This is just the continuation of the "public health crisis" excuse to ban something people don't agree with. Smoking, Sugary drinks, guns, etc. The slippery slope continues.
Not yet, but in UK it seems that the restricted areas keep proliferating. There's a park near my work that just put up "this is a smoke-free zone" signs, and this is in the open air. Ridiculous. But I digress.
But we try to keep minors away from them.
And there's the real problem. It was always the shop worker that was the gatekeeper to bar tobacco, alcohol and porn from minors. It wasn't a perfect system and everyone knew workarounds but it was good enough to appease the majority. Now the porn is readily available as digital media and there has bee
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Wednesday April 20, 2016 @07:46AM (#51946073)
You've got to be joking. Consider this: The air initially exists free of smoke, and cigarettes are not natural, this is the most basic state. I have the right to not be forced to breathe cancer inducing air from someone who chooses to pollute their own body with such things. If you are smoking in a common area, that is free to anyone, then you are taking away that freedom. I'm not taking away your freedom, the most basic state of the park was free and open air - you smokers are imposing your own will on that air and my body with no choice to myself.
I used to smoke. I'm all for people being allowed to smoke. They should just be given a sealed phone booth in order to do it so the rest of us don't have our rights infringed.
You've got to be joking. Consider this: The air initially exists free of smoke, and cigarettes are not natural, this is the most basic state. I have the right to not be forced to breathe cancer inducing air
I guess you don't drive cars nor buy anything online that would come to your home by truck, nor travel by airplane.
This argument doesn't really apply either. The person isn't saying you can't ever smoke, they're saying smoke in private. Nobody likes manufacturing pollution either, and we regulate it accordingly, it's not as simple a solution as banning public smoking.
You'd have to know where he lives to figure out the latter. For example, the last time I lived in a place that used oil or coal for electricity generation was ~45 years ago.
That's not a particularly salient argument. Everyone would prefer that cars did NOT emit noxious fumes or gases; unfortunately it's not as simple a solution as banning smoking in public - ergo, we regular car emissions, and we're clearly moving towards vehicles that do not emit exhaust or only emit water.
Where I live, in the most populous state in the US, vehicle emissions are (rightly) tightly regulated, and most of what comes out of a vehicle is carbon or hydrogen oxides that were already present in the air. Changing the ratios of them in the air can cause long term problems, true, or short term problems in confined spaces, but particulate matter and more directly harmful chemicals are very tightly regulated, so the direct harm from any driver to any passerby is completely negligible.
They're just a shrinking minority raging against the dying of the light. By this point, they seem to take great pride in being obnoxious assholes, as the irascible malcontents they truly are.
I have the right to not be forced to breathe cancer inducing air from someone who chooses to pollute their own body with such things
No study has ever produced strong evidence that second-hand smoke carries health effects; all which have suggested such have been refuted. That's why second-hand smoke campaigns went away after the 90s, along with the campaigns about the dangers of watching TV in the dark.
Second-hand smoke smells like ass and makes your clothes smell like ass. It's also an irritant and is painful to breathe. It's not a health hazard, which is about all you can say for it.
No study like this is going to be anything but passive. You can't force people to breathe in smoke for a study, so it's going to be hard to gather data and prove anything. That doesn't mean it's false.
If a smoker smokes, it's unhealthy. You can't argue that the same smoke is somehow sanitized if it didn't come from the butt-end of the cigarette (through an additional filter, usually). That's just plain illogical.
Even thirdhand smoke is being determined to be dangerous [oxfordjournals.org] (thirdhand being the smell left beh
While I agree it's entirely anecdotal, I have extremely mild asthma, smoke (even some cooking with poorly vented stoves) and exercise can be triggers for me. I didn't used to think it was a problem, I just lived with it. For a while now in public open air parks it has been illegal to smoke in Houston. I really appreciate being able to go to a park and not have to worry about it. I'm not sure if my having an attack, or multiple attacks over the course of time, triggered by smoke causes any "long term" he
And as a smoker, I just think it's the nice thing to do for me to stay away from other people while I do it, even if I'm not yet required to...
It just seems courteous. People have asthma, people can be strongly offended by the smell. Some people aren't, but it doesn't really kill me to cater to the sensitivities of generally nice people just trying to enjoy some fresh air.
I generally walk across to the other side of the street if I see someone coming when I smoke outside my house.
Generally only smoke on
Cigarette smoke contains known carcinogens. Some of these are directly implicated in various cancers.
Beyond that, there's just an obvious problem of "smoke inhalation" that's considered obvious in any other context. It's so obvious that even politicians in the 1500's understood the dangers of smoking. This is not exactly anything new or surprising.
I have the right to not be forced to breathe cancer inducing air from someone who chooses to pollute their own body with such things
No study has ever produced strong evidence that second-hand smoke carries health effects; all which have suggested such have been refuted. That's why second-hand smoke campaigns went away after the 90s, along with the campaigns about the dangers of watching TV in the dark.
Um, no. The day before yesterday, I saw a billboard proclaiming "Your little smoking buddy" with a picture of a child in a carseat.
I have the right to not be forced to breathe cancer inducing air from someone who chooses to pollute their own body with such things.
What? No, you don't. You have no such right. But regardless, you are not being forced to do anything. If someone is doing something objectionable near you, you are free to leave. An further, let's be real: breathing in a little cigarette smoke while sitting in the park will have no effect on your health. You just don't like the smell.
Smoke can trigger an asthma attack for me pretty easily. Simply walking down wind of someone actively smoking can cause problems with my breathing that can last quite a while after leaving.
Here it it is not permitted to smoke within 9 meters (about 27 feet) of building entrances and there is a $5000 fine for doing.
Some assholes still smoke at the doors and making it fairly difficult to just avoid it.
Walking down a crowded street? You bet I'm gonna breath in somomes smoke.
If I were allergic to people who think their personal issue is the whole worlds problem to solve, then by your logic you wouldn't be allowed to post to this site anymore.
