*Outdoor* Secondhand Smoke is a Hazard?

[slang]

I'll try to keep this short.

There's an article I read tonight entitled Smoke-free parks: a 12-year old made it happen. In that article is a specific line that caught my attention.

Negative health effects from exposure to secondhand smoke include asthma, wheezing, ear infections, chronic coughs, and upper respiratory infections. (2) This was the basis the "California Smoke-free Workplace Law" that became effective in California in 1995, requiring worksites to be free from indoor tobacco smoke. Bars, clubs, gaming facilities and taverns became smoke-free in 1998 to protect workers from the effects of secondhand smoke. What is relatively unknown is the extent of the effect that outdoor secondhand smoke has on children and adults. Exposure to outdoor secondhand smoke can negatively impact asthma and allergies. (3)

What is specifically so disturbing about this line is that there is a study referenced.

(3) National Cancer Institute. Health Effects of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke: The Report of the California Environmental Protection Agency. Smoking and Tobacco Control Monograph no. 10. Bethesda, MD. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, NIH Pub. No. 99-4645, 1999, pp 185-264.

Here are the questions I have:

1) Are the readers to believe that outdoor secondhand smoke is now such a problem that it's logical that smoking be banned outdoors while pollen producing plants and allergenic materials are not?

2) How can ODSHS possibly have an impact on my health if the wind is blowing when I am outdoors with an evil, uncaring smoker?

3) What is the "effective range" of ODSHS? I'm in Pa.. If there's a guy in Texas outside smoking, should I be concerned? Are my rights somehow being violated by this evil bastard? Should I call the ATF to have them extinguish his butt?

4) Does anyone else see this ant-smoking crusade going a bit too far?

5) If you support this ban on smoking outdoors in public places, can you explain why? It seems downright silly and irritating to read this crap peddled as reasonable policy. Please, help me understand this.

[Skunks]

The logic is really quite simple:

- FACT: Smokers enjoy smoking.
- FACT: Europeans call cigarettes 'fags'.
- THUS: Smokers like having fags between their lips.
- THUS: Smokers are all fags.
- THUS: Smokers are sinners.
- THUS: Smokers should be killed, because they're fags. And European.

Q.E.D.

[slang]

Originally posted by Skunks
- THUS: Smokers should be killed, because they're fags. And European.

(slaps forehead) How could I have overlooked such simple logic?

But the question still stands. If a Europen fag smokes a cigarette in my back yard. how many millimeters are in an inch?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Doesn't matter because the SHS has killed you and those European fags all exaggerate their millimeters of prowess anyway.

[elSicomoro]

I would think that unless you're right next to a smoker and inhaling the smoke from that smoker, the effects of outdoor second-hand smoke are negligible compared to car pollution, air pollution, etc.

Apparently the ban in CA has worked well, though I've heard a lot of griping about the one in NYC.

Maryland's setup is interesting--most restaurants I've been to there are non-smoking, but you can smoke in the bar (if they have one), which in many cases is completely separated from the restaurant.

I understand that many people don't like smoke, and many know of the risks of SHS. But I do think that some of the persecution of smokers has gone a bit too far--especially the tax increases.

And what really pissed me off about the tax increase here in PA last year is that they stressed how it was "to protect children" when it was really more about helping to reduce the budget deficit.

If you keep increasing the cost of cigarettes and limiting their use, all you're going to do in the end is encourage crime. It'll become like Prohibition.

[slang]

Originally posted by sycamore
If you keep increasing the cost of cigarettes and limiting their use, all you're going to do in the end is encourage crime. It'll become like Prohibition.

The next step for many of the smokers around here has become to roll their own cigarettes. The tax hasnt been levied against the tobacco so the cost of a huge can costs only a few bucks.

The next obstacle for the die hard cheapazz smoker will then be making their own rolling paper.

There very well may also be some rural entrapreneur that would like to work from home rolling cigs in bulk rather than put up with the shitjob. Think about it. Is it feasable you could make and sell cigs for 18k a year full time? I'm amazed there arent people doing that now.

[Undertoad]

If I was a smoker that's the only way I'd go. You'd get higher quality tobacco that was less bajangled with additives and stuff. You could roll with a filter in place - good friend of mine had a rolling device that would pop out perfect cigarettes every time, with filter if you wanted.

As well as whatever else you wanted to roll in there

[slang]

Ok, so soon the rolling devices will be banned. Not for the possibility of rolling up pot, but for "screwing" THE MAN out of the tax money the Indians havent gotten to (yet).

[JeepNGeorge]

GRRRRRRRR

Yes I'm a smoker.

Yes I know it's bad, but I still do it. No I don't smoke in restaurants I usually wait until I'm outside, but now in the great state of Oklahoma I no longer have a choice.

I realize the concern the non-smokers have with second hand smoke and wanting not to be around it, but to misquote Bill Hicks, it's not a war on smoke, it's a war on personal freedom. Yes your taking away my personal freedoms. Not my freedom to smoke anywhere I want to, but if I owned a business, I no longer have the freedom to let people light up or not. We are the land of the free, but slowly our rights are being taken away one by one. Go ahead ban smoking all together. Make it to wear you can't light up anywhere but inside your locked house, but don't come crying to the smokers when they want to take away your guns, beer, violent video games, <insert your favorite vice here>. Why should we care, we have already lost some of our freedoms. I hope people will soon realize that by lobbying the gubment to make a 'ban' on their most hated slice of society is only making the gubment more powerful, more controlling, and more likely to come after them next.

just my 2 cents.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Apparently the ban in CA has worked well, though I've heard a lot of griping about the one in NYC.

CA is full of politically correct sheep. NY'ers bitch about anything and everything.

[slang]

Originally posted by JeepNGeorge
I realize the concern the non-smokers have with second hand smoke and wanting not to be around it....

I really think this SHS issue is over rated. It's a tool to use against smokers.

I chew snuff. What's their excuse for keeping me from dipping Skoal? Secondhand spit? What if I dont spit? Am I somehow endangering the person standing next to me?

Fuck these Nazi bastards.

Next thing ya know I wont be able to FART, for Christ's sake.

[Griff]

They're running locally produced SHS spots on the radio here. They start with the vague invented stats, as many people die from SHS as go to BU and BBC combined. Those people are cured now. Then they go to the the smoke free work places embracing the fresh air. It all sounds very righteous.... except that its mandatory, so what are you bragging about? Then a local coffee shop guy endorses it and mentions that they've always been smokefree. So how is your place different now? I don't care for cigarette smoke but but its better than being babysat.

[wolf]

Originally posted by slang
Next thing ya know I wont be able to FART, for Christ's sake.

You got that warning from the EPA, remember? Did you ever respond to it, or did you just use it to wipe your ass?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Did you know the "average" person farts 14 times a day. Of course I've always considered myself "above" average.

[elSicomoro]

Man, if more things were methane powered, I'd be set!