've often seen comparisons of nicotene addiction being as intense as heroin addiction. That really sucks. That statistic, the death tolls and lots of other info has been commonly available for many years now. I guess the folks I would label as "weakling" or "dumb ass idiot" are the teens and other young people who start smoking now despite all the warnings.
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-19-2010, 11:06 PM:
My father was a smoker and an alcoholic. I can't remember a time when he didn't have a beer in one hand and a cigarette in another. I grew up in a bar. EVERYBODY around me smoked and drank. I didn't smoke because I thought it was "cool," per se. I just smoked because that's what everybody did. Smoking was "normal."
The only reason I didn't smoke till I was almost 18 is because the old man would have beat the shit out of me if he ever caught me. I mean that literally. It would have been a genuine ass-beating. I'm not joking. I had several ass beatings for more minor things.
I am aware of what it it like to be addicted. I have done just about every substance that doesn't take a needle to use. I was well on my way to becoming a multi-substance addict. I drank quite a bit and I smoked and popped pills almost every day.
I went to AA and NA. I had outpatient treatment. I did a short stint of inpatient treatment in a locked ward as well. I took individual psychotherapy and group therapy. I took pastoral counseling. I think I did just about everything.
There is physical addiction and there is psychological addiction. Both of those are easy to understand and, if you put your mind to it, they can be beaten. But the thing that is a real bitch to beat is neurochemical adaptation.
Neurochemical adaptation causes fundamental changes in the way you think and feel. It is not a physical drive to take drugs. It is not to satisfy a habit. You actually undergo personality changes when you use drugs and, the more you use drugs, the more pronounced those changes become.
You can be "off" drugs for years and still be under the influence of neurochemical adaptation. For heroine and nicotine, I think it can take ten years or more for your brain chemistry to normalize again. That is why people find it so hard to quit smoking or doing other drugs.
They don't understand neurochemical adaptation or they simply think that neurochemical adaptation is the same thing as psychological dependence. It is not. Doing drugs actually makes you become a different person. Once you realize that and learn to apply it to your own life, the rest of the habit becomes easy.
You can take anti-nicotine drugs and you can chew Nicorette or use other kinds of nicotine replacement. You can exercise and lose weight and do all sorts of things. But, unless and until you understand the third part of the puzzle, it's probably not going to make a lot of difference what you do.
Once I understood this and learned how it applied to me, everything else became easy. I thought, "How could I be so stupid?"
To be clear, the "weakling" comment was hyperbole. But there is still a grain of truth to it. You will NOT quit smoking until you understand what it is that keeps you smoking and you learn how to overcome it.
Smoking is a learned habit. To quit smoking, all you have to do is "unlearn" the habit.
Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 04-19-2010, 11:42 PM:
quote: Randy Stankey
Smoking is a learned habit. To quit smoking, all you have to do is "unlearn" the habit.
A simplistic observation, but true enough, I guess.
When I started in radio, just about everyone smoked, and smoking was allowed in pretty much every control room I worked in. It made working on cart machines a whole lot of fun, as those things circulated air all the time.
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-20-2010, 10:32 AM:
Never said it was easy. Just that anybody who wants to and who puts his mind to it can accomplish it.
Smoking around equipment like that is just wrong.
I never smoked around equipment like computers or projectors, etc.
Never smoke in the darkroom or in the electronics lab. Never smoke in food preparation areas. Never smoke in somebody else's home unless they do it first. Never smoke in an office unless there is a specific policy allowing it. Never smoke near somebody who is eating unless you ask first.
If you have a private office you can allow smoking there if you want. Smoke in a designated smoking area if you feel the need. Otherwise, go outside or go to the smoking lounge. If you can't wait a few minutes or even an hour before you smoke you have a problem that's a lot bigger than being addicted to tobacco.
If people had common sense, quit acting so selfishly and exhibited some common courtesy we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place.
Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 04-20-2010, 10:59 AM:
Randy, thanks for adding some sensibility to this discussion.
Joe, the only post on here that I have any respect for is your last one.
We'd be in real trouble if you were the dictator of a banana republic that we lived in. Seems you're very eager to impose your views on other, or maybe it's just because it's the 'net. IDK.
Imposing your viewpoints on a bar where 99 out of 100 patrons smoke is arbitrary dictatorial. It's not a hospital for Christ's sake.
There are pictures from the '40s of people smoking sitting on a gasoline station island. What about the oiler in "There Will Be Blood" smoking down IN THE OIL WELL?
That is extreme stupidity, and with all human endeavours, it seems, we are swinging back in the opposite direction of extreme stupidity.
Let's ban music and movies because they are ultimately just feel-good nothings that waste our time too and deprive us of a portion of our lives by being distracted into seeing them ![[uhoh]](graemlins/uhoh.gif)
Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 04-20-2010, 11:56 AM:
Smoking tobacco, like every drug that is restricted today, had beneficial origins. The short-term benefits of nicotine include relaxation, appetite suppression, increased concentration and it is a laxative. Studies have shown long term benefits include protecting against Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Nicotine itself takes a good long while to become addicted to.
Fast forward to our tobacco companies mixing in things that speed up addiction, which add all sorts of nasty problems and causes people to want to smoke much more frequently. I don't smoke and I'm not condoning smoking. It does stink and leaves a mess. There are also the obvious disadvantages. Do the positives outweigh the negatives? I doubt it. But, as with every drug that is restricted, there are some medical benefits. The trick is, if your need for one of the benefits outweighs the potential hazards, to limit consumption and use as clean a product as possible. Having consideration for those around you that are bothered by it certainly wouldn't hurt either.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-20-2010, 11:58 AM:
Jonathan, what the hell are you talking about?
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-20-2010, 02:19 PM:
quote: Jonathan Smith
Imposing your viewpoints on a bar where 99 out of 100 patrons smoke is arbitrary dictatorial. It's not a hospital for Christ's sake.
The only kind of bar where 99 out of every 100 people are going to smoke is a hookah bar or cigar bar where the main attraction is selling stuff for people to smoke. Most people in bars even here in friggin' red-neck Oklahoma don't smoke.
quote: Jonathan Smith
Let's ban music and movies because they are ultimately just feel-good nothings that waste our time too and deprive us of a portion of our lives by being distracted into seeing them
Movies and music aren't killing 430,000+ Americans every year. Cigarettes are killing that many people and costing our economy hundreds of billions of dollars. That's quite an extreme difference, which is merely one reason making the movies and music analogy irrelevant.
The rational of "we need ban all the other bad things in the world before we ban cigarettes" is a real non-starter for me. If we handled any controversial issue with such an impractical, utopian-laced approach we would never solve any problems much less pass any laws. Cigarettes and the diseases caused by the product is a very obvious, very deadly, very costly problem that deserves to be solved despite what other problems remain in our society.
Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 04-21-2010, 10:48 AM:
I dunno maybe I am not explaining my point properly here. I understand cigarettes kill more people annually than alcohol related death. However some people do die from alcohol related illness, and some peopel who have never had a drink die from it, or are negatively affected by someone else's drinking. I see it like the difference between a handgun and a sword. I am sure in today's day and age more people die every year from gun inflicted injuries than sword inflicted injuries but they are both weapons and they both kill albeit in different ways. It is possible to use both a handgun and a swords without killing anyone also. To me it is the same with nicotene and alcohol. They are both drugs, they are both addictive, they both lead to long term disease, and they both have the potential to harm others who do not use the substance.
As far as Joe's comments about alcoholism not being a disease I find it helpful to review the definition of what a disease is;
quote:
disease /dis·ease/ (dĭ-zēz´) any deviation from or interruption of the normal structure or function of any body part, organ, or system that is manifested by a characteristic set of symptoms and signs and whose etiology, pathology, and prognosis may be known or unknown.
By that definition alcoholism causes a documented change in the normal brain chemistry when someone who is an alcoholic drinks alcohol and alcoholism is defined by a characteristic set of symptoms whose pathology is well known and documented. Alcoholism is a progressive disease that leads to death if untreated. There is no cure for alcoholism or other forms of addiction but with treatment it is possible for the addicted person to remain substance free and to lead a happy, productive, and succesful life.
Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 04-21-2010, 11:20 AM:
Bobby: In a state where smoking indoors is illegal, the only bars that are left that DO let you smoke are almost entirely populated by smokers. Others have gone elsewhere as all of the law-abiding bars here don't let you smoke.
I'm not exaggerating 99%
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-21-2010, 12:59 PM:
Jonathan, your example is an sounds like an exception, not the rule. Further it doesn't quite make any sense. You're saying that smoking is outlawed indoors (including bars) in Ohio, yet some bars are deliberately letting their customers smoke anyway? If that's the case then Ohio must have some really lackluster regulation enforcement.
Here in Oklahoma, ABLE commission is at the other extreme. They're out constantly looking for bars that screw up and allow underage drinking, even to the point where ABLE pays underage minors to try to enter bars and buy a drink. With some bars unable to allow cigarette smoking due to their locations within a restaurant or hotel ABLE has added anti-smoking enforcement to the list of things they can use to bust bars and fine the living hell out of them. Consequently, bar operators usually don't screw around taking any chances. Most places have 100% ID checks. It doesn't matter if you look like you're 80 years old. If you don't have a valid ID you're not entering the bar.
quote: Sean McKinnon
I dunno maybe I am not explaining my point properly here. I understand cigarettes kill more people annually than alcohol related death. However some people do die from alcohol related illness, and some peopel who have never had a drink die from it, or are negatively affected by someone else's drinking. I see it like the difference between a handgun and a sword.
Annually, nearly 3 times as many Americans die of diseases stemming from second hand smoke than they do of diseases related to alcoholism. The total of second hand smoking deaths is still greater than the combined total of drunk driving deaths and deaths from long term alcoholism.
I agree alcohol abuse can lead to tragic consequences involving non-drinkers. It still doesn't make alcohol equally as bad or worse than cigarettes, especially when a greater number of non-smokers are dying as a result of exposure to second hand smoke.
Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 04-21-2010, 01:40 PM:
You have to be exposed to smoke from several hundred thousand cigarettes, or more to die from it second hand.
Look at the people that are getting it first-hand from a half-a-million cigs before they die.
So, I think, in moderation, it's no worse than chomping on bubble gum or working around gasoline all day.
And, again, auto exhaust is worse for you, outdoors, than exposure to second hand is.
Indoors, it depends on the area. I've been in bowling alleys where you could have 1,000 people lit up and you couldn't tell the following day.
You shouldn't be allowed to smoke in booths, hospitals, little offices, but in a bowling alley, a bar that is 100% full of smokers nearly all of the time?
Come on.
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-21-2010, 03:29 PM:
I grew up in a bar. My parents owned a bar. It was attached to my house. I was cleaning ashtrays, washing glasses and taking empty bottles out to the trash as early as I can remember. I was stocking beer coolers and changing beer kegs as soon as I was strong enough to lift them.
People go to bars to drink and smoke and cuss and swear and cheat on their spouses and do all sorts of things that they wouldn't ordinarily do in polite company. Basically, bars are "adult playrooms." As such, bars are also considered to be "default smoking areas."
IF the owner of a bar decides that it is in his business interest to not allow smoking, that is entirely his right. IF the owner decides that it is in his interest to allow smoking that should is also his right.
NOBODY ELSE HAS THE RIGHT TO DECIDE THAT FOR HIM!
If he discovers that he doesn't have enough customers to turn a profit in his business or if he discovers that he can't get any employees who are willing to work in that atmosphere, that's HIS problem. He will either have to change his policies or close his business.
Dictating whether people should be allowed to smoke in a privately owned business is like trying to dictate what movies should be allowed to be shown in a movie theater.
Most of you would scream holy hell if somebody tried to say that you shouldn't be allowed to show "Kick-Ass" because an eleven year old girl commits mass murder. However, you all sit there and not in agreement when somebody tries to tell a bar owner how to run his business.
It's all about the old saying, "I don't agree with your opinion but I will fight to the death for your right to say it."
Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 04-21-2010, 03:48 PM:
Right on, Randy!
Hell, just the NAME "Kick ASS" used to be enough to get you shut down.
It used to be we had a thought/race/gender/tits police in this country.
Now it is the PC/health police.
I'll be God-damned if someone can PROVE that my smoking a cigarette, outside, is causing harm to someone next to me on any more of a level than the signal from their cell phone is irradiating my brain.
Eating a flame-broiled hamburger, or standing next to a burning candle is JUST AS BAD, I kid you not.
And all this crap about smoking harming the environment, cigarette ash is GOOD for the environment. Why do they thing that fire departments do CONTROLLED BURNS every year?
It's not just to cut down on excess brush, the flora grows back faster, stronger in areas that have burned down than it does in open fields.
I GUARANTEE that, 40 years from now, there is going to be as much crap about cell phones radiation, shielding, and signals as there is about cigs today.
I know, I know they serve and active purpose, but why is it all land lines now have to be cordless? Why can't you just get a 20 foot cord and quit spewing radiation all over the room every day?
People need to put things in perspective. Cigarettes, are they bad for you, sure!
But is second hand smoke bad, yes, as bad as a candle or incense, or a hamburger cooked over an open flame. Hell, ionization from a projector bulb is probably just as bad for your lungs.
Carbon arcs were worse. Nitrate was far worse.
