Second Hand Smoke?

smoking has already been banned in public buildings so where are you "confined" with all of these dreadful smokers?

You're right, I agree with you, but I do enjoy a black and mild every now and then I have about one a month it's weird I have been smoking them for years now and I have never gotten so addicted. I don't think anyone is effected by my smoking cuz I only smoke outside or with other people who are smoking. So if they ban all smoking what will the people like me do when they want a black.

to Bartman I was just in Vegas and I was shocked at everyone smoking in Casino, restuarants, and seven eleven. It was kinda fu cked up with my lil sis there and my lil niece and there was this guy just staring at my lil sis while smoking a cigarette he was only a couple feet away. I could understand if he wasn't paying attention but he was staring at them and smoking like he didn't give half a shi t.

To Andee wow what an odd comment "if you don't like the smell of the smoke go to another restaurant" It's less convenient for you to go outside the restaurant smoke your cigarette or just wait till your done and out the door. The only annoying I can see about the smoking law is no smoking in bars. The whole "it's a free country" argument seems kinda week cuz smoking is taken away the non-smokers freedom from being certain places. I smoke blacks on occasion and I will smoke cigarettes if I am in the mood but for some reason second hand smoke gives me a bad head ace. I can smoke and be fine (for the most part) but if I am around some one who is chain smoking I will get a shitty head ace and it sucks. I thought if I picked up smoking I could handle second hand smoke but it didn't. So, I could put argument that it is effecting my freedom (I don't really care and smoke myself) it just seems like a weak argument.

Here's a News Flash! The same no Smoking lobby owns the tobacco companies, hotels and casinos that want to out law smoking. Or do they? Will they stand to gain or loose more money? They are in a win win situation according to http://www.smokinglobby.com/ .

What it boils down to is a person's right to choose. Many of our personal and private lives are being ruined and eroded away one by one because of too much government intervention. The best way to stop a person from doing something you don't like is to leave them alone and not force them. What's next?

Did you know that there is a law on the books in Ghicago for being ugly? How about NewYork telling people what not to eat? Should it be enforced? go To: http://www.dumblaws.com./ Or should we enforce Sharia laws and require women to wear burkas? Should we ban rap videos? What would you like to happen next? This is bodrdering on Communism. How about those Imminent Domain laws that literally stop you from owning property? How would you like for the government to give your home away for less than market value, just because a develpoper has more money? These are the tenets of a democracy not that of a theocracy or a despot dictatorship..

There are in Fact more things than second hand smoke that cause cancer. It has not been 1000 years since the nuclear/biological/chemical tests and it is in the air, water and ground! Hey, have you ever lived in a house or apartment that has asbestos? Ask the people of Saginaw, MI how Dow Chemical increased the number of Cancer victims in their area. Do you drive a car? The gasoline emmissions cause cancer. should we ban those too? Ah, living better with chemicals!

Okay! I am a smoker of 45 years and still can't seem to kick the habit. I wish I had never started. I am all for banning smoking everywhere. Since the tobacco companies started this terrible smoking problem among the people knowing all along it is a deadly thing to do then they need to take their money and give smokers a certain amount of free help to aid them in discontinuing the habit. I say make the tobacco companies hand out free patches or give them free rehab or whatever it takes to get them safely off the stuff. In my 45 yrs of smoking I have probably tried to quit 20 or 30 times but I haven't succeeded yet. You can't make something legal for over a hundred years and then just turn around one day and tell all those addicted people now you have to quit because we know its a bad deadly habit and we are banning it in society. Another problem with stoppingeveryone from smoking is that their are thousands of people out their that have made their living by tobacco farming. They are not bad people. They are good honest hard working people that the tobacco companies conned like everyone else. Now whats going to happen when suddenly this industry is shut down and you have thousands of unemployed tobacco farmers out there with no way to make a living because this is all their families have known for many generations. I have 2 children who are now grown with families of their own. I have 2 grandchildren. I have equiped my home with 2 air sanitizers costing over 250.00 each. When my grandchildren are visiting no one smokes in the house. I know what the effects of second hand smoke is on others. One of my children smokes and the other doesn't and maybe by the grace of God none of my grandchildren will take up this terrible and deadly habit. But I say this, when you start taking millions of addicted people and begin to try and force them out of their habit simply by banning them everywhere you are going to end up with a lot of good honest hard working and law abiding people who are going to become criminals in order to continue their habits. So people need to ban together and demand that the tobacco companies don't just do a lot of talk and put out educational material but actually take part in providing these addicted smokers with the funds needed to successfully stop their habit completely and then they will have truly done their part to fix what they began with their lies and misrepresentation.

