i didn't mean it to be disrespectful

not too many ways to take that, OZZY. But I'm not going to get sucked int this any farther. Smokers will smoke. Period.

Go Smoke! Bust a nut doing it. Ever hear of the word hedonism?

Wulfn - I don't think that cigarettes will ever be banned here in the US becuase there would be a big riot if they were.

Nope they won't be banned. By the end of this decade the anti-smoking groups and lawsuits against cig manufacturers will put them out of the cig business.

I smoke, I choose to do so, I am dumb. I respect non-smokers by not smoking when around them. Its only common courtesy. I don't go around peeing on people either.

Nope they won't be banned. By the end of this decade the anti-smoking groups and lawsuits against cig manufacturers will put them out of the cig business.

Well I don't think it will go down that way. After all they tried to get rid of Alcohol as well didn't they?

Anyways if that happens I'll just start growing my own.

Kona, comparing prohibition to a company being forced into bankruptcy are 2 different things. Eventually the cost of fighting lawsuits will overtake the profit and that's when American cig manufacturers will stop making them. Of course imported cigs will always be available but the taxes on them will be so high only the rich will be able to afford it. You think $5 a pack is high, just wait.

Bebi Bulma, if you want "clean air" you will have to go purchase it in a tank cause you are surely not breathing it in nowadays. Have you heard of "sick building syndrome", where the so called "clean air" is recycled? Same goes for any enclosed public place, you are living in a dream world if you believe you are breathing "clean air".

OK, I have skimmed through here and read many but not all of these posts, so sorry if I repeat what someone else has already said. First of all, I'm sick of smokers saying they're no longer allowed to eat at certain food establishments. Nobody ever said you couldn't eat there, you just can't smoke there. That is not taking away your rights. I am not allowed to bring my pet rats to eat out with me... but that doesn't mean because I'm a rat owner, I have had my rights taken away from me. It is simply not a good idea to bring a filthy animal to an eating establishment for health reasons. Just like smoking. You are more than welcome to eat there, but smoking is a danger to others in the establishment, and if you ask me I can't believe it has taken this long to make public places smoke free. I'll leave my rats at home, you smoke at home.

By the way, I don't really own any filthy rats... I was just making a point.

you have become blind to what has been said you are allowing laws and restrictions to be applied that are paving the way, the doors swung wide open, quote {there working on it} unquote,and they will come against your life style untill eventually there is only one exceptable lifestyle and being ignorant you allow it to happen because of legistration already done. You have failed to grasp that!

This is utter bull crap. Nobody is trying to dictate our lifestyle. Banning public smoking is not trying to get everyone to eventually be exactly the same... it's a law to protect innocent people...children from harmful toxic second hand smoke. Don't you get it? It's really not that hard to understand. Nobody is telling you that you can't smoke... your simply not going to be allowed to harm other people with it.

Stop being so selfish and thinking only about things that affect you and the lifestyle in your lifetimes! Why not instead concentrate on things that will have a better impact on your younger generations and those to come.

It always bothers me when I go to a public place that still allows smoking with my daughter.  Most restaurants that still have smoking sections smell like smoke in the entire establishment.  My daughter shouldn't have to be subjected to that.

Ever see those commercials trying to get parents to quit smoking?  The ones that have a kid saying "I smoke a cigarette before I eat breakfast" or "I smoke while I take a nap".

This society is filled with too many people who believe that "laws" should protect them, and not society as a whole.

Ever actually read the constitution?  As a refresher, this is how it starts:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. "

General Welfare- not individual liberties.  If something is proved to be dangerous to general welfare, how can it be unconstitutional to limit where and when it can be used?

You don't half to breath my smoke you have a choice, leave but god for bid that!

Indeed. We had a chance to vote for banning smoking so we don't have to breathe in your smoke. I can't smell, so it's worse for me. I could unknowing breathe in smoke crap from someone at back of me or something. I would only know AFTER I see smoke. Majority of smokers, including my own mom, always put out butts on roads, grass, etc. My own mom does leave a lot of butts on curb near my home.

by the way I am a Smoker and I say if my smoke offends you - leave.

So what about when I don't WANT to? For example, when I'm eating my breakfast in some restaurant? I can't just leave then.

Like I said before, Your right to throw a punch ends at edge of my nose. It's same for smoking. Your right to smoke anywhere ends at edge of sharing air with me. Why? The smoke is damned toxic. You say air is polluted anyway? Not in place I live.

clean air

air that is free from toxic carcinogens

What Planet are you guys living on?