There have been numerous studies on second hand smoke and it has been shown [cdc.gov] to [lung.org] be [cancer.org] quite [cancer.gov] dangerous [www.iarc.fr]. Even a small amount [timeforwellness.org] is bad and has been shown that it can cause long-term health issues.
Cigarette smoking is a problem. It used to be that smoking was allowed just about everywhere. As more knowledge become available about the health effects, the number of places that it is allowed keeps going down. It should be painfully obvious that smoking at a playground isn't a good idea and a sign ought not to be necessary. But since there are those who would choose to smoke if not explicitly prohibited, we have to pass laws and put up signs. And no, it's not only smoking. We have to put up signs te
Isn't this exactly why everything is regulated? I can't drive a hummer down the footpath either and not because those damn pedestrians keep getting blood on the tires.
If you truly think about a public space you would be absolutely amazed at how much regulation there is in those places, mainly because we as a species simply lack the ability to share and get along.
This has nothing to do with smokers. Everyone throws trash on the ground. Despicable behavior in my opinion but there it is...I have observed very closely for many years how people behave [in NL in this case] and I can tell you it is a matter of personality, not habits. I have seen smokers on train stations that throw the butt on the ground while having specially desinged and placed ash-trays 50 centimeterers from them. Those people over the years were: - white - black - asian - rich,elegant women - men
Garbage.... Your comment, not the thing on the ground.
Most places you walk you don't see a trail of garbage and people in much of the civilised world have no problem using a bin for everything except cigarette butts which for some reason a large portion of smokers think should be smooshed into the cement or flicked from a car window.
If you can pack it in, you can pack it out. If you think tgst cigarette butt is too nasty for you to put in your pocket and carry to the nearest trashcan then what the f*ck makes you think it is OK to throw it on the ground? The amount of self-delusion that goes on in sinkers heads just boggles my mind. Your right to poison yourself stops at my nose. Your right to produce nasty cigarette butts stops when it turns into littering.
I'm all for your right to smoke but A) I don't have to facilitate it by paying f
No, but not many people fart proudly in public. Society/culture mostly tells them it's wrong.
Smokers, OTOH, are oblivious to their condition and will happily sit near other people who are trying to eat. They often pop out for a quick one during the meal to reinforce their miasma.
I hear that one. I have an acute allergy to cigarette smoke. Due to my daughter attending university in Reno, Nevada (gambling and smoking capital of the US west), I've had several occasions where I needed to stay in a hotel there and the large casino hotels are always the cheapest. Even with an allergy pill I cannot stay in the restaurant areas near the casino due to fairly quickly feeling sick. So where people are smoking, you aren't going to find me. It is like a physical assault. I also have bad "hay fe
i've heard this before many times. Now I'm not about to call you specifically a liar. What I am going to pass along is the fact that every single human being I've encountered in "real life" that said they had an allergy to "cigarette" smoke in fact had an allergy to other people smoking, and didn't like the smell... which is fine in it's own right, but to instead lie, and invent an allergy (in some cases a "deadly" one) instead of just asking people not to smoke around you, it's pretty above and beyond selfish.
THAT SAID... as a former smoker myself, I do have issues with smoking in public buildings and certain public spaces. Walking trails? no, sorry, that's just silly. Open air parks? Again,no that's silly. I have a real, REAL HONEST allergy to certain perfumes and aftershaves, but that doesn't stop woman from drowning themselves in it, and it doesn't stop guys from swimming around in Axe body spray.
The exhaust from your cars are causing cancer and many other ailments attributed to second hand smoke, yet I don't see any bans on those, and who the hell would actually support them anyways?
But... this isn't about smoking, it's about porn. And the fact is, it's possible to an extent right now for these sites to block access to minors. If you are an idiot parent who gave your un-monitored child a credit card in YOUR name, then it's your fault. It's actually quite surprising what you can get access to, for free, without any verification, from paid legit sites. That can be fixed.
Pirated porn? There's no way to stop it. And that's the point, because once you link something to child porn, everyone is onboard with whatever it takes to stop it. And the name of the game is destroying online privacy, terrorism and child porn have been, and always will be the poster child for restrictions on your rights, privacy and freedom.
What I am going to pass along is the fact that every single human being I've encountered in "real life" that said they had an allergy to "cigarette" smoke in fact had an allergy to other people smoking, and didn't like the smell
Hi. In the past, as a kid I referred to cigarette smoke sensitivity as an allergy. To be fair, I thought it was. Now, I recognize that it is, in fact, a migraine trigger.
If I'm lucky, exposure to cigarette smoke just leads to a pounding headache. That's what usually happens with brief exposure. With a little more exposure (as is often the case in Vegas), it escalates a bit and becomes a debilitating headache, followed by difficulty breathing and vomiting (after which I feel a little worse). In extreme cases (for example, when there was a fire alarm during class and egress was through the smokers outside the door, and I was not prepared and holding my breath), it results in temporary complete loss of vision, in addition to vomiting and the feeling of having my head put into a vice.
If you've never had the experience of going suddenly blind, it's absolutely, horribly terrifying, particularly when you don't know why. This was my first blindness, and I hadn't been officially diagnosed, so it was just a bizarre thing I talked to the doctor about - he thought it was swelling on the optic nerve and proscribed Benadryl.
You may not know people in person who are genuinely sensitive to smoke, but we exist. I will do my best to avoid you, but I don't necessarily know where you've been, and if I walk through a cloud, you can cause me hours and hours of literal agony.
I have a real, REAL HONEST allergy to certain perfumes and aftershaves, but that doesn't stop woman from drowning themselves in it, and it doesn't stop guys from swimming around in Axe body spray.
Those trigger migraines in me, too. Two wrongs don't make a right.
When I first had allergy tests ~20-25-years ago there was a tobacco/cigerette vial. I did test as allergic though I can't say I've ever had the same reaction to second hand smoke as I do to ragweed or grass.
If they really want to fix the porn problem for minors then the best solution is to take porn out of the shadows (not that it's really in the shadows right now). Many people are reluctant to give their credit card info to porn sites because they are scared that they will be charged or they are scared of getting caught by a spouse. It would be relatively simple to have some place like the DMV or post office give out anonymous ids which have been age verified.