What about the chemicals used to make film. Should film be banned because some idiots dump the silver-laced bleach and fixer down the drains instead of getting paid money by a company that will come and take it out?
Should film be banned so they can use all the silver to make a bunch of obsolescent BS computer equipment and coinage with it instead?
Every law, no matter how well intentioned, that is put on the books, serves to further restrict the fabric of our societies. There used to be TEN laws (and, no, I don't believe in God; I believe in common sense, human rights, and helping my fellow man). Now how many are there, ten million?
Some well-thinking person made crossing the fucking street except on a crosswalk illegal. He made sleeping off a few beers too many in your car a DUI (without the engine on). He made having an ashtray in a bar (without anyone smoking for years) a $150 fine in my state.
Randy has pointed out, quite wisely, that people ought to be held to their own common-sense to decide for themselves. Many bars and restaurants started enacting their OWN smoking bans in 2005 in this state.
Laws like this shouldn't be enacted to make up for the inadequacies or the underfunding of law-enforcement.
Each individual incident of public misbehavior needs to be evaluated individually, not with some broad-sweeping generalized BS law handed down from on high.
Is driving 110 MPH bad? Not if your wife needs a C-section and is dying. Not if you're late to your friends' funeral, or on a way to a wedding.
Is shooting someone of the opposite race to death bad? Not if he is in your home trying to rape your wife.
Is having an abortion bad? If your husband doesn't know anything about it, and is providing you with all the money you need, maybe it should be.
Sorry to get political, but this sort of excessive legislative posturing on here makes me sick. It reminds me of the song "Signs."
You can smoke weed indoors in California with a "prescription" (they ought to just legalize it and drop all the bribery and the facade already), but you can't smoke a cigarette in a bar full of other smokers, or in a stadium (or outside during the game, even with a ticket stub) that was 10% FINANCED by taxes on cigarettes.
Sorry to get worked up about this, I am not even a full time smoker, maybe 3-4 a MONTH, but I really resent people on this forum ranting on here about how OTHER PEOPLE should do this and that and that. Who do you think you are to think you can read someone else's mind, and judge them, punish them, when people are all just trying to get by, feel alright, be successful, and live comfortably?
There are, I think, evil people in this world, but so much of the tragedies in human history have come from simple misunderstandings, linguistic anomalies, superstition, that everyone ought to step back, take a deep breath and put theirselves in other people's shoes before they cast a stone.
Joe, if you have never been addicted to a drug, you have NO RIGHT to cast judgement on others that have. If you grew up in a home with smokers, or in the 1940s, or had the disposition that you enjoyed the smell of smoke (a lot of people do, I do) you could just-as-easily be a 2-pack-a-day smoker as anyone else on here.
I always try to give people, even those I don't see eye to eye, the benefit of the doubt because each of us are wired a little differently, have our own inclinations, but are basically good people at heart.
I've met very very few people in this life who are truly evil. Even people I hate, my worst enemies, I don't consider a single one of them evil, bad. They may be chronically misinformed, misbehaving, idiotic, or childish, but I can understand where they are coming from when they do things that make me see red.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-21-2010, 04:32 PM:
Jonathan, last I checked you did not write the Constitution so it would be ill-advised to claim what rights I have.
And by the way, I did grow up in a house of smokers. My mother and my grandmother got lung cancer. Both of my grandmothers, if fact. It killed them both. Heck, my grandfather died from emphysema due to smoking. I don't see where I am casting judgment, though. Maybe, due to your addiction (which, of course, absolves you of any and all responsibility), you are hallucinating text that isn't there in my posts? You're really grasping for straws here in your defense of smoking.
Like I said, it is an individual's choice if they want to smoke or not, I just wish that they didn't have any desire to smoke via their own free will. Nothing I say will make any smoker quit.
quote: Jonathan Smith
I GUARANTEE that, 40 years from now, there is going to be as much crap about cell phones radiation, shielding, and signals as there is about cigs today.
Probably not, as technology will improve.
quote: Jonathan Smith
Every law, no matter how well intentioned, that is put on the books, serves to further restrict the fabric of our societies.
So you believe in anarchy? Do you honestly believe our society would function well without any laws at all?
quote: Jonathan Smith
Is driving 110 MPH bad? Not if your wife needs a C-section and is dying. Not if you're late to your friends' funeral, or on a way to a wedding.
If you are late for a funeral or a wedding, it is your own tardy ass' fault in the first place for not managing your time correctly. Learn how to be on time. It is not an excuse for speeding and endangering others' lives. That's just stupid. Regardless, it certainly is bad if you get into a wreck and kill people while driving that fast. That's why you call for a police escort or the like.
quote: Jonathan Smith
Who do you think you are
The same can be asked of you.
Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 04-21-2010, 05:48 PM:
quote: Joe Redifer
which, of course, absolves you of any and all responsibility)
I find that people who have strong opinions one way or the other about addiction have been affected by it. A lot of people think that by saying addiction is a disease absolves the addict from any personal responsibility to take care of themselves or manage thier disease. This could not be further from the truth. It is the same as if a diabetic keeps eating a diet high in sugar and does not check thier blood sugar it is not the diseas's fault it is thiers. It is the same thing if a drug or alcohol addict does not do what they need to manage thier disease wether it be to go to counseling, meeting, or medication. Once a person knows they are an addict it is 100% thier responsibility if they pick up a drink or a drug again. The reason it is so important that addiction is classified as a disease is because many people have tried to treat it as a moral thing or a flaw in character with almost no success. When treated as a medical/psychological disease thier is a much higher success rate. An addict cannot will themselves to be not an addict it is not a question of character or will power, with treatment they can stop drinking or using drugs but the underlying disease will always be with them. There is no cure. It is thier responsibility to manage it and stay in treatment. It is no "free pass"
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-21-2010, 06:55 PM:
It doesn't matter whether smoking cigarettes causes you to burst into flames. (But it would be cool to watch! Woudln't it? )
Smoking cigarettes is a voluntary activity.
It doesn't matter whether second hand smoke has the toxic effect that some people claim it does. If you don't like cigarette smoke you simply tell the other person that you don't like it and POLITELY ask him to move downwind of you.
The point I am talking about is that it is not right to make relativistic claims in order to get restrictive laws passed for or against any activity that isn't directly harmful to another person.
Joe, I'm sorry that your mother died of cancer. I know it's not a nice thing to happen. But, since my father died of alcoholism, we should also outlaw all alcohol. My grandfather died of hypertension so that means we should outlaw salt. My other grandfather died of diabetes. That means we need to outlaw sugar. And, because I have a second cousin once removed who drowned in a swimming pool, that means we need to outlaw swimming pools.
Or, maybe we could spend some time and energy on alcoholism treatment and research for heart disease and other diseases?