Kona, comparing prohibition to a company being forced into bankruptcy are 2 different things. Eventually the cost of fighting lawsuits will overtake the profit and that's when American cig manufacturers will stop making them. Of course imported cigs will always be available but the taxes on them will be so high only the rich will be able to afford it. You think $5 a pack is high, just wait.

Well I keep costs down by rolling my own cigarettes. So I spend about 20 a month and that's it. But like other people I'm wondering where people get this idea that the air is clean. If you think it is your a fool.

What Planet are you guys living on?

The Planet Earth, or in least sectors not too polluted.

Not everyone lives in a smog-polluted city. Toxic pollution of the air (not CO2 levels) has actually decreased since the early 20th century, due to filter treatments in industrial plants, catalysators in cars.....

I can't find the link at the moment, but there was a study somewhere in Europe that looked at lung-diseases in waiters and waitresses (in most European countries smoking is still permitted in restaurants and bars). The results were shocking, even waiters/waitresses that didn't smoke themselves experienced a 10 fold increase in lung diseases.

Another study (they were both done about 10 years ago) found out that the smoke inhaled from 'secondary' smoking, was actually more toxic than what smokers inhale themselves.

On a private side: My father was a very heavy smoker since he was about 18. He mostly smoked at home and I therefore spend a lot of my childhood in a smoked filled room. If now (as an adult) I get a cough I always get it much worse than everyone else, my doctor says that this is due to a "weak' bronchial system caused most likely by 'secondary smoking' as a child...

...my father stopped smoking three years ago when he almost lost a leg due to clogging of the veins caused by excessive smoking...


No one forbids you to smoke out in the open air. The argument that the air is already polluted (although true for some places) does therefore not apply here. The trouble is with enclosed and semi-enclosed (eg. entrances to libraries and other public places) rooms. In those places toxins and smoke particles accumulate to a level that it is simply not safe anymore to inhale. Now, 30 years ago we did not know that, but then 30 years ago it was not compulsory to wear a seatbelt in a car either. Fact is that we now know more and we have the obligation to react to this knowledge.

what about my 'right' to possess plutonium and shoot heroin?   btw tobacco was criminalized by james 1; opium was known to be addictive by the ancient greeks (and probably earlier than that) yet no law criminalized its possesion until the harrison act (admittedly, that was a taxation issue but one that was driven, in part, by unionist samuel gompers' prejudice against chinese immigrant laborers).

Gee, I live in a rural area and from time to time I smell smog from the city.......so I guess it drifts, huh. Time to wake up and smell the smog...opps, I mean coffee

It'd be like if I decided my luck was so good I should play Russian Roulette every day.

Actually, you would be arrested for attempted murder, your not legally allowed to kill yourself, and if you fail, you can be arrested for trying.

I personally think that is a load of bulunkie, I can smoke myself to death, drink myself to death, I can eat myself to death, starve myself to death, dehidrate myself to death, etc. However, I cannot drive without a seat belt, ride without a helmet, shot myself and live, etc.

I don't want people forcing me to live, healthy or not, that is my right, I am the age of the majority. Don't want me to smoke in Government offices, fine, don't want me to smoke in your buisness, fine, but don't force buisnesses to ban smoking if they don't want to, it should be up to the owner of the buisness, that should be a right of the buisness owner, their choice, not the non-smoking public. If a bar owner wants a non smoking bar, fine, good for them, if a bar owner wants smoking in his bar, fine, good for him.

I don't understand why non smokers want all public places (other than government buildings) to be non smoking only. Locally, there are non smoking bars, smoking bars, non smoking resturants, and smoking resurants, The point is, there are choices if you want to hang out in the toxins or not.

true, true. there are choices

I don't understand why non smokers want all public places (other than government buildings) to be non smoking only. Locally, there are non smoking bars, smoking bars, non smoking resturants, and smoking resurants, The point is, there are choices if you want to hang out in the toxins or not.

It's probably because the non-smokers are a bit lazy. Why make choices? Get rid of all smoking places!

Jesus....this is a bumper crop day for issues that are rooted in common sense being cast to the wind....we have the same draconian laws here as well....the non-smoking lobby is getting more rabid with each passing day to say the least...when one cannot walk down a tree lined street next to a park on the way to shop in a neighbourhood, or better yet, IN THE PARK, cannot sit on a bench in the sun pondering the statuary, trees & abundance of exotic horticulture amoungst the duck ponds without BEING ARRESTED in the open air of our God given community, it seems we get closer to George Orwell's 1984 in many regards. Thx for bringing this point of view to the public domain WMSCO

Fond Regards From Atlantic Canada