The biggest problem is that they don't want to just stop minors. There is this strange belief in many circles that porn is a gateway to rape (even though studies have shown the exact opposite). I had a friend who ended up on the sexual offender's list because at 23 he slept with a 17 year old girl (who already had a kid, btw). Anyways, one of the conditions of his probation was no porn. Seriously??? We should provide free porn and free internet to everyone on the sexual offender's list. As a society, we should *want* them to stay in their basement watching porn instead of going out prowling.
Many people are reluctant to give their credit card info to porn sites because they are scared that they will be charged
That IS the purpose of a credit card.
Exactly. So it's not a very good way to verify someone's age. Pulling their credit would be more accurate but even more scary. Emailing a copy of driver's license is again scary and also easy for a determined kid to fake. A credit card charge of $1 is a fairly easy way of making sure kids don't access a website as even if they can sneak a credit card for a few minutes the charge will still show up (not to mention that if they are old enough to sneak a credit card and enter it in a website then they are
I hate tobacco as much, if not far more, than the next person but there's no need to be so hateful towards smokers; rest assured their own self-loathing - due to their inability to quit - is more than adequate.
I assure you as someone who has managed to quite most smokers would love to but it is a physical addiction and not self-loathing. When I quite I was ready to unscrew someone's head for about 3 weeks and for the next couple of months it was really hard. Even now several years on when I catch a wiff I still want to go have a heater and if I am out with friends drinking and one offers it is really tempting.
The physical part is over in under a week, everything you feel from there including any physical symptoms is psychologically induced. There actually is a great deal of self-loathing. Most smokers want to quit but aren't willing to endure it. More than that they can't get past their own brain defiantly slipping in thoughts that they want the very thing they hate and want to quit. You'll tell yourself that you want nothing more to do with this, your brain will slip in a suggestion that you should just finish t
Yes, just like software/data. There are real physical bits underlying every operation on the computer but if you examine those bits instead of the higher level logical operations most of the time you will get lost in the forest. There is a difference, a psychological addiction is one wherein you've trained your brain into producing negative sensations to get the thing it wants through feelings of reward, a physical addiction is one wherein the substance itself chemically converts into reward signalling in th
"The analogy breaks down because the brain gets rewired by throughts Maybe a better analogy is a dynamically-reconfigurable FPGA." Software re configures based on changing data. Some programs have things like neural networks and evolutionary algorithms that change them dynamically, much of this is in fact based on the study of organics and the brain.
The point is that the nature of the addiction does matter. There are limited subset of chemicals you can form a physical addiction to. You can become physically
What exactly do you think a psychological addiction actually is ? Because what it actually is - is a genuine feeling of need, that is actual chemical and electrical signals in the brain - utterly indistinguishable from those present when the other organs sent those signals. The experience and the symptoms are no less severe. The need is not experienced as any less real. Just because the original trigger has been removed, doesn't mean the resulting patterns which those neural networks have formed just dissape
The addiction is not to a substance but rather to substances your brain creates in response to a bahavior or a substance. Psychological addiction is not less severe, it is more severe because parts of your brain will trigger those rewards signals no matter what you do, you can't cold turkey similar to diet issues. Yes, you can rewire around it but one important thing is you can substitute, any other activity which triggers reward pathways in your brain will create similar reward chemicals. The neural pathway
I don't see the self-loathing as universal, there are a huge swath of smokers who are self-righteous and have no respect for the others around them. Nor the environment as evidenced by the huge amount of litter, often smoldering strewn around cities and roadways.
> I hate tobacco as much, if not far more, than the next person but there's no need to be so hateful towards smokers; rest assured their own self-loathing - due to their inability to quit - is more than adequate.
Smokers that insist that they have a right to harm the rest of us deserve all of the derision they receive. They're not like drunks or even junkies who only poison themselves.
> Personally I'd like to see a total ban on all smoking tobacco.
Not to worry, that's just your inner petty tyrant trying to be let free. Fortunately, you and your "there ought to be a law" ilk are *usually* just laughed at and openly mocked. I suppose next you'll be wanting to ban all sex, except for the purpose of procreation and only in the missionary position? We might as well try that whole banning alcohol thing.
'Cause, you know, banning is effective and your need to control other people is insatiabl
> Personally I'd like to see a total ban on all smoking tobacco.
Not to worry, that's just your inner petty tyrant trying to be let free. Fortunately, you and your "there ought to be a law" ilk are *usually* just laughed at and openly mocked. I suppose next you'll be wanting to ban all sex, except for the purpose of procreation and only in the missionary position? We might as well try that whole banning alcohol thing.
'Cause, you know, banning is effective and your need to control other people is insatiable. "Stop doing things I don't like!"
Disclosure: I do smoke cigars but you'd be unlikely to actually witness me smoking unless you were in my home. Can't have me enjoying my cigars now, can we?
I Just don't want people to smoke while I'm eating or outside my doors and windows. Smoke all you want, I don't care. I'll even hang out with you while you smoke (outside, while I stand upwind of you). Have a blast. I just don't want to smell it. Feel free to have all the wild and crazy sex you want, also. I probably don't want to watch that, either. Smoke at a park, I don't care. Just don't smoke upwind from the playground. Really it's more common courtesy than anything else. I think the real problem is that courtesy is no longer (was never?) common.
I can guarantee you that my BBQ in one summer "contaminates" more air than I did as a smoker when I did so would you also support total bans on BBQ? You should see the billows of smoke I can get that thing to give off when I load it up with wood and choke off the air supply. It gives the meat and veggies a wonderful flavor and does tend to add an odor to the entire neighborhood. How about camp fires as they produce lots of smelly smoke?
If you were barbecuing steak, go for it. Nearly everyone loves that smell. But if you were barbecuing old tires then we have a problem. The air outside is a publicly held common. You can't choose regulations strictly on the principle of freedom because it is naturally a resource where one person's usage impacts every other person's usuage. Instead you have to balance the needs and wants of various people.
Most people agree that BBQ smells good and that tobacco smoke stinks and/or hurts people's healt
If you were barbecuing steak, go for it. Nearly everyone loves that smell.....