It doesn't follow that we should pass a law about something because a few people are affected in some way. EVERYBODY has been effected by something. If we followed the trend to its logical conclusion then just about everything would be illegal.
The point is that, beyond establishing a minimum age to drink or buy alcohol, the government has no business sticking its nose into other peoples' lives.
Too many people have become too dependent on government to solve their problems when they could simply say to the guy smoking that cigarette in the seat next to them at the bar, "Hey, buddy, do you mind moving down a couple of stools?"
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-21-2010, 07:16 PM:
quote: Randy Stankey
Joe, I'm sorry that your mother died of cancer.
She did? SHIT!!!!!!!
quote: Randy Stankey
But, since my father died of alcoholism, we should also outlaw all alcohol.
Where the hell did I say that we should outlaw smoking? Is everyone more stupid as a result of April 20 or something? Read my posts, people! Don't assume you read something that isn't there.
quote: Randy Stankey
The point is that, beyond establishing a minimum age to drink or buy alcohol, the government has no business sticking its nose into other peoples' lives.
So there should be no penalty for DUI, you're saying? In my opinion, anyone who gets a DUI is an idiot once. If they have more than one DUI, they are a born idiot incapable of learning from past idiocy.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-21-2010, 07:36 PM:
quote: Jonathan Smith
You have to be exposed to smoke from several hundred thousand cigarettes, or more to die from it second hand.
Regardless of your made up statistic the CDC says 38,000 Americans die from second hand smoke every year.
quote: Jonathan Smith
And, again, auto exhaust is worse for you, outdoors, than exposure to second hand is.
Try backing up this claim with some proof. Let's see where more than 38,000 Americans are dying of car exhaust yearly.
According to the CDC, 500 people per year die in the United States of unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning -the main, deadly ingredient in car exhaust. Outside of that you have smog and ozone coming from car exhaust. 4000 people in the US die of fatal asthma attacks on average per year.
quote: Jonathan Smith
Indoors, it depends on the area. I've been in bowling alleys where you could have 1,000 people lit up and you couldn't tell the following day.
The senses of smell and taste are diminished in smokers.
quote: Jonathan Smith
You shouldn't be allowed to smoke in booths, hospitals, little offices, but in a bowling alley, a bar that is 100% full of smokers nearly all of the time?
Again with the notion bars are filled 100% with smokers?
I think you're making up that story, especially considering Ohio doesn't have as high a percentage of smokers as Oklahoma. It's still legal to smoke in most bars within Oklahoma. As I said earlier, the majority of customers in bars in Oklahoma don't smoke. Non-smokers are in the majority now.
quote: Randy Stankey
Dictating whether people should be allowed to smoke in a privately owned business is like trying to dictate what movies should be allowed to be shown in a movie theater.
Has anyone ever died or contracted a life threatening disease by watching movies? Are taxpayers having to shell out billions of dollars subsidizing medical treatments that came as a consequence of watching movies? The only deadly activity I can think of involving movies is high risk sexual activities going on in porno theaters. Hasn't the Internet put most of them out of business already?
quote: Sean McKinnon
I find that people who have strong opinions one way or the other about addiction have been affected by it.
I agree with that to a certain extent. My mother's father's death from lung cancer (and seeing the guy 1 month before his death after one of his lungs had been removed) helped me decide at an early age that smoking was a very stupid thing to do. On the other hand, my Aunt Delores (my mother's older sister) languished in a coma for over 15 years before finally dying. She was put into her coma all thanks to a drunk driver.
So I have something personal against cigarettes and alcohol (drunk driving in particular). But even with personal feelings for lost relatives noted, I can still objectively look at the staggering difference in numbers, both in terms of deaths and monetary costs. Cigarettes are the worst, specific cause of preventable death in the world.
I'm all for any proposed smoking ordinance being put forth to a vote of the people. Chances are strong any measure would pass since the number of non-smokers is growing.
quote: Randy Stankey
It doesn't matter whether second hand smoke has the toxic effect that some people claim it does. If you don't like cigarette smoke you simply tell the other person that you don't like it and POLITELY ask him to move downwind of you.
In a perfect world the smoker will politely comply. But we live in an imperfect world. I've seen militant smokers in action plenty of times to know asking a smoker to move downwind is a potentially risky thing. It could get you involved in a fist fight or worse. So most non smokers just put up with it to avoid a confrontation.
quote: Randy Stankey
The point is that, beyond establishing a minimum age to drink or buy alcohol, the government has no business sticking its nose into other peoples' lives.
It becomes the government's business when it has to use countless billons of dollars of taxpayers money to help pay for lung cancer treatments given to lots of uninsured, underinsured or post retirement age smokers.
Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 04-21-2010, 08:24 PM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
Regardless of your made up statistic the CDC says 38,000 Americans die from second hand smoke every year.
This is a purely estimated statistic. I'm not saying you made it up, I'm saying the Center For Disease Control did. Doctors really have no idea what causes cancer, since it is such a random disease. George Burns actually smoked cigars - it wasn't just part of his act - and he was over 100, wasn't he? Cancer isn't enough of a sure-thing for it to be positively linked to any specific cause. That is probably largely due to the fact that almost all cancer research goes toward how to cure it, not how to prevent it. That's probably because a lot of research is funded by pharmaceutical companies, which is a whole different discussion. Keeping people well doesn't make money, but I digress. Think about it - how many things over the last 30 years supposedly caused cancer only to be later determined to be perfectly safe? My own personal opinion is cancer is highly stress-related, but who really knows? So they'll say so-and-so died of heart disease and he or she lived in house with a smoker, so we'll count that as caused by second-hand smoke, then do some math to estimate how many times that must happen in the US and come up with 38,000. Never mind the person was also obese and only brushed their teeth once a week. It's a faulty statistic. If there is real evidence linking second-hand smoke to death, I've never seen it.
quote: Bobby Henderson
4000 people in the US die of fatal asthma attacks on average per year.
They know no more about what causes asthma than they do cancer. I had asthma until I outgrew it around age 17. I grew up between rural West Virginia and rural Iowa, where I was NEVER around smoking, smog, excessive exhaust, or any other usual suspect. It's purely speculation this makes for an invalid reference.
Randy - I completely agree with you on the government's role, but don't want this to dive further into the realm of politics.
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-21-2010, 10:38 PM:
Joe, I read: "My mother and my grandmother got lung cancer. ...skim...skim...skim... It killed them both."
My mistake. ![[Embarrassed]](redface.gif)
Still, I'm sorry that your mother got cancer.
By the way, I do use telegraphic language and figures of speech.
So, when I say something like, "Besides making establishing a minimum drinking age.....", I assume that the reader understands the other things like making it illegal to drive while drunk or to give alcohol to minors and other common sense things that go along with it.
