Views on smoking

[Pavlov]

Don't mind them, Pavlov, they are just brainwashed advocates of the Nanny State.  Cheers, exhaling large puff.

*flings handful of feces at the opposition*

To arms fellow defenders of the glorious "State of the Smoke" Let them feel our grody vengeance!

*fills another hand full of feces*

 

[italiano]

Don't mistake me for a anti-smoking crusader, I'd just stand on the sidelines and watch both sides destroy each other.

 

[scootar]

*Stands on sideline*

 

[Pavlov]

*lowers hand full of feces*

See I knew the monkeys had it right.

 

[Sir Saladin]

I just don't see how jogging alongside a busy street deeply inhaling diesel exhaust fumes and brake pad dust is better for your health then the scent of burning dried leaves that someone nearby is smoking. I thought the man who tried to sue a fast food restaurant chain for making him fat would win since the tobacco companies had to pay for forcing people to smoke, it would only be fair but I guess the big fat jury members or judge didn't like that idea.
Edit: People will get sick and die even if tobacco is outlawed, what caused Grandpa's angina? It must have been those cheap cookies he was eating all the time or he didn't get enough excercise, lets make a law that straps sedentary people into a treadmill for twenty minutes a day or maybe it was all that fresh fruit he ate that was covered in bug killer chemicals or he lived too close to the airport, why did the damned fool work with dangerous construction materials like arsenic or creosote treated lumber and fiberglass insulation for years and years? He should have become a college professor instead and lived in the jungle eating natural food and drinking pure water, I told him that microwave oven would be his downfall but nooo, he kept using it anyway eating poisonous frozen dinners. Serves him right to die at the young age of seventy two.

 

[Archonsod]

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, eh? I can buy that. But what if it does kill you?

Nobody gets out of life alive. Like I said, what someone else chooses to do with their own body is none of my concern, they want to get themselves ****ed up on drugs, alcohol or a media studies degree that's their business. I don't stick my nose uninvited into their ****, the least I expect is the same in return.

Perhaps you should consider that their preference does you no harm, while your preference harms them. Your comment is a perfect example of the mentality and selfishness of many smokers.

Bull****. Last time I checked there were several million square miles of territory and I take up less than 1% of that. If they're that upset by my smoking, they're free to stand somewhere else. Like I said, their driving ****s me up more than tobacco, in fact I can probably find any number of things they do which are detrimental to my health. Thing is, if someone near me is doing something I'm not happy with I go stand somewhere else. If they don't have at least that level of intelligence, then the health risk from passive smoking is probably the least of their worries. Any one stupid enough to walk into a smoking bar and complain about the smoke is probably an ideal candidate for euthanasia in the first place.

And you can smoke when you have a drink, go outside.

It's illegal to consume alcohol in most city centres, and one could equally say if you don't want to be surrounded by smoke, go drink in the beer garden. Point is it should be up to the publican whether their premises are smoking, non-smoking  or a mix of the two, not the law. If there's that much call for non-smoking bars then the market would soon sort it out without the need for Nanny State legislature.

1. What about the people who work in those places? I did some bar work, and it could be horrible at times and probably took at least a year off of me. You could simply say "Well don't work there", but I didn't have a choice. You take what you can get, and that was the bar job I was able to get at the time. Why should bar staff have to put up with your habit?

If you don't like some aspect of your job then yes, you get another one, or (crazy idea I know) you don't accept the job in the first place. Don't give me bull**** about not having a choice; unless you're in some funky dictatorship which has locked you into the bar tender caste then you can always find another job. If you don't want to be shot at you don't join the military, if you don't want to see your **** on television you don't go into the porn industry. Don't want people smoking around you, don't get a job in a smoking premises. It's not like bar work is a highly skilled trade

And when I have to step into a lift (elevator to you Americans) full of people who have just got off their fag break at work and they absolutely reek of smoke. Then they douse themselves with perfume because they KNOW they reek, and that makes it even worse, because you're trapped in a small space with no proper ventilation and a toxic cloud of half a dozen perfumes. And even then, you can STILL smell the smoke.

I'm allergic to several chemicals commonly used in perfumes, deodorants and similar scents, but I don't go around demanding people stop wearing it. I'm allergic to grass pollen too, but I don't insist the council consult me before cutting the grass outside my home. See, in these cases it's my problem, and therefore my responsibility to deal with.

 

[Lyze]

I'm going to be a rat bastard and input my (uneducated) thoughts without reading any of the posts.

Personally, it should be banned to the confines of one's house or property, to the extent that no one else is unwillingly exposed to it.

My grandfather smoked, and my father developed asthma because of it. The genetic-environmental interaction for the causes of asthma have been well documented, with the genetic side uncovering even more gene markers. Two of my uncles are smokers. They always smoked at family functions until the times changed and they "slipped away" to do it instead.

My father developed asthma, and passed his genes to me. I am uneducated, but I've been pondering the thought that one of the genes for asthma was passed on to me from my father.
Asthma has been known to be in high relation to allergies, in that it can cause them, and will certainly worsen them.