Most people agree that BBQ smells good and that tobacco smoke stinks and/or hurts people's health.
But feel free to light up your disgusting BBQ and stinking up the neighborhood.
I am a vegetarian. FTFY. See how this works?
FACT: BBQ Smoke, especially aerosolized burnt fat IS a carcinogen.
Let me say it again. "The air outside is a publicly held common. You can't choose regulations strictly on the principle of freedom because it is naturally a resource where one person's usage impacts every other person's usage. Instead you have to balance the needs and wants of various people." It is true that you can't please everyone because different people have different desires. When we have to balance competing desires because we can't just let everyone choose for themselves, then the preferences of
I didn't say we should ban cigarette smoke. I said when we decide what to do with a shared resource like the air around us, we need to give more weight to majority preferences. If asbestos smelled like grilled steak I think most people would still prefer to not allow burning it due to health concerns.
"It's okay to curtail someone ELSE's freedom/rights/privileges as long as the majority agrees -and my freedoms are not hindered."
The old saying is that my freedom to swing my arm ends where your nose be
But as I said before, if you keep your smoke in your own house or place of business then you should have the freedom to smoke all you want. Or burn rubber tires, or fart, or whatever.
Yet another American who proves your country cant cook decent meat on a fire to save your life. Almost every culture has a bbq tradition... only in America could it be stripped of socializing, turned into something quick (its supposed to be many hours if joy) and used to produce gunk nobody else would want to eat.
Nah... ill stick to the true way. No meat on until the fire is burned out. You cook over hot coals.:p
Does your BBQ belch out tar fines, nicotine, and carcinogens?
Interestingly I maybe smell a BBQ once every 2 weeks, but I have to put up with getting a face full of smoke every 10 minutes when I walk through a city. It's horrible. Quite frankly if BBQs had the same proliferation, if you BBQ'd on the train, on the loo, in my office, every damn street I walked down, when I am trying to smell clean air in a park, while walking into a hospital, and down every bloody pedestrian walk way, then YES! With capital le
Does your BBQ belch out tar fines, nicotine, and carcinogens?
Serious question? Minus the nicotine- you bet your ass it does. Wonderful, beautiful smelling tar and carcinogens... on top of a dozen other chemicals that are truly terrible for you.
It might. Then again you aren't dragging it around and sitting next to people with it. You likely only contaminate your own air with it. If anyone else can notice it, then it's just barely.
Basically, it's a pretty irrelevant example because it ALREADY conforms to all of the restrictions that the vast majority of people would place on you.
Very few people care enough to rescue your children from the pollution you create.
If you think outdoor smoking ban is ridiculous then you don't realize how much air one cigarette can contaminate.
Personally I'd like to see a total ban on all smoking tobacco.
I would rather see a ban on outdoor smoking and make indoor smoking subject to the owner's discretion (provided perhaps that there are air filters. I can't avoid going outside but I don't have to go into any particular person's home, office, retail store or restaurant. Why should my aversion to smoking prevent them from doing what they want on their own property? So long as their behavior isn't attacking me, and it isn't if I don't have to smell the smoke (and I can always choose differents, restaurants
Allowing indoor smoking would violate the spirit of worker protection laws. I think that was Bloomberg's approach to smoking and it's a pretty sensible one you can't really argue with.
Fine, so let them smoke at home, in their cars, the spaces they own. In public? They're almost never alone. There's usually somebody within smoking distance and nobody appreciates the trail of butts they leave behind them.
Also: Opening a door, taking three deep drags on a cigarette and throwing the butt to the floor behind you as you come inside and breathe out? Not welcome.
A total ban is probably ludicrous, but by the same token, we don't let people shit in public, because of health concerns and basic social decency, so why is it that we let people smoke in public?
Heh, nice new Slashdot owners, can we increase the nesting of comments? [In case it matters, I'm running Classic view]
Otherwise comments like this AC's [slashdot.org] show up as orphans to me.
Alternatively, when you choose to stop nesting, you could display an "in reply to blah [slashdot.org]". Otherwise, you are auto-corrupting threads below a certain depth.
Well you should have come across the outerbridge to staten island, plenty of guys running various deli's would have sold them to you provided you paid cash and bought some other products that would disguise it.
That's if you wanted to be all legit, most of us just found our parents collection, or some community pool of the things. Honestly I'm not sure there's been a time in history when teenage boys who wanted porn couldn't get it. And by that I mean nearly all teenage boys. Most of us turn out "fine" and s
Videos were obtainable easily in my day, but on VHS or via cable (particularly those cable boxes with illegal decode modifications that many may have had). I hear tell they existed on reels for the generation before me, and could be snuck into for the generation before that.
Our resolution is definitely better. I'm not sure at what resolution porn begins to corrupt the mind.
Lots of public open air places around me, like town parks, are designated 'smoke-free'. This has been the case for a long time. When I was in grad school slightly over a decade ago they designated the entire campus as 'smoke free'. This included all outside space, of course some people ignored it -- especially visitors to campus. It wasn't uncommon to see a couple people finishing their cigarette outside the hockey arena before heading in to watch the game. Maybe 5 years prior to that they had eliminate
One problem I have with overly broad nonsmoking areas is that they're counterproductive. Smokers are going to smoke, no matter what. Give them reasonably convenient smoking areas and they'll use them. Give them none, and they'll smoke wherever.
Not yet, but in UK it seems that the restricted areas keep proliferating. There's a park near my work that just put up "this is a smoke-free zone" signs, and this is in the open air. Ridiculous. But I digress.
Only "ridiculous" to the people who said it was "ridiculous" to not smoke in bars/restaurants.
The smoking areas at the college near my house have butt cans, two or three of them per shelter. There are always more butts on the ground next to the ash cans than there are in them. I've never understood the reasoning.
When I used to ride my bike I would get irritated seeing drivers throwing their butts out the car window. A couple of times at stoplights I picked it back up and pitched it back through the window. Then I got chased and almost run down, so stopped that foolishness.
Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong.
slippery slope (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just the continuation of the "public health crisis" excuse to ban something people don't agree with. Smoking, Sugary drinks, guns, etc. The slippery slope continues.
Re:slippery slope (Score:0)
Cigarettes haven't been banned. But we try to keep minors away from them.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Cigarettes haven't been banned.
Not yet, but in UK it seems that the restricted areas keep proliferating. There's a park near my work that just put up "this is a smoke-free zone" signs, and this is in the open air. Ridiculous. But I digress.
But we try to keep minors away from them.
And there's the real problem. It was always the shop worker that was the gatekeeper to bar tobacco, alcohol and porn from minors. It wasn't a perfect system and everyone knew workarounds but it was good enough to appease the majority. Now the porn is readily available as digital media and there has bee
Re: slippery slope (Score:5, Insightful)
You've got to be joking. Consider this: The air initially exists free of smoke, and cigarettes are not natural, this is the most basic state. I have the right to not be forced to breathe cancer inducing air from someone who chooses to pollute their own body with such things. If you are smoking in a common area, that is free to anyone, then you are taking away that freedom. I'm not taking away your freedom, the most basic state of the park was free and open air - you smokers are imposing your own will on that air and my body with no choice to myself.
I used to smoke. I'm all for people being allowed to smoke. They should just be given a sealed phone booth in order to do it so the rest of us don't have our rights infringed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You've got to be joking. Consider this: The air initially exists free of smoke, and cigarettes are not natural, this is the most basic state. I have the right to not be forced to breathe cancer inducing air
I guess you don't drive cars nor buy anything online that would come to your home by truck, nor travel by airplane.
Re: (Score:2)
Or use anything that created/manufactured at all either....
Re: slippery slope (Score:4, Insightful)
This argument doesn't really apply either. The person isn't saying you can't ever smoke, they're saying smoke in private.
Nobody likes manufacturing pollution either, and we regulate it accordingly, it's not as simple a solution as banning public smoking.
Re: (Score:2)
The person isn't saying you can't ever smoke, they're saying smoke in private.
As soon as he drives his car in private. Inside his home.
Re: (Score:2)
He probably has an electric car.
Re: (Score:3)
I'd like to think so, but I stopped believing in people's coherence in socio-political stances a long while ago.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget how much pollution was created building that car and then created to generate the electricity for it...
Re: (Score:2)
You'd have to know where he lives to figure out the latter.
For example, the last time I lived in a place that used oil or coal for electricity generation was ~45 years ago.
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I never believed in it. I think. [aside] I don't really know what it is, to be honest.
Re: (Score:2)
What benefit do most things people do have for society?
Guess you want a totalitarian state where people can only do what is good for everyone? (and I HATE smokers and smoking)
Re: (Score:2)
Sure greenboy, sure
Re: (Score:3)
That's not a particularly salient argument. Everyone would prefer that cars did NOT emit noxious fumes or gases; unfortunately it's not as simple a solution as banning smoking in public - ergo, we regular car emissions, and we're clearly moving towards vehicles that do not emit exhaust or only emit water.
Re: (Score:2)
unfortunately it's not as simple a solution as banning smoking in public
Because you said so?
For someone who smokes but doesn't own a car and would like everyone to go by bike, banning cars inside the city it's a VERY simple solution.
Re: (Score:2)
Does the food you eat get delivered to the city on a fleet of bikes?
Re: (Score:2)
Where I live, in the most populous state in the US, vehicle emissions are (rightly) tightly regulated, and most of what comes out of a vehicle is carbon or hydrogen oxides that were already present in the air. Changing the ratios of them in the air can cause long term problems, true, or short term problems in confined spaces, but particulate matter and more directly harmful chemicals are very tightly regulated, so the direct harm from any driver to any passerby is completely negligible.
A car spewing smoke a
Re: (Score:2)
Smokers are so self centered that they think they have the right to pollute the air in more quantity than non-smokers.
Car drivers are so self centered that they think they have the right to pollute the air in more quantity than bike-drivers.
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They're just a shrinking minority raging against the dying of the light. By this point, they seem to take great pride in being obnoxious assholes, as the irascible malcontents they truly are.
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I have the right to not be forced to breathe cancer inducing air from someone who chooses to pollute their own body with such things
No study has ever produced strong evidence that second-hand smoke carries health effects; all which have suggested such have been refuted. That's why second-hand smoke campaigns went away after the 90s, along with the campaigns about the dangers of watching TV in the dark.
Second-hand smoke smells like ass and makes your clothes smell like ass. It's also an irritant and is painful to breathe. It's not a health hazard, which is about all you can say for it.
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No study like this is going to be anything but passive. You can't force people to breathe in smoke for a study, so it's going to be hard to gather data and prove anything. That doesn't mean it's false.
If a smoker smokes, it's unhealthy. You can't argue that the same smoke is somehow sanitized if it didn't come from the butt-end of the cigarette (through an additional filter, usually). That's just plain illogical.
Even thirdhand smoke is being determined to be dangerous [oxfordjournals.org] (thirdhand being the smell left beh
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While I agree it's entirely anecdotal, I have extremely mild asthma, smoke (even some cooking with poorly vented stoves) and exercise can be triggers for me. I didn't used to think it was a problem, I just lived with it. For a while now in public open air parks it has been illegal to smoke in Houston. I really appreciate being able to go to a park and not have to worry about it. I'm not sure if my having an attack, or multiple attacks over the course of time, triggered by smoke causes any "long term" he
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It just seems courteous. People have asthma, people can be strongly offended by the smell. Some people aren't, but it doesn't really kill me to cater to the sensitivities of generally nice people just trying to enjoy some fresh air.
I generally walk across to the other side of the street if I see someone coming when I smoke outside my house.
Generally only smoke on
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> No study
Cigarette smoke contains known carcinogens. Some of these are directly implicated in various cancers.
Beyond that, there's just an obvious problem of "smoke inhalation" that's considered obvious in any other context. It's so obvious that even politicians in the 1500's understood the dangers of smoking. This is not exactly anything new or surprising.