If we couldn't use figures of speech and telegraphic language and expect others to understand a broader meaning from them, we would all have to speak like Mr. Spock all the time. Of course, you are right. We need other laws in a similar vein regarding things like alcohol. It should be illegal to drive while intoxicated, regardless of the substance.
If you ask a person to stop smoking or to move a couple of seats down and he threatens you he is likely committing a crime and that's another matter all together. If the situation happens in a bar it might fall within the bartender's job description to deal with the situation. Although many rules of behavior are relaxed, basic civility is still a requirement. I have heard my father tell many a customer, "Hey buddy! Cool it or get the fuck out!"
If the situation were occurring outdoors different rules apply. Would it be just as easy for you to move upwind? Or, even better to go somewhere else? I can't think of many outdoor situations were it would be an inconvenience for me to move a few feet in order to avoid smelling smoke.
If I was at a stadium watching a baseball game (or some similar situation) and there wasn't a smoking/no smoking section we would be back to the same scenario that occurred in the bar. If the guy tried to escalate the situation afterward when you were on the street, that would be a crime.
There is a civil way to handle these types of situations in the great majority of cases. I really don't think it is necessary for people to ask for laws to deal with situations they don't have the courage to handle themselves. It's not right to use relativistic excuses to justify it either.
We should not allow government to intervene in more and more intricate areas of our daily life because that can start us down the proverbial slippery slope. Before we know it, we'll be so restricted by minuscule laws that we won't be able to do anything anymore.
I truly think this is a real risk.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-21-2010, 11:19 PM:
quote: Chad Souder
This is a purely estimated statistic. I'm not saying you made it up, I'm saying the Center For Disease Control did. Doctors really have no idea what causes cancer, since it is such a random disease. George Burns actually smoked cigars - it wasn't just part of his act - and he was over 100, wasn't he?
I'm more willing to take the word of doctors, scientists and the Centers of Disease Control regarding cigarettes and lung cancer deaths than non-experts who are doing little more than spit-balling a guess. The arm chair doctors always have an anecdotal story of a single 100 year old codger that reached that age despite smoking. They're either mentioning someone like George Burns or a story from a friend whose cousin's father's uncle's great great grandfather lived to be 120 by smoking 3 packs of Marlboro reds and drinking a fifth of Jack Daniels everyday. It's bullshit.
quote: Randy Stankey
We should not allow government to intervene in more and more intricate areas of our daily life because that can start us down the proverbial slippery slope. Before we know it, we'll be so restricted by minuscule laws that we won't be able to do anything anymore.
Lawyers and lawsuits are already managing to do that in many ways. It's getting to where you can't install a diving board on a swimming pool in your own private back yard without your home owner's insurance premiums going through the roof in price hikes.
The problem I have with smoking is the huge number of deaths and enormous levels of monetary cost coming from it. I don't like my tax dollars paying for treatments of preventable illnesses. It's like a type of welfare.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-22-2010, 12:13 AM:
Where's Heenan when we need him?
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-22-2010, 12:58 AM:
The government should not be paying for other people's medical problems. Neither should the government have taken millions of dollars worth of bribes... oops, I mean "campaign contributions"... to look the other way when marketing and manufacturing companies manipulated the truth in order to sell more cigarettes. But, again, we would have to wade through a quagmire of relativism to answer questions like this and we would likely get nowhere.
(e.g. "Why is one thing allowed when another thing is just as harmful?")
It is within government's responsibility to say whether it will pay for some things or not pay for others. Without jumping into the above-mentioned quagmire, I will say that the government's sense of what to pay for or not pay for is severely screwed up. Examples will, no doubt abound.
Lawyers are not normally part of the government but they can use the government as a tool to harass others. This should not be allowed, either. However, this is another question for another day because there's no good answer to how we can limit frivolous or abusive lawsuits without limiting other lawsuits which may be extreme cases but are not frivolous. To be more aggressive in cutting off bad lawsuits makes it more likely that we will cut off good lawsuits too. That's a thin gray line that's difficult to draw.
Still, there is no reason why somebody shouldn't be allowed to smoke a cigar and drink a glass of cognac on a special occasion or smoke a cigarette during a night out with friends. That doesn't mean that people should become long-term habitual smokers but if it wasn't for the abuses by manufacturers that we talked about above, this wouldn't be so much a problem, either. Would it?
It is perfectly within rights for a business owner to allow smoking or not to allow it. It is perfectly within rights for a person to decide whether he should smoke or not. As long as somebody isn't breaking the law, there's no reason why they shouldn't be allowed. (Taking into consideration countless Spock-like enumerations of laws and/or minuscule regulations that might or might not exist or even be reasonable.)
It is also a person's responsibility to be courteous when and where he smokes, to comply with a polite request to not smoke, to refrain from smoking in places where not allowed and to dispose of his refuse and cigarette butts when done smoking.
It is a fucked up sense of right and wrong that has gotten us into the position this country is in and, unless people put their foot down and stop the silliness it's only gong to get worse. Yes, it will take time and, in the process things will seem fucked up in different ways. Because no two people are guaranteed to share the same sense of right and wrong, it will be virtually impossible to come to an agreement on how to best unfuck things. Debates on whether things like cigarettes or alcohol should be allowed are just one symptom of how fucked up our system has become.
Unless people start putting their collective foot down and say, "Enough!" it's not going to improve.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 04-22-2010, 01:36 AM:
quote: Chad Souder
That is probably largely due to the fact that almost all cancer research goes toward how to cure it, not how to prevent it.
The fact that they do research to find things that give one an increased risk of getting cancer shows definitively that they are researching how to prevent it.
quote: Chad Souder
George Burns actually smoked cigars - it wasn't just part of his act - and he was over 100, wasn't he?
Genetics couldn't have possibly played a role in that? No, couldn't be. It's obvious proof that scientists were wrong.
It's an absolute fact that the relative risk of developing lung cancer is significantly higher amongst smokers. Saying that George Burns proves they were wrong is like saying that acetaminophen (or paracetamol as you dirty foreigners like to call it ) isn't linked to general headache reduction because I met a guy who it doesn't work for.
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-22-2010, 01:59 AM:
Assuming that George Burns was a heavy smoker because he did so in the movies is a logical nonsequitur.
George Burns may have smoked a lot of cigars in movies and on TV but we don't know how much he actually smoked in real life. He might have been an avid smoker but his on-screen persona as a cigar smoking, old man is probably not in line with the amount of smoking he did off screen.
Otherwise, it would be like saying that James Doohan was a scientific genius because he played Mr. Scott in Star Trek movies. He might have had above average intelligence even though he claimed to be a scientific klutz but it would be wrong to assume that he could repair complex, futuristic machinery because did so in a movie.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 04-22-2010, 02:12 AM:
Plus, cigar smokers are less likely than cigarette smokers to get lung cancer (but still significantly higher than non-smokers).
Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 04-22-2010, 05:17 AM:
quote: Chris Slycord
Plus, cigar smokers are less likely than cigarette smokers to get lung cancer (but still significantly higher than non-smokers).
Are they more susceptible to mouth and throat cancers?
Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 04-22-2010, 09:59 AM:
quote: Chris Slycord
It's an absolute fact that the relative risk of developing lung cancer is significantly higher amongst smokers.
quote: Chris Slycord
Plus, cigar smokers are less likely than cigarette smokers to get lung cancer (but still significantly higher than non-smokers).
Please take time to read posts. It saves time by keeping people from having to repeat themselves. I was responding to Bobby's comments and we were both talking about SECOND HAND smoke. At the very least, George Burns and every other cigar smoker in the world inhale a substantial amount of SECOND HAND smoke, their own, which is what we were talking about. Sure, it's just one guy. His name just popped into my head. But if you're saying genetics can prevent cancer, then genetics can also accelerate it along with a multitude of other variables. There are oodles of people who get cancer, including lung cancer, that never smoked and weren't around second-hand smoke.
quote: Chris Slycord
The fact that they do research to find things that give one an increased risk of getting cancer shows definitively that they are researching how to prevent it.
Again, please read before you respond. That word "almost" in there indicates that I am fully aware research is done as to what causes cancer. Just not much compared to how much is done on how to cure it.
quote: Bobby Henderson
I'm more willing to take the word of doctors, scientists and the Centers of Disease Control regarding cigarettes and lung cancer deaths than non-experts who are doing little more than spit-balling a guess.
Look, if you want to check some statistics, do your own searching and look at percentage of smokers by country, then at death by cancer by country. When you find the two lists don't match very well, get back to me. I'll give you some help for starters. Google "cancer by country" or "smokers by country" and don't click on any links that have spit-balling in them.
And Randy, George Burns did interviews in which he talked about his cigar smoking. Cigar Aficionado had one awhile back.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-22-2010, 10:34 AM:
quote: Chad Souder
Look, if you want to check some statistics, do your own searching and look at percentage of smokers by country, then at death by cancer by country.
When you examine the issue of lung cancer deaths in other countries a lot of variables have to be considered. Most other developed nations have health care systems that are geared far more in the direction of preventative care than our system which prefers the more profitable approach of reacting to disaster. The United States is the world's fattest country. People in other developed nations on average lead more active lifestyles and consume a lot less fat and processed foods than we do. That might help skew their lung cancer death percentages lower if they are lower.
I don't know what the current situation with smoking is in Japan, but when I lived there 30 years ago I remember a LOT of Japanese adults smoking. If that country's incidence of lung cancer is lower than the United States part of that could be attributed the average Japanese diet consisting of a lot of vegetables and fish. There's more cancer fighting properties in those foods than a bag of Doritos or a fried chicken wing. Maybe Japanese cigarettes have less of the really nasty ingredients American companies put in their cigarettes. Genetics may play some part.
Nevertheless, we're talking about what is happening with citizens in this country, not someplace else. We're talking about the United States and how the tax dollars of American citizens are getting wasted on treatment for diseases that are preventable. Whatever is happening in China, India or elsewhere is irrelevant to what cigarette smoke is doing in the United States. The link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer has been proven. And it is a matter of fact that many Americans are being killed by it and costing everyone else in this country lots of money.
Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 04-22-2010, 12:41 PM:
quote: Joe Redifer
If you are late for a funeral or a wedding, it is your own tardy ass' fault in the first place for not managing your time correctly. Learn how to be on time. It is not an excuse for speeding and endangering others' lives. That's just stupid. Regardless, it certainly is bad if you get into a wreck and kill people while driving that fast. That's why you call for a police escort or the like.
The two examples I gave were imaginary, but being late for a funeral wasn't.
It was John Pytlak's funeral, and I didn't see you there Joe. I wouldn't have known you at that time by looks, but I'm sure I would have heard your opinions on everything from all the way across the reception.
I told his wife and daughter I was sorry for being late; John helped me get a batch of movie film made one time, so I felt it necessary to drive to Rochester to pay my respects.
His daughter told me how John had once talked his way out of a speeding ticket driving 90MPH to see a Fighting Irish game.
Anyway, you are right, when you are late, it is your fault, no one else's. If you leave on time, and you have construction all the way down the interstate that no one you called told you about, or some asshole brake-checkign you for a forty-mile stretch of interstate, it is still your fault. He was probably reading my mind too, and passing judgment since he has never been late, or been at fault, for anything.
You should definitely call the police and tell them you are driving 110MPH.
They approve of that, and it wouldn't take any time at all for them to meet with you, especially from a payphone.
Or maybe I just should have missed the entire thing, or called the church and told them to wait for me
Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 04-22-2010, 12:51 PM:
I don't dispute cigarette's are very deadly and that more people die from smoking related illness every year than alcohol related illness/crashes. However what I am curious about is with the cancer statistics do they take into account other factors like if someone smoked and worked in an asbestos factory, or chemical plant? How do they choose what caused the cancer when there are competing factors? What if it was 50% smoking and 50% the toxic smoke spewing plant next door? Do they count it as half a smoking death or does smoking take all the blame?
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-22-2010, 01:14 PM:
Jonathan, it sounds like you are trying to imply that you are better than me because I did not attend Pytlak's funeral. Your thinly veiled insults pointed at me also seem to imply the same thing. You are the one who is being judgmental, Jonathan. You seem to have a very big problem with me. I am not insulting you personally, but you are attempting to personally attack me. You are the one taking the low road here. Just come out and state what's really on your mind.
And no, road construction does not give you an excuse to speed and endanger other people's lives.
For the record (and off topic), I hate funerals (and "visitations" are right out). I like to remember people when they are alive. Funerals do not help me emotionally nor are they a good way for me to say goodbye. They may help others and that is fine, but they are certainly not for me. That does not make me a cold-hearted bastard or anything.
Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 04-23-2010, 03:19 PM:
Bobby - We are in agreement then on part of your post. My whole point was, like you said, a lot of other variables to have to be considered. We do eat poorly. We are fat. We live less healthy lives than other countries. Our squares may indeed be mixed with more garbage. Where we disagree is that despite all these variables, the focus goes right back to the smoking as being the evil entity. Everything that goes into our body contributes to our balance of physical and mental health.
There is a whole other argument that smokers actually generate far more money than they cost, but that's getting off topic. The short summary is - years of smoking a highly taxed product contributes far more in tax dollars than the tax money spent on tobacco related illness by uninsured patients. It's an interesting argument, albeit a little dark.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-23-2010, 03:57 PM:
quote: Chad Souder
Where we disagree is that despite all these variables, the focus goes right back to the smoking as being the evil entity.
