Smokers........... "You Bastards!"

Here's a conspiracy for you all:
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) is a single agency that "polices" all 3 industries. These 3 tend to stick together. The largest monetary contributors to the gun lobbyists are tobacco companies. I propose that the government is obviously not interested in people's health so what is their problem with smokers? Could it be that if you can't hit the gun control issue directly you hit their pocket book? Get rid of the revenue of tobacco industries and they won't have the profits available to fund the gun lobbyists who fight for your rights to own guns. At that point, second hand smoke will be the least of any of our worries.
Just my smoking gun theory. Let me know if you think this is a valid concern or if I'm just "blowin' smoke".

I'll stop when i darn well want and when alcohol is abolished.

Think that will happen???

My opinion on this matter

X-tal Phusion I could care less.

Poo can kill you especially if it's from a deer mouse.

walking outside is a risk for everyone, theres cars, planes, trains, etc.

I dont smoke, I just dont care if anyone does or the effect it will have on

anyone I'm an athemetic too and you dont hear my whinening about smoke.

I take the same risks as any athesmatic when I go outside.

I dont want anything from anyone.

Maybe I should live out in the middle of nowhere but I dont, nor do I care.

GM foods are a good idea, but hey if people want to eat food with disease

and bugs I could care less.

I havent heard any ghosts trying to scare me yet.

My take on this issue is actually pretty simple. Every society has to have a group it can blame for woes real or imagined. In Western societies this group is the smokers. We're a pretty easy group to discriminate against and it's even politically correct. Smokers cover every race and religion we're pretty much across the board. It's ok to be rude to us and make snide remarks that we are meant to over hear but heaven help us if we respond. Oh no, we must just take the behavior and hang our heads in shame. The government; if it tried couldn't have found a better scapegoat to cause people to turn on others. Its working pretty darn well.

Fact is, it doesnt matter how polite a smoker tries to be we will still be criticized and insulted by at least some of the population. I have sympathy for those with allergies and all you have to do is ASK me to please not light up around you and I won't; I promise. I don't smoke in my home, I go outside and I won't smoke in your home either it wouldn't be right. I don't smoke in other people's cars for the very same reason.

All I ask is that I be treated with the same respect you desire and that shouldn't be too much for anyone. Let business owners decide whether or not to allow smoking and the buying public will decide the rest.

Smokers........... "You Bastards!"

Falmbait

You gotta be kidding...posting such subject lines on ATS

Oh and to newtron ( i cant send u2u's for another like 8 posts thats when i get the ability to ) i got your message and realized you guys meant the south shore plaza, etc. not neccessarily in Boston proper.





SORRY!! WRONG THREAD >.<

[edit on 6/4/2007 by Karl7772000]

WOW! Lots of contributions on the morals of smoking and passive smoking.
If the powers that be wanted a nation of non smoking individuals then they could easily outlaw tobacco, cigars, cheroots, hand rolling & pipe tobacco by exercising their neo fascist parlimentary powers. The nanny state politicians would lose a vast revenue from the taxation and have to raise taxes to compensate for this loss.
The National Health Service (N.H.S.) in the U.K. would collapse within weeks without tobacco revenue to prop up the cost of this.
Alcohol would amost certainly be their next tax target to raise income from the punters who enjoy a tipple of their favourite spirit or glass of beer.
Yes! I smoke! Shame on me! Anyone got a light?

Here is a light man Got a spare Cigg?

nope, you can't have that surgery, sorry, but your smoked!!

just bring a new tidbit into the discussion...
dailymail.co.uk

[edit on 4-6-2007 by dawnstar]

[edit on 10-6-2007 by DontTreadOnMe]

Originally posted by dawnstar
nope, you can't have that surgery, sorry, but your smoked!!

just bring a new tidbit into the discussion...
dailymail.co.uk

[edit on 4-6-2007 by dawnstar]

So I guess anemics are screwed as well? I didn't read anything about others who would take longer to heal. I guess no surgeries for AIDS patients either since they would take the longest to heal.

This is just insane!!!!!!

