[IceFire]

Originally posted by Flipside
It depends on the definition of a 'Public Place' Icefire, which is one of the forbidden zones mentioned. If it means 'anywhere in public' then it means your friends can't go outside and have a cigarette, and can't stay inside either, unless they are lucky enough to have a car-park or the like, which is private land.

If Public place doesn't include highways and byways then yes, I'm in favour of this even though I myself am a smoker. And yes, I smoke outside

Quote from the article: "The new Smoke Free Ontario Act would, if passed, prohibit smoking in all workplaces and public places, including bars, restaurants, casinos and legion halls, leaving smokers with a lone indoor refuge: their own homes."

I haven't looked at nor feel the need to actually have a look at the actual law...but my friends will not be affected by this in any way.  Furthermore, there is already a partial smoking by-law in my area anyways.  Plus the University strictly forbids smoking in any building.  But that doesn't stop people from smoking outside...which is what they do.  So no, my friends will not be hurt by this in any way...most of them are used to it.

They aren't going to prevent people from smoking outside...thats rediculous and this is not some backwards country (despite what the people they interview on CNN and FOX have to say) so I'm certain that this is probably fairly reasonable to a point.  Smoking is a public health issue and should be dealt with as such.

[Jetmech Jr.]

When it comes to crap like cigarettes, where they not only endanger themselves but those unfortunate enough to be around them, screw their 'right.' No one should be allowed to force others to stay out of a place for fear of their health and comfort.

I fail to see why cigarettes aren't illegal like heroin or cocaine.

[Kamikaze]

Your right to breathe dangerous chemical ends at my lungs.

The city I live in has actually banned smoking in public places. The people who pushed this change were the workers in bars and restaurants, not just the people who go to them. As far as economic losses... at first the bars and restaurants lost some customers. However, there were people who were more willing to go since there wouldn't be any smoking and the loss was more or less made up for.

[IceFire]

Originally posted by Kamikaze
Your right to breathe dangerous chemical ends at my lungs.

The city I live in has actually banned smoking in public places. The people who pushed this change were the workers in bars and restaurants, not just the people who go to them. As far as economic losses... at first the bars and restaurants lost some customers. However, there were people who were more willing to go since there wouldn't be any smoking and the loss was more or less made up for.

Exactly...several places have since gained my business and dollars where before they would not have.

[Rictor]

Honestly, how much smoke can drift under a closed door? Enough to poison people standing in a large, generally ventialted room over the period of, at most, a few hours?

I think you guys are overstating the danger. Yes, second hand smoke is an issue if you are exposed to it constantly (as in: living with parents who each smoke a pack a day for 19 years) but don't start acting like the mere smell of smoke will cause your lungs to explode. If you get a wiff in passing every now and then, big deal.

And what about displaying cigarettes in convenience stores? How is that harmful to your health? Oh wait, its not, its just the government trying to be everyone's concerned mother.

[Flipside]

"The new Smoke Free Ontario Act would, if passed, prohibit smoking in all workplaces and public places, including bars, restaurants, casinos and legion halls, leaving smokers with a lone indoor refuge: their own homes."

Ah, I put a mental comma between the lone and indoor, which completely changed the meaning of that sentence.

Edit : Oh, and can I just add that I wasn't implying you were a backward country, to be honest, I would be inclined to go the hardline route and just make it illegal, were it not for the fact that such prohibition has been proven not to work. Even though I would suffer myself, it would be for my own benefit.

[Tiara]

Originally posted by Jetmech Jr.

Second-hand smoke, btw, IS more dangerous than regular smoke. At least if you smoking the damn thing, it's getting filtered...slightly. People around the smokers don't have that kind of luxury .

Ah, yes, the second hand smoke bull****. Do you really think the actual smoker doesn't inhale the non-filtered smoke? Also, the non-filtered smoke is MUCH thinner then the filtered smoke because it dissipates in the air.

Second hand smoking is only more dangerous if you put a cigarette up your nose the wrong way.

[Unknown Target]

Still, Tiara, second hand smoke IS bad, and it's definately NOT good for your health. It has been proven that people have gotten lung cancer from it, so it makes sense that someone would want to ban it.
I support this thingamabob.

[Flipside]

Thing is, whilst this is, in general, a good idea for the smokers themselves, if you really wanted to do something good for everyones lungs, you'd ban cars. Those things chuck out all kinds of crap, the pollution in Central London, even with the Conjestion charge, is equal to 15 fully smoked cigarettes a day per person.

[Jetmech Jr.]

Originally posted by Tiara

Ah, yes, the second hand smoke bull****. Do you really think the actual smoker doesn't inhale the non-filtered smoke? Also, the non-filtered smoke is MUCH thinner then the filtered smoke because it dissipates in the air.

Second hand smoking is only more dangerous if you put a cigarette up your nose the wrong way.