Smoking is the most obvious and most simple element to remove from the equation and the one element whose removal is going to give the most positive result.
quote: Chad Souder
The short summary is - years of smoking a highly taxed product contributes far more in tax dollars than the tax money spent on tobacco related illness by uninsured patients. It's an interesting argument, albeit a little dark.
Those tax dollars aren't covering the costs of treatment to uninsured, under-insured and post retirement age patients (receiving medicare and medicaid funding for their treatment). Hospitals absorb a great deal of losses from unpaid bills as well. All of this is contributing to the runaway cost inflation of health care in the United States.
Also, I've heard the arguments the cigarette industry puts more money into the American economy than what it costs the country from its negative aspects. Every major cigarette manufacturer is also heavily involved in the food business and other businesses. It's easy to inflate their numbers.
Then there's the moral point. Cigarettes are proven to be a dangerous and even deadly through long term use. If cigarettes were not physically addictive I wouldn't have quite as negative an attitude towards them as I do. The vast majority of cigarette smokers can't simply quit smoking whenever they feel like doing so or smoke only on rare occasions. Not only do the cigarette manufacturers know this, they have been proven guilty of increasing the addictive properties of their cigarettes to make it even more difficult for smokers to quit. That's fucking evil. Fuck those companies. After all, that's what they're saying to their customers.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 04-23-2010, 04:01 PM:
quote: Chad Souder
Sure, it's just one guy. His name just popped into my head. But if you're saying genetics can prevent cancer, then genetics can also accelerate it along with a multitude of other variables.
No shit. There are lots of things that go into it. But if you look at the whole group of smokers vs the whole group of non-smokers, lung cancer appears in a larger percentage amongst the smokers. Now, unless you're saying that people who were already prone to getting cancer are somehow more likely to start smoking, smoking would be linked to it.
quote: Chad Souder
There are oodles of people who get cancer, including lung cancer, that never smoked and weren't around second-hand smoke.
There are oodles of people who get liver diseases that never drank alcohol, therefore alcohol isn't related to liver disease.[/sarcasm]
Regardless of what, exactly "oodles of people" really means, statistically people who smoke are more likely (percentage-wise) to get lung cancer than people who do not. Yes, some people still develop cancer without it, but that is absolutely an implication that they aren't related.
quote: Chad Souder
Bobby - We are in agreement then on part of your post. My whole point was, like you said, a lot of other variables to have to be considered. We do eat poorly. We are fat. We live less healthy lives than other countries. Our squares may indeed be mixed with more garbage. Where we disagree is that despite all these variables, the focus goes right back to the smoking as being the evil entity. Everything that goes into our body contributes to our balance of physical and mental health.
It might have something to do with the fact that we are looking at lung cancer. See, obesity is linked to cancers of the breast, endometrium, colon, kidney, esophagus and stomach. But not much at all for lung. Smoking increases your risk for lung cancer more than being fat does.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-23-2010, 05:40 PM:
quote: Randy Stankey
George Burns may have smoked a lot of cigars in movies and on TV but we don't know how much he actually smoked in real life.
Yes we do. (Well, we old farts do.) I remember him talking about it on the Tonight Show once -- it's one of my favorite bits of video.
Carson: You smoke a lot of cigars, don't you?
Burns: I smoke between eight and ten of these a day, and I usually have a glass of wine with lunch and dinner.
Carson: What does your doctor say about that?
Burns: He's dead.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-23-2010, 08:21 PM:
I wonder how many dead smokers stayed faithful to their habits with encouraging words along the lines of "George Burns smokes a lot and is really really old, that means I'll live a really long time too even if I keep smoking."
They could use George Burns for that rationale or the legendary, unnamed friend of a friend's brother's uncle's father in law's sister's brother who lived to be 100 and smoked 5 packs a day.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-23-2010, 09:00 PM:
If you read that article about George Burns linked above, you'll note that he says he never inhaled on a cigar.
Of course you can still get all kinds of nasty stuff from cigars and cigarettes even if you don't inhale. I think the bottom line is just crazy luck for a lot of people.
My dad smoked like a chimney from age 12 until he died at 77, and he drank about 15 beers a day. Did he die from lung cancer or liver failure? Nope -- pneumonia.
Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 04-23-2010, 10:32 PM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
Those tax dollars aren't covering the costs of treatment to uninsured, under-insured and post retirement age patients (receiving medicare and medicaid funding for their treatment). Hospitals absorb a great deal of losses from unpaid bills as well. All of this is contributing to the runaway cost inflation of health care in the United States.
100% on the money. The cost to the healthcare system of smokers is astronomical. Even those with insurance are driving up the premiums of non-smokers. If you could wave a magic wand and immediately stop all smoking in the US you would probably see AT LEAST a 25% reduction in health care spending (once enough time has passed for the people who have smoked to be weeded out so to speak).
Personally I don't understand why somebody would want to smoke knowing the health risks. Especially since cigarettes smell like crap and stain everything with tar. Even really poorly educated people can't be stupid or oblivious enough not to know how bad smoking is for you.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-24-2010, 12:49 AM:
Yet they do it anyway because they think it is cool.
I feel like rolling up on one of the smoking teens standing front of Lawton High School and slapping him in the teeth with a sledgehammer for his blatant, retarded, costly stupidity. But it wouldn't do any good. All of his fucking retarded idiot friends would smoke even more out of spike. And I would go to jail. So screw all that. Nevertheless, anyone under the age of 30 or perhaps even 40 has no excuse whatsoever to smoke. Might as well load a 1911 model .45 semi-auto handgun and play a little "Polish Roulette." Same difference.
At any rate, anyone who willfully chooses to begin smoking in this day and age is a fucking idiot. There is NO legitimate defense for the smoking industry. It is a scourge of society regardless of anyone making any profit from it. Every smoker I know wants to quit but cannot quit because he or she is hooked -all thanks to the magical ingredients those cigarette companies load into their "coffin nails."
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-25-2010, 01:36 PM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
Every smoker I know wants to quit but cannot quit because he or she is hooked
I don't think I buy that. They might say they want to quit, but they really, deep down inside, at the bottom of their being, love to smoke.
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-25-2010, 02:15 PM:
I've known several smokers that had no desire to quit and quite enjoyed it. This particularly true of the pipe and cigar smokers. I've also known some cigarette smokers that enjoyed it too.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 04-25-2010, 03:05 PM:
quote: Mike Blakesley
I don't think I buy that. They might say they want to quit, but they really, deep down inside, at the bottom of their being, love to smoke.
Could that be because the nicotine in tobacco causes increases the neurotransmitters relating to the brain's reward system? And could it be compounded by the fact that tobacco smoke has monoamine oxidase inhibitors, which means that the breakdown of those neurotransmitters is inhibited?