[edit on 6/4/2007 by Griff]

[edit on 10-6-2007 by DontTreadOnMe]

smokers never bothered me... why would they?

a lot of smokers i know, including myself, have the courtesy to leave the room, step outside or even leave the table if you are already joining a group outside.. including myself

now i could understand why someone who doesn't smoke would be bothered by someone who does if he was smoking right next to him and was intentionally making him uncomfortable but this is rarely the case

almost anything you do in your daily life can kill you now a days... leave us smokers alone, we know what we're doing and we know the risks we're taking

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
Throwing the automobile into this argument is really quite pointless, but if you want to play that game, I lived quite well from 1976 to 1996 without owning a car. I did, however, smoke cigarettes for all but a couple of years of that time.

The point is quite apt, actually, because I see a valid comparison between huffing tailpipe and smoking cigarettes.

Example:
Mothers give me the evil eye for smoking a cigarette near their child.
Meanwhile, the child is in a stroller, eye-level with the tailpipes of every single passing car.
Which do you think is worse?

Both are poisonous. But one is socially acceptable (we say cars are 'necessary', but they're really 'convenient'), and the other has become the latest in a long string of social pariahs...


My point is that each person has choices, and everyone's choices add up.

We, as individuals in a society, choose to drive cars, produce electricity from coal, produce oodles of stuff from oil... The pollutants are all around us -- by our own individual choices!


There are, quite literally, a ga-zillion and one things that can make us "unhealthy". While I applaud the endeavor for a healthier tomorrow, I can't jump on the bandwagon unless we are determined to follow this through to its logical end -- NO POLLUTANTS/TOXINS AT ALL.

IF that were the end, then I'd happily oblige.

But, as with most social-awareness-fads, I know that that's not the goal.

So why jump on the bandwagon?

I really don't understand all the hate. Smoking is bad for you, I think we've established this. But as many have pointed out, so are a lot of other things. A lot of people enjoy smoking, it's their right. Unless you think that alcohol and caffeine should be outlawed as well... and hey, while we're at it, how about if you're over a certain weight you're banned from eating dessert as well. After all, it's bad for you, and you're taking up extra space in city streets and on the bus, and people shouldn't have to deal with that...

Most smokers I know are extremely courteous about where/when they smoke. But only smoking at home? Try only drinking coffee at home if you're addicted to it. Down with drinking Starbucks in the streets!

I understand that it can be nasty to be around, I'm a nonsmoker. But it's insanely easy to avoid it unless you're dealing with a total jerk... and that's a problem with humanity, not with any specific group of said humans.

fact is that tobacco is a legal drug that causes extreme addiction with significant changes in personality when people don't have their fix.
I feel sorry to a certain extent to anyone that chooses to start smoking, but hey its a free society.
I dont feel sorry that they have limits to where they smoke.
Saddest thing of all is the millions that do die directly from smoking related illness.
I lost my mom that way, one cigarette at a time.

I feel your pain Jungle ... My Mother, an on again-off again, smoker for years died of a lung tumor that metastasized (spelling?) to her brain. I watched her die little by little. The interesting thing about that, however, is that the lady in the room next to her had, essentially, the same set of tumors and a fatal exacerbation... And she had smoked not a day in her life.

Yes, I smoke, but I am, or try to be polite and politic about it. I started when I was 16 (the Viet Nam era)... I was in Viet Nam, and will tell you that a number of times, being able to smoke was a nerve quieting activity. It is far more addictive than Morphine, and probably worse for me. I have tried a number of times to give up, and once made if for a year. However, there wasn't a day I wouldn't have slit your throat for a cigarette.

I will make no excuse for the fact that I am now 58, have been smoking for 42 years, or so, am slightly overweight, can break 4 inch concrete blocks with a palm slap ... Kill you any number of ways, so fast that you won't realize you're gone. Love my family dearly, would lay down my life for my wife or children in a heartbeat.... Pay my taxes, support my local sheriff, believe in God, hope for the best ... Live, laugh, love and cry on occasion. I and many of the other folks here, who are smokers, are folks just like non-smokers, except you obviously wouldn't want your daughter or son to marry one ...

i used to be able to go to a pub for the night and smoke my brains out if i wanted to but when i stepped outside at closing time i didnt know if i was gonna be stabbed/shot of just plain kicked to death because some idiot could not handle a few beers.
plus when i walked home home i was not afraid of a smoking driver mounting the footpath and running me down.
when i smoke you have the choice of walking away from me, i will not be offended, but knock me down and kill or disable me for life and that is another question.
now who is the bastard
the goverments do not care about that YET

I was on vacation last week in Virginia. We spent a day at Busch Gardens. Even though it is a outside amusement park, you can only smoke in designated areas. I just got off a roller coaster and made my way to the smoking area and lit one up. After a few seconds a woman, that was sitting on a bench made a disgusting face, then asked if I could move away. I moved over a little, then I said to her nicely "If you don't like smoke, you might want to move out of the SMOKING AREA!" You have the whole freaking park, and you want to take a break in a smoking area? Before she even had a chance to respond I pointed at the Designated Smoking area sign and just laughed.

