Smoking in US and your city?

[OWC Jamie]

I laugh every time I hear a big fat over-weight wheezer that wouldn't recognize exercise if it hit him in his big fat a$$ complain about the guy upstairs smoking.

Crap food and the boob tube is killing more Americans than cigarettes.
All three are a huge problem.

[ztirffritz]

I agree Billb, but smoking is different than obsessive eating and laziness. 2 of those things directly affect 1 person and no one else. Smoking affects everyone in a radius around the smoker, unwillingly. If I could get fat because the guy upstairs ate pizza all day, you better believe there would be a pizza ban too.

[Stephanie]

I think the ban here is state-wide. Some cities in my state have banned smoking for quite a few years now (a decade maybe?). Yeah, just googled - looks like the ban went state-wide effective almost a year ago.

Billb - are you a smoker? (not trying to be offensive, just curious)

I'm very sensitive to cigarette smoke but I have friends that are smokers. Most of them have no problem with the ban on smoking in public places. Some were actually happy for it since even THEY hated being surrounded by cigarette smoke in restaurants.

If people want to kill themselves with their bad habits, I'm not one to judge. I only get pissed when I can't escape their bad habits (ie, smoke in public buildings, drunk drivers on the road I'm traveling on, etc).

[tahoedrew]

I live in a 24 hour state (Nevada) and they banned it everywhere except casinos 2 years ago. I love it!

The only exception, besides casinos, are bars that do NOT serve food.

~A

[OWC Jamie]

[quote Stephanie]I

Billb - are you a smoker? (not trying to be offensive, just curious)

quote]


No.


Just amused by the fat cows (and bulls) who point thier grease and processed food laden fingers at others' bad habits.
According to the CDC, overweight and underexercised may be more of a burden on America's health care than smokers. may be.

and yes, I'm now about ten pounds over-weight (after years of being under-weight), so I've been on both sides of the fence.. I've been on both sides of many, many fences.

I don't like fences much.
Hence a lot of my cynicism.


... back to helping people quit ...

[Stephanie]

I'm with ya, billb. I'm mostly just against being judgemental. Why should someone complain about others' bad habits when no one's perfect.

[$tevie]

Smoking stinks. I quit maybe five years ago and now I am appalled at how stinky I must have been all those years.

Yeah, there's a lot of bad habits but at least if the person next to me bites their nails I don't end up smelling like an ashtray.

PS - smoking scuffs your arteries up and allows the plaque from "grease and processed food" to build up more quickly than it does in the arteries of non-smokers. Smoking promotes atherosclerosis and triggers symptoms of coronary artery disease. So that hypothetical fat guy you are sneering at who had the heart attack might not have had one so soon had he not added cigarettes to the mix.

[Stephanie]

[quote $tevie]Smoking stinks. I quit maybe five years ago and now I am appalled at how stinky I must have been all those years.

My boyfriend says the same thing. He quit smoking about 15 years ago and is amazed at just how bad the smoke smells.

[Dick Moore]

It was either Justice Brandeis or Justice Holmes who enunciated the limits of personal freedom this way: "Your rights stop at the end of my nose." Smoking is the best example of the abuse of personal freedom at others' expense I can think of.

Just got back from a trip to Greece -- Europeans do smoke more than we do, but almost every European country is moving to ban smoking in public places. Why? They are tired of the health care costs. Greece will go smoke-free in 2010, France and Italy are both moving this way -- 2009, I think, and so are others. Good trend for all of us, but especially those of us who are allergic.

[bfd]

Made the mistake of going to a sports bar to watch the NCAA finals.

It literally took the rest of the week to air out the clothes that were worn that night …

For all the high and mighty religious fervor in Salt Lake City, they don't seem to have their bars, er, private clubs, under any kind of controls at all as far as smoking.