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I have the right to not be forced to breathe cancer inducing air from someone who chooses to pollute their own body with such things
No study has ever produced strong evidence that second-hand smoke carries health effects; all which have suggested such have been refuted. That's why second-hand smoke campaigns went away after the 90s, along with the campaigns about the dangers of watching TV in the dark.
Um, no. The day before yesterday, I saw a billboard proclaiming "Your little smoking buddy" with a picture of a child in a carseat.
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No study has ever produced strong evidence that second-hand smoke carries health effects; all which have suggested such have been refuted.
According to you. However, Since the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report, 2.5 million adults who were nonsmokers died because they breathed secondhand smoke [cdc.gov]; The International Agency for Research on Cancer (an agency of the World Health Organization) has classified second-hand smoke as a known carcinogen [cancer.ca] and many other credible references. Blowing out your ass.
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I have the right to not be forced to breathe cancer inducing air from someone who chooses to pollute their own body with such things.
What? No, you don't. You have no such right. But regardless, you are not being forced to do anything. If someone is doing something objectionable near you, you are free to leave. An further, let's be real: breathing in a little cigarette smoke while sitting in the park will have no effect on your health. You just don't like the smell.
Re: slippery slope (Score:2)
Smoke can trigger an asthma attack for me pretty easily. Simply walking down wind of someone actively smoking can cause problems with my breathing that can last quite a while after leaving.
Here it it is not permitted to smoke within 9 meters (about 27 feet) of building entrances and there is a $5000 fine for doing.
Some assholes still smoke at the doors and making it fairly difficult to just avoid it.
Walking down a crowded street? You bet I'm gonna breath in somomes smoke.
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If I were allergic to people who think their personal issue is the whole worlds problem to solve, then by your logic you wouldn't be allowed to post to this site anymore.
Re: slippery slope (Score:4, Informative)
There have been numerous studies on second hand smoke and it has been shown [cdc.gov] to [lung.org] be [cancer.org] quite [cancer.gov] dangerous [www.iarc.fr]. Even a small amount [timeforwellness.org] is bad and has been shown that it can cause long-term health issues.
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Re: slippery slope (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that a lot of smokers think its a good idea to smoke anywhere they are allowed to smoke, regardless of who may be nearby.
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The problem is that a lot of smokers think its a good idea to smoke anywhere they are allowed to smoke, regardless of who may be nearby.
Is it always a problem when people do things in the places they are allowed to do them, or just in the case of cigarette smoking?
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Re: slippery slope (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't this exactly why everything is regulated? I can't drive a hummer down the footpath either and not because those damn pedestrians keep getting blood on the tires.
If you truly think about a public space you would be absolutely amazed at how much regulation there is in those places, mainly because we as a species simply lack the ability to share and get along.
Re: slippery slope (Score:5, Insightful)
And none of them seem to have a problem leaving a trail of butts behind them.
I can be sitting on a park bench surrounded by the evidence of smokers being there.
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This has nothing to do with smokers. Everyone throws trash on the ground. Despicable behavior in my opinion but there it is...I have observed very closely for many years how people behave [in NL in this case] and I can tell you it is a matter of personality, not habits. I have seen smokers on train stations that throw the butt on the ground while having specially desinged and placed ash-trays 50 centimeterers from them. Those people over the years were: ,elegant women
- white
- black
- asian
- rich
- men
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Garbage. ... Your comment, not the thing on the ground.
Most places you walk you don't see a trail of garbage and people in much of the civilised world have no problem using a bin for everything except cigarette butts which for some reason a large portion of smokers think should be smooshed into the cement or flicked from a car window.
Re: slippery slope (Score:3, Insightful)
If you can pack it in, you can pack it out. If you think tgst cigarette butt is too nasty for you to put in your pocket and carry to the nearest trashcan then what the f*ck makes you think it is OK to throw it on the ground? The amount of self-delusion that goes on in sinkers heads just boggles my mind. Your right to poison yourself stops at my nose. Your right to produce nasty cigarette butts stops when it turns into littering.
I'm all for your right to smoke but A) I don't have to facilitate it by paying f
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I hate to concede a point on this, but throwing it in the garbage is potentially dangerous as the butt may not be completely extinguished.
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Re: slippery slope (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondhand farts aren't dangerous.
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No, but not many people fart proudly in public. Society/culture mostly tells them it's wrong.
Smokers, OTOH, are oblivious to their condition and will happily sit near other people who are trying to eat. They often pop out for a quick one during the meal to reinforce their miasma.
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Re: slippery slope (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: slippery slope (Score:4, Insightful)
What I am going to pass along is the fact that every single human being I've encountered in "real life" that said they had an allergy to "cigarette" smoke in fact had an allergy to other people smoking, and didn't like the smell
Hi. In the past, as a kid I referred to cigarette smoke sensitivity as an allergy. To be fair, I thought it was. Now, I recognize that it is, in fact, a migraine trigger.
If I'm lucky, exposure to cigarette smoke just leads to a pounding headache. That's what usually happens with brief exposure. With a little more exposure (as is often the case in Vegas), it escalates a bit and becomes a debilitating headache, followed by difficulty breathing and vomiting (after which I feel a little worse). In extreme cases (for example, when there was a fire alarm during class and egress was through the smokers outside the door, and I was not prepared and holding my breath), it results in temporary complete loss of vision, in addition to vomiting and the feeling of having my head put into a vice.
If you've never had the experience of going suddenly blind, it's absolutely, horribly terrifying, particularly when you don't know why. This was my first blindness, and I hadn't been officially diagnosed, so it was just a bizarre thing I talked to the doctor about - he thought it was swelling on the optic nerve and proscribed Benadryl.
You may not know people in person who are genuinely sensitive to smoke, but we exist. I will do my best to avoid you, but I don't necessarily know where you've been, and if I walk through a cloud, you can cause me hours and hours of literal agony.
I have a real, REAL HONEST allergy to certain perfumes and aftershaves, but that doesn't stop woman from drowning themselves in it, and it doesn't stop guys from swimming around in Axe body spray.
Those trigger migraines in me, too. Two wrongs don't make a right.