On the way back to Louisiana, we timed our arrival just in time to catch the Braves/Cubs game in Atlanta. Even though Turner Field is an open air stadium, the only smoking area is on the upper level in a 3 foot by 20 foot box outlined in yellow. I was about 20 feet outside the box and lit one up and was promptly shut down by security, who informed me that smoking was only allowed in the outlined area, and to make sure both feet were inside the lines.

Hitler would be so proud, if he could see the anti-smoking measures that are happening right here in the United States of America.

I don't think society is going to stop their entire modern day industrialist ways, I don't expect power stations and cars and plastics and oil to stop being used. I'd like it in the long term, but looking at the people who make up society, I hold no hope for it.

For that reason, I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR HEALTH WHEN I'M SMOKING. I can't go to pubs because of it, I can't smoke indoors anywhere other than a house, so SHUT UP. If you don't like your lungs being damaged better find a different planet to live on, cos industrialization has already condemned your pretty organs to a probable grim demise.

Your vehicles, your factories and your way of life harms my body, and there's nothing I can do about it. Guess I'll just join you and fill the world with fumes, yummy.

Originally posted by RRconservative
I was on vacation last week in Virginia. We spent a day at Busch Gardens. Even though it is a outside amusement park, you can only smoke in designated areas. I just got off a roller coaster and made my way to the smoking area and lit one up. After a few seconds a woman, that was sitting on a bench made a disgusting face, then asked if I could move away. I moved over a little, then I said to her nicely "If you don't like smoke, you might want to move out of the SMOKING AREA!" You have the whole freaking park, and you want to take a break in a smoking area? Before she even had a chance to respond I pointed at the Designated Smoking area sign and just laughed.

On the way back to Louisiana, we timed our arrival just in time to catch the Braves/Cubs game in Atlanta. Even though Turner Field is an open air stadium, the only smoking area is on the upper level in a 3 foot by 20 foot box outlined in yellow. I was about 20 feet outside the box and lit one up and was promptly shut down by security, who informed me that smoking was only allowed in the outlined area, and to make sure both feet were inside the lines.

Hitler would be so proud, if he could see the anti-smoking measures that are happening right here in the United States of America.

Be glad that you still have the "freedom" to give yourself and others around you cancer. Many others "freedoms" that hurt yourself and others have been forbidden a long time ago.

Originally posted by chebob
I don't think society is going to stop their entire modern day industrialist ways, I don't expect power stations and cars and plastics and oil to stop being used. I'd like it in the long term, but looking at the people who make up society, I hold no hope for it.

For that reason, I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR HEALTH WHEN I'M SMOKING. I can't go to pubs because of it, I can't smoke indoors anywhere other than a house, so SHUT UP. If you don't like your lungs being damaged better find a different planet to live on, cos industrialization has already condemned your pretty organs to a probable grim demise.

Your vehicles, your factories and your way of life harms my body, and there's nothing I can do about it. Guess I'll just join you and fill the world with fumes, yummy.

I completely agree with you. If these people were so concerned about the "fumes" in the air, shouldn't they be boycotting gasoline-fueled cars and anything that involves the use of a factory? It's horribly hypocritical for someone to be driving a car and then cursing at someone for smoking a cigarette because it "poisons the air".

I'm not a smoker, and I never will be, but smokers should get the same amount of respect anyone else gets. And the fact that people feel more righteous (and thus "more worthy" of treating their peers worse) because they don't smoke is ridiculous.

HOWEVER, smokers should control where and how much they smoke, just as a common courtesy. As long as they keep it outside, don't puff in your face, get ashes everywhere or throw down cigarettes that are still lit, I think non-smokers should be able to give them common courtesy in return.