Before I continue, I have to state I am a non-smoker. If you want something that isn't a necessity but is dangerous, I look to alcohol. Your absolute risk of dying because of a drunk driver is higher than from getting cancer by going out to eat for an hour or two per week. I don't propose banning either thing, because the wonderful part about living in a country of freedom, WE ALL have to accept a certain level of things we don't like. "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. --Benjamin Franklin "

Frankly, we have always had a choice prior to anti-smoking laws: Don't go. It's the right of a business owner to determine what he/she wants to have. It is morally reprehensible to force something on a group of people simply because you do not like something they do. I prefer to live in a nation where there is choices, then in a safe haven with none. Putting up with small amounts of cigarette smoke now and then is not going to change your absolute risk for cancer. It takes repeated exposure, and it's your own responsibility to avoid that, not the taxpayers. Which is a whole 'nother issue in itself.

"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).

--Ayn Rand "

Let the market decide whether or not we want to breath second hand smoke. There is no evidence that second hand smoke is bad for you. I don't like it either, but it's not going to harm me. You said there is no good coming from smoking other than tobacco companies making millions. Well, that's good. It keeps thousands of people employed. They spend money elsewhere, keeping others employed, etc. It's a legal activity and I'm glad the tobacco companies are making millions. Just like I'm glad any other company is making millions and hiring tens of thousands of people to work for them. And a hell of a lot more people have died from SUV accidents then from second hand smoke. The documents that the American Cancer Society, etc. use to tell you that second hand smoke has killed thousands has already been determined in court to be bogus. It was found that the statistics were skewed to meet their pre-conceived ideas.

In outside spaces, second hand smoke shouldn't really be a problem. As far as interior spaces go, it should be the business's or building owners decision. If a restaruant or bar wants to allow smoking, that should be their right to decide. The market should take care of the rest. If more people want to go to smoke free businesses, then more businesses will become smoke free. If there is a larger smoker demographic, then there will be more smoke friendly establishments. If you don't want to be around second hand smoke then you don't need to go and give money to businesses that allow smoking. Other than that, I see anti-smoking laws enforced upon businesses, especially bars and restaraunts, as infringements on their rights to conduct business.

I personally belive that the issue is simply one group of people trying to tell another group of people how to live their lives. I think everything depends on the individual person as well. I am a social smoker and most definitely won't do it around children or other people who personally speak up to me and tell me they have a problem with it. However, the crack down on smoking in this past election is totally uncalled for. They aready tax the crap out of us for our cigarettes and are trying to justify raising the taxes even more? Cigarette smokers fund tons of programs with the taxes they pay annually. If you hike that price up, more people will be likely to buy their cigarettes in other places (i.e. overseas) and the government will have a problem on their hands, less funding. Prohibition was a mistake, and so is this.

The effects of secondhand smoke are grossly exaggerated. Despite claims by major health organizations and anti-smoking Nazis that thousands and thousands of people die each year due to secondhand smoke exposure, they are unable to provide even a single name of a person who has died from secondhand smoke. My brother and I grew up with both parents smoking, in the house, the car (windows frequently shut), and virtually everywhere else, when you could smoke anywhere (back in the 1970s), and we've always been just fine health-wise.

this is a free country, and i think i have the right to smoke. yes it's bad, but i really don't hear much about how a smoker killed someone, more often it's drinkers. ya know, abuse of drugs, things like that. smoke hurts the smoker, but if you don't like the smoke, go to a different restraunt, nobodys makeing you be there. but on the flip side, i respect what you, and how you think,....and when i before i have a baby, my boyfriend WILL quit smokeing. and he knows that. lol. and that is my thoughts.

peace, andee

i'm a smoker and i agree with you. i was coming out of a store yesterday and all these people were standing right outside the entrance way smoking it was disgusting. i gagged and i'm used to it. i feel bad for all the children and people with athsma that had to go through that. smoking anywhere inside and near entrances should be illegal. in canada i heared that they were trying to ban smoking in any public area. that would suck for me and the rest of the population of smokers but i can defenatly see where they are coming from.