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Re: slippery slope (Score:4, Insightful)
If they really want to fix the porn problem for minors then the best solution is to take porn out of the shadows (not that it's really in the shadows right now). Many people are reluctant to give their credit card info to porn sites because they are scared that they will be charged or they are scared of getting caught by a spouse. It would be relatively simple to have some place like the DMV or post office give out anonymous ids which have been age verified.
The biggest problem is that they don't want to just stop minors. There is this strange belief in many circles that porn is a gateway to rape (even though studies have shown the exact opposite). I had a friend who ended up on the sexual offender's list because at 23 he slept with a 17 year old girl (who already had a kid, btw). Anyways, one of the conditions of his probation was no porn. Seriously??? We should provide free porn and free internet to everyone on the sexual offender's list. As a society, we should *want* them to stay in their basement watching porn instead of going out prowling.
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That IS the purpose of a credit card.
Exactly. So it's not a very good way to verify someone's age. Pulling their credit would be more accurate but even more scary. Emailing a copy of driver's license is again scary and also easy for a determined kid to fake. A credit card charge of $1 is a fairly easy way of making sure kids don't access a website as even if they can sneak a credit card for a few minutes the charge will still show up (not to mention that if they are old enough to sneak a credit card and enter it in a website then they are
Re: slippery slope (Score:2)
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There actually is a great deal of self-loathing. Most smokers want to quit but aren't willing to endure it. More than that they can't get past their own brain defiantly slipping in thoughts that they want the very thing they hate and want to quit. You'll tell yourself that you want nothing more to do with this, your brain will slip in a suggestion that you should just finish t
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There is a difference, a psychological addiction is one wherein you've trained your brain into producing negative sensations to get the thing it wants through feelings of reward, a physical addiction is one wherein the substance itself chemically converts into reward signalling in th
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Software re configures based on changing data. Some programs have things like neural networks and evolutionary algorithms that change them dynamically, much of this is in fact based on the study of organics and the brain.
The point is that the nature of the addiction does matter. There are limited subset of chemicals you can form a physical addiction to. You can become physically
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What exactly do you think a psychological addiction actually is ? Because what it actually is - is a genuine feeling of need, that is actual chemical and electrical signals in the brain - utterly indistinguishable from those present when the other organs sent those signals. The experience and the symptoms are no less severe. The need is not experienced as any less real.
Just because the original trigger has been removed, doesn't mean the resulting patterns which those neural networks have formed just dissape
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Yes, you can rewire around it but one important thing is you can substitute, any other activity which triggers reward pathways in your brain will create similar reward chemicals. The neural pathway
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> I hate tobacco as much, if not far more, than the next person but there's no need to be so hateful towards smokers; rest assured their own self-loathing - due to their inability to quit - is more than adequate.
Smokers that insist that they have a right to harm the rest of us deserve all of the derision they receive. They're not like drunks or even junkies who only poison themselves.
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At that point it's an annoyance. If you want to play polka in the park I can't stop you, without a health risk how is it different?
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Great. Do it when you are truly alone. But alone doesn't really mean hanging out outside next to the doors as people walk by.
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public drunkenness is not allowed, so why should smoking be allowed in public?
I would guess it's because smoking and drunkenness are two different things.
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People are fine with public drunkenness. It opens the wallet and sometimes the legs.
What will get you arrested is 'public obnoxious drunkenness', they just call it 'officers discretion'.
Legal drunkenness (0.08) is not at all drunk.
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Because smoking a cigarette has completely different physical effects than excess drinking of alcohol?
False equivalence is false.
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None of these have been associated with causing lung problems and cancer with those standing nearby like smoking has. It isn't the same thing.
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I say we make the smokers build their own private booths and we will make them pay for its construction!
No, make Mexico pay for it!
Re:slippery slope (Score:5, Interesting)
If you think outdoor smoking ban is ridiculous then you don't realize how much air one cigarette can contaminate.
Personally I'd like to see a total ban on all smoking tobacco.
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> Personally I'd like to see a total ban on all smoking tobacco.
Not to worry, that's just your inner petty tyrant trying to be let free. Fortunately, you and your "there ought to be a law" ilk are *usually* just laughed at and openly mocked. I suppose next you'll be wanting to ban all sex, except for the purpose of procreation and only in the missionary position? We might as well try that whole banning alcohol thing.
'Cause, you know, banning is effective and your need to control other people is insatiabl
Re:slippery slope (Score:5, Insightful)
> Personally I'd like to see a total ban on all smoking tobacco.
Not to worry, that's just your inner petty tyrant trying to be let free. Fortunately, you and your "there ought to be a law" ilk are *usually* just laughed at and openly mocked. I suppose next you'll be wanting to ban all sex, except for the purpose of procreation and only in the missionary position? We might as well try that whole banning alcohol thing.
'Cause, you know, banning is effective and your need to control other people is insatiable. "Stop doing things I don't like!"
Disclosure: I do smoke cigars but you'd be unlikely to actually witness me smoking unless you were in my home. Can't have me enjoying my cigars now, can we?
I Just don't want people to smoke while I'm eating or outside my doors and windows. Smoke all you want, I don't care. I'll even hang out with you while you smoke (outside, while I stand upwind of you). Have a blast. I just don't want to smell it. Feel free to have all the wild and crazy sex you want, also. I probably don't want to watch that, either. Smoke at a park, I don't care. Just don't smoke upwind from the playground. Really it's more common courtesy than anything else. I think the real problem is that courtesy is no longer (was never?) common.
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I think the real problem is that courtesy is no longer (was never?) common.
Bingo.
Re:slippery slope (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:slippery slope (Score:5, Insightful)
I can guarantee you that my BBQ in one summer "contaminates" more air than I did as a smoker when I did so would you also support total bans on BBQ
To be fair BBQ smells excellent, cigarette smoke does not.
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Depends on the BBQ. Most restaurant BBQ smells great, but my neighbor's backyard BBQ just plain stunk. Not as bad as cigarettes, but it still stunk.
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Most people agree that BBQ smells good and that tobacco smoke stinks and/or hurts people's healt
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If you were barbecuing steak, go for it. Nearly everyone loves that smell. ....
