Smoking
- Thread starter Famine
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Famine
I'm sure drug laws primarily exist to prevent accidents caused by intoxicated drug users, the intoxicating effects of cigarettes are obviously far less than those of (other) drugs and comparable to the magnitude in effects caffeine has.
If these laws were to address the health issues of drugs, cigarettes should be subject to the same laws as drugs, whilst accentuating the line between hard- and soft drugs leaving the soft kind subject to the intoxicating mandates and everything else to both the health- and periodical physical affecting side.
This would mean tabacco is hard drugs. How ****ing interesting is that?
- 1,645
Well Madison just passed a lwa that banned smoking in restaurants, bars, and other places of food and/or spirits. I can see why people don't like it, but it certainly makes places more "family friendly".
Danoff
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This really is a weird thread because of what I'm about to say.
Don't read things in to what I wrote. Just read what is there. Don't change the rest of my examples. The comparison was between the freedom to smoke your cigarettes and the freedom to breathe clean air (that must be provided for you).
That's the distinction and there is a difference.
Oh sure. It's easy to restrict other people's freedom when it won't affect you. What happens when its your turn? What happens when its your vice that other people restrict because it doesn't affect them?
Ok so you can lock everyone up for having germs. What about plants that cause allergies? What about car exhaust (are we advocating getting rid of cars on the GTP website?). What about horses, they sure smell bad. Noise can cause people to lose a tiny bit of hearing, lets ban airplanes. What about sunlight, it causes skin cancer... BANNED!!!
Let them ban driving under the influence separately then. OH WAIT!!! THEY ALREADY HAVE!!!
It makes them less smoker friendly and restricts freedom. Freedom of the individuals in the bar, and freedom of the bar owner to have the kind of business he wants to have.
- 1,271
Smokers also have the freedom not to go into the pub.... I think at the very least public venues should have the option to ban it. I'm glad Florida did. But people can still smoke in bars and pool halls and such.
Pot should be legalized for the simple fact that it's a silly crime that takes up the time of LawEnforcement agencies. Time that could be spent on real crimes, like murders. [edit] and because the Govt. could then regulate and tax the hell outta it!
Pot should be legalized for the simple fact that it's a silly crime that takes up the time of LawEnforcement agencies. Time that could be spent on real crimes, like murders. [edit] and because the Govt. could then regulate and tax the hell outta it!
Danoff
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At the very least, private venues should (and do) have the option to ban it. Public venues are paid for by smokers too.
And thereby mandate a lifestyle, which I find very intrusive and forceful of our government. Imagine if they taxed only certain kinds of pornography because they thought it was bad. Or if they taxed certain movies higher than others because they wanted you to watch some footage and not others.
What if they taxed some newspapers higher than others so that they could force you to get your news from a certain source.
Danoff
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First of all, that's not that bad. Anarchy is, of course, a terrible model and won't last. But close to anarchy isn't bad (depending on the definition of close). Rights have to be protected.
Now that being said, if you think about it... placing an uneven tax on smokes is exactly what I was talking about. Government regulated lifestyle.
Is that good? Is that what we want our government doing?
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Famine
I'm have smoked for roughly 21 years, finally giving it up on January 7th 2004.
1) Inside buildings or enclosed areas where the public gather, yes. Outdoors no, and any good citizen should have the common decency to refrain from smoking in cloud shot of a non-smoker.
2) Yes, because the same argument could be put forward for many other illnesses which could be deemed as "self-inflicted" (liver damage for drinking too much for too long is a good illustration here).
3) I'm undecided over that one, but I doubt whether any such law would get a chance considering the amount of tax the government earns from the tobacco industry (not just the smoker).
Oh, and as the result of a conversation overheard a few days ago it is quite apparent that some people who smoke canabis do not consider themselves to be a smoker. So, what is that tobacco I see you mixing it with? Dummies.
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danoff
Clean air must be provided for you? Say what? There's a little over 4 billion cubic miles of the stuff floating around...
To answer ledhed - there is a similar reported incidence in mouth and oesophageal cancers in chronic cannabis smokers to cigarette smokers - however the former is not recognised as being as addictive as the latter.
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- GTP_Famine
Ah - I think we have crossed wires in that case.
The Earth's atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and a whole bunch of other stuff (generally accepted figures are <1% Argon, 0.03% Carbon Dioxide and "trace" amounts of six others).
In the vicinity of cigarette (or pipe, panatella, cigar or indeed weed - I'm not discriminating) smoke, the air is roughly 78% nitrogen, 14% oxygen, 4% carbon monoxide, 3% carbon dioxide and "other" - that is, you're breathing in 1/3 less oxygen and, as if that weren't bad enough, you're now breathing in carbon monoxide which actually sequesters haemoglobin and stops it transporting the 1/3 less oxygen you are breathing in.
By "clean", I meant "normal atmosphere", rather than "free of particulates". Sorry.
The Earth's atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and a whole bunch of other stuff (generally accepted figures are <1% Argon, 0.03% Carbon Dioxide and "trace" amounts of six others).
