Smoke it up... (depressing)

I don't have anything against a smoking section. As an ex-smoker, it's a bit hypocritical for me to say I do. I do get sick of people smoking and walking down the street though, especially as I have a child now. Then again, I did that as well, so...

 

GP: I forgot the worst thing is this, the law will be dominant from the 1. of April this year. And the politicians aren´t having an April of fools day with it.

 

Might as well make smokers take a shower and wash their clothes if you really hate their stench eh?

Where did liberty go in this world? The era where you just accepted people for who they were, smelly or not!

Second hand smoke is - to me at least- sort of a myth. I ve lived around smokers all my life, since I was born, and I never got addicted to fags (cigarettes in British english, before anyone makes a sexual comment), although I socially smoke them (to look cool and that sort of thing ).

I find living in a city (as most of you do) more harmful to my respiratory and arterial systems than any second hand smoke. More than half the things we consume everyday, from canned foods, to perfumes, contain carcinogenes. Adding a tiny amount of second-hand smoke won't kill you any more than rain can crack your skull.

I understand that many people are annoyed by this, and I don't like the smell either.



But to claim that we, stench-free people should have a law passed to ban stinky ones, is like saying that people who naturally smell like sweat should be banned from this and that.

I m defending freedom here though, not just my own personal convenience.

You ll argue that one is a condition and the other is a habbit, but I m sure that most of us can get along with smokers without such tight regulation from the Government. You know, having a non-smoking section for example. Giving more power to the Government everytime it passes a new law, only ristricts our own power to be free men.

 

Barc0de: don´t worry, of course I know you use the slang word for a smoke.

 

I think part of the reason for such strict laws in some places is that health care winds up costing the government too much money. It's no lie -- tobacco is really, really bad for you. All that other shit they put in is probably worse.

I agree w/ you on living in the city though. I used to ride my bike to & from work in Tokyo. To, in the morning, was great. On the way home at night though -- way worse than a few cigarettes.

 

as heroine, alcohol, crack and other drugs prove, prohibition is never a solution. Strict regulation which is prohibition in disguise is also not a solution.

I honestly wish the government would regulate Heroine and other drugs instead of ignoring their existence and banning them in such a way. People who want to get into drugs will do eventually one way or the other - they ll have to face the black market and miriads of dangers that puts them in far greater risk than the one the drug presents on its effects.

Money laundring, black market economy, and of course the cost of rehab for those people is high. The only way an economist could justify their stance is if the Government itself takes some cut of the pie on the drug incomes

 

In before drugs are evil/no they aren't/yes they are/no they aren't/yes they are/no they aren't/you're an asshole/this thread is now closed.

I mean, shit, I agree with you Barc0de. As far as I'm concerned, what someone else does with their own mind is none of my business as long as it doesn't affect me. I've learned that this opinion is deemed abhorrent by many, though, and in general it's easier not to get drawn into an Internet argument over it. Assembler indicated that the free speech thread is the correct place for this discussion, either way.

 

Yeap, free speech thread is probably the most appropriate forum for this discussion.

 

Nobody's talking about banning cigarettes (although I still don't see how they aren't, and weed and the others are). I'm just talking about keeping the smoke/smell out of the way. While the really hard shit won't bother anyone else, 2nd hand smoke can get annoying. I've got some fly threads...some of which cost a shitload to dry clean when they get smoke from all over them.

 

funny you should mention this.

Cigarettes have had extensive research and multiple efforts were made to limit their appeal to people , eventually leading to an outright ban.

The reason that its very very hard to ban cingarettes is that unlike Cannabis and even Cocaine, Nicotine is highly addictive. More addictive than Heroine.

Also, alcohol-related crime is the highest crime related to any drug (not including drug cartels/wars). From road traffic accidents to every-day street-fights, alcohol is one bad drug. Stoned people just go and sit in a corner, whilst drunk people think they can take over the world.

Tobacco manufacturing companies have battled official government and secretly paid officials to hide many facts relating to tobacco , that to this day are well kept secrets. They say "smoking might kill" or that it is though that smoking is related to cancer, instead of saying "smoking most definately is a primary source of cancer".

25 odd years ago, Phillip Morris developed a smoke-less cigarette that was just a Nicotine Delivery glass tubelette, that u sucked on. It was tested and successful, but without the harmful effects of smoking cigarettes.

Other companies eventually persuaded the Supreme Court to label the product as a drug aiming to sustaine and promote drug use, similar to cocaine or heroine.


The amount of media and governmental distortion that smoking has gone through is unique. So, since governments cant actively stop these multi-billion giants, they tax the shit out of cigarettes, and people pay.

Regarding alcohol, please remember what happened during the alcohol-ban in the US. Al Capone became famous because he was involved in the black market of alcohol. As with any substance deemed illegal, people seeking for it will pay high prices and purity is out of the subject, so many people got blind or dead, or suffered many other side-effects of tampered drinks.

It's all about money in the end. Banning something versus having it roam, the Government will chose the option that will give it more revenue. If cocaine was regulated by government it wouldnt cost 80.000 Euros per Kilogram. Damn right the Government is putting its greedy hand in that money , when you have tons and tons of cocaine imported each year to the USA and Europe.

 

It's actually not. Not physically anyway. It's all mental. This was one of the main points in the book that helped me to quit smoking. Physical addiction to nicotine is miniscule, if it even exists at all. Proof? How can millions of smokers sleep a whole night through w/o a cigarette? B/c they're not physically addicted. Can't say that about a Heroin junky. The mental addiction sucks though, especially when you can smoke so easily. Then again, any mental addiction can be a problem. How many times have you wanted to go play a video game when you were at work?

I agree whole-heartedly on your alcohol statements, and of course prohibition. I think that's a big problem of America these days though. Nobody can say, "you know what, I think it's wrong, so I'm not going to participate in it." Instead, they have to picket, fight, throw shit, and shoot people that do things they think are wrong.