Most people agree that BBQ smells good and that tobacco smoke stinks and/or hurts people's health.
But feel free to light up your disgusting BBQ and stinking up the neighborhood.
I am a vegetarian. FTFY. See how this works?
FACT: BBQ Smoke, especially aerosolized burnt fat IS a carcinogen.
Let me say it again. "The air outside is a publicly held common. You can't choose regulations strictly on the principle of freedom because it is naturally a resource where one person's usage impacts every other person's usage. Instead you have to balance the needs and wants of various people." It is true that you can't please everyone because different people have different desires. When we have to balance competing desires because we can't just let everyone choose for themselves, then the preferences of
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"It's okay to curtail someone ELSE's freedom/rights/privileges as long as the majority agrees -and my freedoms are not hindered."
The old saying is that my freedom to swing my arm ends where your nose be
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Re: slippery slope (Score:2)
Yet another American who proves your country cant cook decent meat on a fire to save your life.
Almost every culture has a bbq tradition... only in America could it be stripped of socializing, turned into something quick (its supposed to be many hours if joy) and used to produce gunk nobody else would want to eat.
Nah... ill stick to the true way. No meat on until the fire is burned out. You cook over hot coals. :p
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You don't know what you are talking about. Seriously; 'head up your ass clueless'.
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Somebody :P at the end
1) DIdn't see the
2) Can't take a good-natured ribbing on an utterly insignificant topic
3) Was born without a sense of humor.
Let me know which, if it's number 3 I'm sure we can set up a kickstarter for your support fund.
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Does your BBQ belch out tar fines, nicotine, and carcinogens?
Interestingly I maybe smell a BBQ once every 2 weeks, but I have to put up with getting a face full of smoke every 10 minutes when I walk through a city. It's horrible. Quite frankly if BBQs had the same proliferation, if you BBQ'd on the train, on the loo, in my office, every damn street I walked down, when I am trying to smell clean air in a park, while walking into a hospital, and down every bloody pedestrian walk way, then YES! With capital le
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Does your BBQ belch out tar fines, nicotine, and carcinogens?
Serious question? Minus the nicotine- you bet your ass it does. Wonderful, beautiful smelling tar and carcinogens... on top of a dozen other chemicals that are truly terrible for you.
But gods it's such a beautiful flavor and smell.
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It might. Then again you aren't dragging it around and sitting next to people with it. You likely only contaminate your own air with it. If anyone else can notice it, then it's just barely.
Basically, it's a pretty irrelevant example because it ALREADY conforms to all of the restrictions that the vast majority of people would place on you.
Very few people care enough to rescue your children from the pollution you create.
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Those on a diet would.
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If you think outdoor smoking ban is ridiculous then you don't realize how much air one cigarette can contaminate.
Personally I'd like to see a total ban on all smoking tobacco.
I would rather see a ban on outdoor smoking and make indoor smoking subject to the owner's discretion (provided perhaps that there are air filters. I can't avoid going outside but I don't have to go into any particular person's home, office, retail store or restaurant. Why should my aversion to smoking prevent them from doing what they want on their own property? So long as their behavior isn't attacking me, and it isn't if I don't have to smell the smoke (and I can always choose differents, restaurants
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Allowing indoor smoking would violate the spirit of worker protection laws. I think that was Bloomberg's approach to smoking and it's a pretty sensible one you can't really argue with.
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I have a choice between quitting my job or continuing to suffer the health consequences of sitting at a desk all day. We all have choices.
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Fine, so let them smoke at home, in their cars, the spaces they own. In public? They're almost never alone. There's usually somebody within smoking distance and nobody appreciates the trail of butts they leave behind them.
Also: Opening a door, taking three deep drags on a cigarette and throwing the butt to the floor behind you as you come inside and breathe out? Not welcome.
Re:slippery slope (Score:4, Insightful)
A total ban is probably ludicrous, but by the same token, we don't let people shit in public, because of health concerns and basic social decency, so why is it that we let people smoke in public?
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Otherwise comments like this AC's [slashdot.org] show up as orphans to me.
Alternatively, when you choose to stop nesting, you could display an "in reply to blah [slashdot.org]". Otherwise, you are auto-corrupting threads below a certain depth.
Re:slippery slope (Score:4)
It was always the shop worker that was the gatekeeper to bar tobacco, alcohol and porn from minors.
Somehow in my childhood I did not notice children deprived of any of these things, long before the internet or even AOL.
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Well you should have come across the outerbridge to staten island, plenty of guys running various deli's would have sold them to you provided you paid cash and bought some other products that would disguise it.
That's if you wanted to be all legit, most of us just found our parents collection, or some community pool of the things. Honestly I'm not sure there's been a time in history when teenage boys who wanted porn couldn't get it. And by that I mean nearly all teenage boys. Most of us turn out "fine" and s
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Why were they working there?
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Videos were obtainable easily in my day, but on VHS or via cable (particularly those cable boxes with illegal decode modifications that many may have had). I hear tell they existed on reels for the generation before me, and could be snuck into for the generation before that.
Our resolution is definitely better. I'm not sure at what resolution porn begins to corrupt the mind.
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One problem I have with overly broad nonsmoking areas is that they're counterproductive. Smokers are going to smoke, no matter what. Give them reasonably convenient smoking areas and they'll use them. Give them none, and they'll smoke wherever.
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Cigarettes haven't been banned.
Not yet, but in UK it seems that the restricted areas keep proliferating. There's a park near my work that just put up "this is a smoke-free zone" signs, and this is in the open air. Ridiculous. But I digress.
Only "ridiculous" to the people who said it was "ridiculous" to not smoke in bars/restaurants.
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The smoking areas at the college near my house have butt cans, two or three of them per shelter. There are always more butts on the ground next to the ash cans than there are in them. I've never understood the reasoning.
When I used to ride my bike I would get irritated seeing drivers throwing their butts out the car window. A couple of times at stoplights I picked it back up and pitched it back through the window. Then I got chased and almost run down, so stopped that foolishness.