In the vicinity of cigarette (or pipe, panatella, cigar or indeed weed - I'm not discriminating) smoke, the air is roughly 78% nitrogen, 14% oxygen, 4% carbon monoxide, 3% carbon dioxide and "other" - that is, you're breathing in 1/3 less oxygen and, as if that weren't bad enough, you're now breathing in carbon monoxide which actually sequesters haemoglobin and stops it transporting the 1/3 less oxygen you are breathing in.
By "clean", I meant "normal atmosphere", rather than "free of particulates". Sorry.
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danoff
so what taxes do you agree with? By your argument, then, any tax is a "life style" resctiction. So how are we to pay for a Government? Or are you saying everything should be taxed equally? And i don't understand how that is "government regulated lifestlye"? What part of your life isn't regulated by the government?
Danoff
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Even if we did cross wires it doesn't matter. Do we have a right to clean air? I guess that's the point of this thread. I would say no. Do we have a right to clean water? Nope. Do we have a right to food? Nope.
We do, however, have a right to purchase these things if they are for sale.
And once again, I point out that there is a matter of practicality associated with this. Obviously there comes a point where public air should not be polluted. But exactly how much pollution that is is difficult to pin down. I think its clear that the pollution effect of smoking has an insignificant impact compared to other pollutants. (Here I'm talking about outside air, inside is a different ballpark)
I'm sure that sounds really confusing, but I'm having trouble communicating this.
Sales tax is ok as long as its applied evenly across all products (some tax exempt stuff is ok). Taxes are only lifestyle restrictions when they're applied unevenly. We pay for government through taxes and that's ok, though some taxes make more sense, and the government should should only use tax dollars for certain things.
Lots of parts of my life (and your life) aren't regulated by the government. Like religion for example. My choice of food (as long as other people's rights aren't violated). In fact, assuming nobody's rights are violated, the government regulates very little. However, when the government taxes one product more than another, they are in effect giving you a dissincentive to purchase that product. That kind of control can be used to regulate what consumers purchase. In fact, that's the whole idea behind cigarette taxes (and gas taxes and similar things). The government doesn't appoligize for this, they don't even try to hide it. They openly admit what I'm talking about - that these taxes are meant to get people to act a certain way.
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danoff
The local air has been made "unclean" by the behaviour of the smoker. Perhaps if we drew a parallel to "Should someone be allowed to piss in your drinking water", then the analogy would be more apt. The acts of one human being are impinging on the necessities - oxygen or water - of another. Does the second human have the right to oxygen? Does the first have the right to take that away?
Drinking unclean water (even pissy water) won't necessarily kill you. Breathing in a 4% carbon monoxide atmosphere can top you inside 30 minutes.
- 1,271
Maybe because some products inderectly end up costing the government money.... Like alcohol leads to lots of stuff that ties up LawEnforcement, gas because it deals with Cars and auto manufacturing has to be heavily regulated by the Government to ensure safe vehicles are produced. I don't know for sure, but this seems to make sense to me. And i'm sure that in some way, Tobacco has also cost the government money. We know that State Governments suffered from Tobacco, thats how they won that huge lawsuit.
Danoff
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No. It's because the government is regulating a lifestyle. That's why gas is taxed more in cities with traffic and pollution problems. Smokes are taxed to discourage people from smoking. There might be a little bit of picking on the minority in terms of taxing cigarettes. Since they can be taxed and can't really fight back. Anyway, for the most part it's not an attempt to recoup losses, its an attempt to get people to not buy certain products.
Is this water that I purchased or is it community water? If its a river or lake or ocean or ice on top of a mountain. I would say people should be allowed to piss in it (as long as it's not owned by someone), but not dump huge amounts of human waste in it.
Just like with air pollution there is a balance that has to be struck. The balance between acceptible pollution and too much pollution.
Danoff
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??? I don't remember saying anything like that.
But I agree, its a tough question. How much pollution is too much. However, does cigarette smoke really count as pollution? Certainly the tiny amount of smoke that is given off by cigarettes isn't enough to be considered pollution.
To be considered menacing it has to be highly concentrated... like indoors.
So outdoors in public I'd say people should be able to smoke.
Indoors in a public building I'd say it could be banned.
In a private building it should be up to the owner.
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danoff
You made this statement in Global Suicide. Okay you didn't say experts, but you are saying that even though air quality effects all of us, only a few should have a say when it is or is not bad enough to do something about it. That makes sense
Okay, i'm sorry, I didn't mean public venues as in city parks. yeah, indoors only with the bannination of smoking. Okay so we agree on.... what, like 2 things now?
Danoff
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In a way its up to all of us. If the problem gets bad enough we're either willing to spend lots of money to fix it or learn to fix it ourselves to make lots of money.
Either way, it has to be enough of a problem that, yes a few, people will work hard to fix it. We help get those people to fix the problem by offering cash.
Like cash for a more fuel efficient car. Or cash for purified water.