Of course the smoker inhales some of the non-filtered smoke. But most of what they do inhale IS filtered. Most of what the people around the smoker inhale is NOT filtered.

I've gotten used to cigarette smoke to the point where I could probably smoke a cigar like 10-year regular. I hate the very notion, and am angered beyond words that it has gotten that bad. All smokers should be forcibly weaned off the stuff, IMO.

[Rictor]

What right  do you have to tell other people how they should behave?

That's the whole point, its their choice. What's next, banning alchohol because its bad for you? Oh wait, already tried that.

IMO, all drugs should be legal, from alchohol to tobbaco to weed to opium. As long as no one is harmed but the people using the drugs. And if someone is harmed, well, you deal with that on a case by case basis.

Individual rights, people. have we forgotten what that word means?

[Ford Prefect]

I don't know how I feel about this because I've never actually found definitive data that explains exactly how harmful second-hand smoke is.

[Jetmech Jr.]

Originally posted by Kamikaze
Your right to breathe dangerous chemical ends at my lungs.

Kam said it best Rictor.

And I couldn't give 2 ****'s about their right to smoke around me, or force me out of a place because of it. Besides, IIRC, this doesn't say they can't smoke. They just can't smoke around other people.


IIRC, a good percentage of the people who've had their vocal cords removed never smoked a day in their life. Can you guess what happened?

[Flipside]

They worked with asbestos or PVC or MDF or around Sulphur emissions or in dusty conditions like building sites etc?

I do however agree that if the smoke is hurting someone else, even slightly, then that is no better than passing on any other drug to an unwilling recepient. But throat cancer is a relatively rare side-effect of smoking, far higher levels of it exist in the manufacturing and building industries.

[Kamikaze]

Information and links about second hand smoking, taken from Wikipedia.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1993 issued a report estimating that 3,000 lung-cancer related deaths in the US were caused by passive smoking every year.

In 2002, a group of 29 experts from 12 countries convened by the Monographs Programme of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization reviewed all significant published evidence related to tobacco smoking and cancer. It concluded its evaluation of the carcinogenic risks associated with involuntary smoking, with second-hand smoke also being classified as carcinogenic to humans.

http://monographs.iarc.fr/htdocs/monographs/vol83/02-involuntary.html

An earlier WHO epidemiology study also found "weak evidence of a dose-response relationship between risk of lung cancer and exposure to spousal and workplace ETS."

http://jncicancerspectrum.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/jnci;90/19/1440

One recent study in the British Medical Journal found that exposure to secondhand smoke increases the risk of heart disease among non-smokers by as much as 60 percent.

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/reprint/bmj.38146.427188.55v1

[Ford Prefect]

Penn and Teller did an episode of "Bull****" that had a lot of data supporting the opposite, so I'm just confused.

[Jetmech Jr.]

I don't take Penn and Teller seriously most of the time.

[IceFire]

Originally posted by Rictor
What right  do you have to tell other people how they should behave?

That's the whole point, its their choice. What's next, banning alchohol because its bad for you? Oh wait, already tried that.

IMO, all drugs should be legal, from alchohol to tobbaco to weed to opium. As long as no one is harmed but the people using the drugs. And if someone is harmed, well, you deal with that on a case by case basis.

Individual rights, people. have we forgotten what that word means?

Alchohol is actually ok for you.   its been somewhat proven that its actually beneficial to drink a little bit of alochohol.  Its definately not bad for you unless you:

1) Drive drunk
2) Drink excessively
3) Get alochohol poisoning

So, I try and have a little bit here and there.  Sometimes I have a little more than required but thats ok.  The stuff is one of the best studied and well recognized substances that people consume...at least of the stuff that makes you behave in ways you wouldn't normally.  Plus, you can stand next to a completely drunk person and not be affected by the alochol in their system one bit...not in any physical manner anyways.

Smoking on the other hand is pure toxicity.  Regardless of it being the smoker or the people nearby in an enclosed area.

Personally, I think its "bull****" to assume that toxic and otherwise foreign substances being pumped into a confined airspace is anything but safe.  Not that its any different than living downwind of a industrial site but obviously there's some differences.

Again, I'm in total support of these anti-smoking laws.

[Marauder]

Well I'm happy. I mean, how do you think ppl with asthma have had to live their lives, inhaling second hand smoke all this time.
Believe me, getting an asthma attack is NOT fun.
And another thing, even though we had "designated smoking rooms," the filtering wasn't always that great. I remember a café near my house that had one and there was always a slight linger of cigarette smoke in the non-smoking area.  Looking up-oh joy!-a pipe with vents in the smoking room, and beside, a vent above us.
Yeah I'm happy in Ontario.

[Jetmech Jr.]

Listen to Ice and Marauder...they speaks sense.

*EDIT*