I've been plagued by allergies and asthma my entire life - whilst I've learnt to live with it, my uneducated, almost wholly unresearched opinion is that the smoking of my grandfather not only killed him and induced two of his offspring to also smoke, shortened his wife's lifespan (who had a chronic disease), and that of all his children, but also started the chain that has been passed to me.

Again, that's uneducated thoughts, and I'm a bit bitter about unchangeable things that **** up your life, but still... Take it with a grain of salt.

 

[Lyze]

Not likely.

Our family is strongly-built, and have been healthy until the smoking grandfather. Besides, asthma isn't crippling. Merely an inconvenience, if you handle it properly.

 

[Sir Saladin]

Sorry about the delete, I deleted my post because I called you a weakling and I shouldn't have done that. I had asthma as a child but I think smoking pot and tobacco and drinking alcohol cured me permanently.

 

[Lyze]

Indeed, except we're not physically weak. I used to have reduced lung capacity, but that's gone now, and I have muscle.

And... I'm done defending myself.

 

[Sir Saladin]

I'm not a doctor, don't start smoking and drinking for a cure of anything. What doesn't kill you might make you sicker.

 

[Archonsod]

Smoking actually helps relieve the symptoms of Asthma, particularly immune response triggered. Kills off the little hairs which tell your lungs to react.

As for smoking being the cause, it's documented that endotoxin exposure can trigger asthma in those with specific gene sequences, but you'll be exposed to them far more from the common dust mite than you would smoking twenty a day. Aside from that, while smoking during pregnancy (and in the population in general) has declined sharply the past few decades, asthma cases continue to rise.

I'd go along with the hygiene theory myself. Too much sterility, particularly in children's environments, ****s the immune system up something chronic. Add in to that the common triggers being animal and plant related, note that the highest cases of asthma tend to be in the urban population and I'd speculate that it's the same root cause as hayfever and similar problems.

 

[Lyze]

Aye - the sterility argument is the best explanation so far. It doesn't work in my case, though. I've had it since birth.

 

[Pharaoh Llandy]

People will get sick and die even if tobacco is outlawed, what caused Grandpa's angina? It must have been those cheap cookies he was eating all the time

No, my grandad didn't each chocolate or cookies. He just kept them around for us kids.

or he didn't get enough excercise,

Actually, my grandfather got plenty of exercise. He and my grandma frequently took me and my siblings and cousins on long walks. Once we walked up Great Orme in Wales. Not bad for a pensioner.

lets make a law that straps sedentary people into a treadmill for twenty minutes a day

The treadmill wasn't required as he was an avid walker.

or maybe it was all that fresh fruit he ate that was covered in bug killer chemicals

No, he grew most of his own fruit and veg. And people here tend to wash their fruit before eating it when it's been bought from a supermarket. You never know where a fruit-picker's hands have been.

or he lived too close to the airport,

Sorry, you miss again. Closest airport being over an hour's drive away.

why did the damned fool work with dangerous construction materials like arsenic or creosote treated lumber and fiberglass insulation for years and years?

He didn't. He was a retired teacher.

He should have become a college professor instead

Yes, he was a teacher.

and lived in the jungle eating natural food and drinking pure water,

Well, his garden DID look somewhat jungle-like, at times. The greenhouse where he grew tomatoes was definitely jungle-esque.

I told him that microwave oven would be his downfall but nooo, he kept using it anyway eating poisonous frozen dinners.

Why would he use a microwave and eat poisonous frozen dinners when my grandma would cook home-made meals for him every day? I think those straws are slipping from your grasp.

Serves him right to die at the young age of seventy two.

Yes, serves him right for smoking. Even when the angina started, he kept doing it until eventually he had a heart attack and died.

Smoking actually helps relieve the symptoms of Asthma, particularly immune response triggered. Kills off the little hairs which tell your lungs to react.

My sister must've been faking all those asthma attacks she had, then.

 

[Pavlov]

*turns on Llandys sarcasm detector*

Ok, now read all that again.

And sorry about grandad.

 

[Sir Saladin]

I wasn't picking on your grandfather Pharoah, I never even met the man. I was just making a hypothetical example I never meant it to be personal I only wrote the word angina because it was the last disease that I read in the thread. I should have wrote tongue cancer or something. I'm sorry that I made you angry.

 

[Pharaoh Llandy]

That's okay. I'm well aware that smoking affects different people in different ways. Some people can smoke all their lives and live healthily into their nineties. Others develop breathing problems as they age. In my grandfather's case, he lived with angina for a good year or two, and ignored the doctors' warnings to quit. In the end, it was that which killed him. It doesn't kill everybody, but I like to think that if my granddad had given up smoking, he might have lived long enough to meet his first great-grand kid.

 

[scootar]

I think forcing people not to do things, because it's could one day decades away kill them is pointless. From what old people tell me you only get a 50-60 years of "good" living. That means without health complications. Of course the life expectancy and health care will one day increase that number, but until then smoke away if you want.

 

[Dryvus]

I'm allergic to grass pollen too, but I don't insist the council consult me before cutting the grass outside my home.

Wait, wait, wait. The government mows your ****ing lawn FOR you???

Edit: NOW who's living in a Nanny state? 

 

[Sir Saladin]

Those damned socialists living good lives, it is outrageous. He probably meant the grass near the road not his own front lawn.