Smoking Ban

[R'as al Ghul]

Imo the Hysteria concerning second-hand smoking is way exxagerated.
If I go to a bus station at a heavily frequented inner-city street and light up a cigarette while waiting, there's always someone who will start coughing deliberately to tell me that I'm affecting them. Come on. We're outside inhaling far more poisonous fumes from cars and trucks than my cigarette causes to you in open space.
Anyway, closed public spaces ban would be okay to me. I can restrict myself no problem. Say, train stations, all public buildings like universities, schools, etc.
What I do object is the ban in pubs and restaurants and clubs where the owner has no problem with smoking. Some pubs or clubs have a certain image connected to smoke, they attract smokers and the owners themselve smoke. Who are we to forbid it? Hang up a warning sign that this area is poisonous to people and be done with. What about cigar bars? Close them down? They have a right to exist as much as you have a right to non-smoking areas.
But it won't stop there. I'm sure it won't be long until landlords won't give flats to smokers.
I do understand the health issues and I'm not ignorant to what I'm doing to my body but this smoking ban hysteria is getting fascist.

EDIT: Oh and btw, why don't we have those disclaimers on candy bars, like "Sugar can make you fat and kill you!" but I guess the obesity problem isn't just as pressing, isn't it? and who is going to pay for the fight against terrorism which, as my government tells me, is funded by the tax on tobacco in germany.

[Papewaio]

Unleaded fuel was introduced for a reason.
As were catalytic convertors and other pollution minimising devices.

Tunnels normally have exhaust stacks and filtering devices in train stations and on underground highways. The old miners canaries were there to check for air pollution.

Not to mention all the liabilities that companies are now facing due to asbestos. Insurance companies will get involved when they have to start 'coughing up'.

=][=

In NSW, Australia you can smoke at train stations, just not if it is roofed. Some stations you are not allowed to smoke at at all (generally the ones that are serving hospital stops).

Bans on clubs, pubs and restaurants are state by state. So it changes, however every place that has banned smoking has not had monetary difficulties for the venues. It seems that it is a scare tactic without any real teeth... a lot of people instead come out to eat because they can do so with the full range of their sense of smell... after all if you cannot smell you only can taste and that leaves you with bitter, sweat, sour..... it is your sense of smell that adds to the subtle range of flavours... try enjoying flavours with a blocked nose...

...A far worse thing for the venues in some council areas has been over zealous parking inspectors.

[Ronin]

a good move.
I hope it's adopted in Portugal soon.

[Kanamori]

Where were you? Inside a pub? On someone else's property?
And you expect you can demand to decide what they can and can't allow? You ahve no right to go someplace and insist they change for you.

Since when is there anarchy in personal property? Each persons house or establishment is not their own country. They are not totally free to do as they please; they cannot murder other people on their own property, or dump poison into their earth above a water resevoir. There is a public health interest, and it should be served. Nobody is denying them the right to smoke in their own homes, but a home is much more personal than is an establishment that is meant for other citizens to sit in for profit. It obviously effects others, and the majority of people no longer wish to sit in smoked filled rooms that are only smoke filled because of a minority.

[Crazed Rabbit]

So it would be ok for me to poke people with a thumbtack wherever I go? After all it doesn't cause much damage and they could just go somewhere else.

What the heck? That's an absurd analogy.

Since when is there anarchy in personal property? Each persons house or establishment is not their own country. They are not totally free to do as they please; they cannot murder other people on their own property, or dump poison into their earth above a water resevoir.

Smoking on your property doesn't affect anyone else, unlike everything you listed. Duh.

There is a public health interest, and it should be served. Nobody is denying them the right to smoke in their own homes, but a home is much more personal than is an establishment that is meant for other citizens to sit in for profit. It obviously effects others, and the majority of people no longer wish to sit in smoked filled rooms that are only smoke filled because of a minority.

Oh please. The 'public health' is not being affected by smokey bars. A privately owned establishment with smokers does not affect the public as does pollution. It affects the people who go there to drink and smoke. If the majority of people don't want to sit in a smokey room, DON'T GO THERE DUMBASSES.
Let the profit motive force the bar owners to change policies, if there really is such demand for change.

Crazed Rabbit

[Sasaki Kojiro]

What the heck? That's an absurd analogy.


Crazed Rabbit

How so?

[A.Saturnus]

I've to disagree with you and agree with Crazed Rabbit. It seems that smoking doesn't cause cancer, or it causes it in so few cases that it isn't reasonable to ban it. This law is just authoritarism, and for what I know it happened on USA too, I hope this kind of mind set doesn't expands to the south too, I don't smoke, in fact I find it disgusting, but in society we've to learn to accept other people's habits unless they hurt other people.

Yeah, it's just coincidents that 85% of all lung cancer patients are smokers. The life of a smoker is in average up to 20 years shorter than that of a non-smoker.

No, I don't want to argue. I say smoking is extremely unhealthy. And the WHO, the ministries of health of almost all countries, all insurance companies, science, the medical world, other health organizations, courts and even tabacco companies agree with me. I don't need to convince you too.