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-25-2010, 03:49 PM:
quote: Chris Slycord
Could that be because the nicotine in tobacco causes increases the neurotransmitters relating to the brain's reward system? And could it be compounded by the fact that tobacco smoke has monoamine oxidase inhibitors, which means that the breakdown of those neurotransmitters is inhibited?
I dunno. I asked Dad once why he didn't quit smoking and he said "I enjoy it too much." He didn't mention neurotransmitters or monoamine oxidase inhibitors.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 04-25-2010, 04:43 PM:
quote: Mike Blakesley
I asked Dad once why he didn't quit smoking and he said "I enjoy it too much." He didn't mention neurotransmitters or monoamine oxidase inhibitors.
And didn't I say that those are involved in the brain's reward/pleasure system? You can't say "It's not the drug; they just enjoy it too much" when the drug itself modulates their enjoyment.
Posted by Ian Parfrey (Member # 5122) on 04-25-2010, 05:14 PM:
Smoke makes people cough, yet some inhale it on purpose.
Sorry. Don't get it.
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-25-2010, 05:47 PM:
quote: Chris Slycord
Could that be because the nicotine in tobacco causes increases the neurotransmitters relating to the brain's reward system? And could it be compounded by the fact that tobacco smoke has monoamine oxidase inhibitors, which means that the breakdown of those neurotransmitters is inhibited?
Neurochemical adaptation.
There are dozens and dozens of chemical processes inside the brain that are affected by smoking from the action of neurotransmitters to chemicals that mimic the action of morphine inside the brain. These chemicals actually alter the way a person thinks, feels and acts. As a person smokes (or take other drugs) his brain adapts to being in that altered state.
This goes over and above what people classically think of as addiction.
There is a physical addiction where the body adapts to being given a certain amount of the offending substance. This changes the heart rate, the way the organs and digestion operate and, when withdrawn, will cause PHYSICAL symptoms of discomfort and pain.
There is psychological addiction where people become used to using drugs as a crutch or escape mechanism. When they feel anxious or have other negative feelings they learn to turn to drugs to make them feel better. Upon withdrawal, the reality of life's problems begin to return, causing panic attacks and emotional problems.
Neurochemical adaptation (or neurochemical addiction, if you will) is a third, lesser-known facet of addiction that can take years to overcome. A person can overcome physical addiction in a period of weeks or months. Psychological addiction can be overcome with psychotherapy or group therapy like A.A, et. al. But neurochemical addiction can hang on for extended periods of time. It will actually alter the way a person thinks, feels and acts and he will not normally be conscious of his own behaviors. He will actually be drawn back to drug-taking behaviors as a form of "self-medication" to overcome his perceived sense of dysphoria born out of neurochemical drug withdrawal.
It is not unheard of for neurochemical addiction to take ten years or more to resolve.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-25-2010, 06:41 PM:
Sounds like a great deal! Gimme some substances, its totally worth it!
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-26-2010, 08:34 AM:
Even coffee will do the same thing. Ever see a heavy coffee drinker in the morning before they have their first cup?
Personally, I quit drinking coffee over a year ago. Same reason. I just got sick and tired of being sick and tired without it. So I quit. Wasn't hard.
Now I drink, maybe a cup of coffee per month. Usually decaf.
Beer and cigarettes? Maybe 2 or 3 beers per month. I might smoke once or twice per year.
Until you quit and have been off "substances" for a long time you don't notice how they change you. After you have stopped for a while you realize just how unhappy you were unless you were smoking or drinking or doing whatever. It gives you a weird feeling to think just how much substances change your personality.
That's neurochemical adaptation at work.
Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 04-26-2010, 11:58 AM:
Actually randy for some substances of abuse which cause a physical dependance like opiates medication based treatment has a very very high success rate as long as the person stays on thier medication wether it be methadone or buprenorphine. Abstinance based treatment modalities (like A.A., counseling etc.) are pretty much useless to opiate addicts as thier body's physical dependance is not something they have control over.
There is a new thoery out that certain people are born with a deficency in thier brain chemistry where they do not produce enough of certain chemicals (endorphins, or something) which causes them to suffer from depression like symptoms, or to just feel "not right" or "not like everyone else" throughout thier lives. When these people are introduced to opiates which fill the brain receptors that are empty due to the lack of normal brain chemicals thier bodies instantly decide that it is what has been missing and become dependant on it. It is sort of the chicken or the egg is it the drug abuse that changes the brain or is the drug abuse a symptom of a faulty brain. New research is beginning to point to opiate abuse as a symptom of a brain disorder and not the cause. This would explain why a lot of people who never did a drug in thier life have tooth pulled or break a leg and get prescribed legal opiod pain killers and become almost instantly addicted where other can take them on and off for years for chronic pain and not become addicted.
The thing that amazes me is the stigma surrounding medication based treatment for opiate addiction. It has been studied and communities with methadone clinics tend to have lower crime rates as apposed to communities with a need that keep clinics out. The reason for this is simple when treated with medication an opiate dependant person will lead a normal productive life. No need to steal, cheat, or buy and sell street drugs. However without access to treatment these behaviors only get worse. People think that methadone treatment is just switching one drug for another or state sponsored drug dealing which could not be further from the truth. A patient on a stable methadone dose does not feel any intoxicating effects from the medication. Methadone clinics are also mostly run by private companies that hire doctors who specialize in addiction medicine to oversee each clinic. Every patient is examined by a doctor regularly and prescribed thier medication by a doctor. All medication is dispensed by licensed nurses. Even though there is an 80-90% success rate on abstinence there is still a lot of bad stigma around this.
I wonder how all of the people who swear that addiction can be cured by religion and morals will be able to ignore the day scientist prove that opiate abuse is a symptom of a brain disorder that people are born with.
Posted by Dieter Depypere (Member # 3184) on 05-07-2010, 09:27 AM:
As for me, I am a non-smoker, unless most of the guys and girls I used to work with at the movie theater.
But... I do drink a lot of coffee. No decaf, no milk and no sugar (Why? Because it is low cal and high octane ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
).
Alcohol: Sometimes. Then, usually a pint of Guinness, or Belgian Trappist Ale called "Orval". But not much
Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 05-07-2010, 09:46 AM:
Didn' t know you could get a real pint in Austria.
This is an industry with a lot of smokers, though not as bad as the restaurant industry or the bar industry
Went back to my smoke-easy the other day, and they are back in action. Frankly, I am just a big fan of the defiance associated with this bar owner. I plan to be the same way with 35mm film, which is a slightly better cause.
Posted by Dieter Depypere (Member # 3184) on 05-07-2010, 12:04 PM:
Jonathan --
Of course we can The next Irish pub is 10 minutes down the street (walking of course).
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