Tough Anti-Smoking Law Puts Consumers' Health First

Smoking

Ban food for the 500lb people who want to eat cheese fries for dinner.... Number one cause of death right there

Non Smokers have a right to breathe Fresh Air!

I am a 29 year old who lives in San Diego and yes there are a lot of smokers, but my only wish is that people would stop entirely cold turkey and not pick up a pack for ten years. Not one day goes by that I want fresh air. Second hand smoke is the killer I get after the first one. Every day I am now wheezing, coughing and suffering the smoke filled air. I saw in Geneva was a place where smokers every where I looked. I want in Geneva a Non smokers Place with comfy chairs and sofas. A fan with fresh air that smells of Hawaii.

a person against this bill who is a non smoker

My name is pretty self explanitory to my cause. There have been previous remarks that only smokers are against this bill. It's the same way with any bill. Most of the people against it provocatively will be the gourp of people being antagonized by it. However I am a non smoker, i think smoking is nasty, but people have the right to do it. Perhaps not in public places but then again, obese people who CAN control their eating habits are a menace to society, as are alcoholics, crackheads, potheads. You cannot just outlaw one of them and say the rest are above it because quite simply their not.

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Intelligence does not prevent stupidity.

Drawing generalizations from a selective sample of one is not exactly the highest level of reasoning. The AVERAGE cigaret smoker is less well educated and earns less money than the AVERAGE non smoker. To be sure, there are some smokers who are well educated and very bright. If they are honest with themselves, however, they will admit that smoking is not one of their more intelligent choices.

Fatty foods, alcohol, salt, are all injurious in excess. Tobacco smoke is injurious PERIOD. Smoking causes more premature deaths annually than automobile accidents and firearms combined.

So enough hysteria about "big brother" taking over our lives. In a Democracy, we ARE the government. The majority of American voters recognize the terrible cost of our cigaret addiction, and want it reduced. If you prefer living where there's no government to put any kind of restrictions on your so-called personal choices, try Somalia.

Elitist, much?

First, I have to address this idiotic statement about how smokers are "lower class, lower educated, lower paid, and apparently of lower IQ." I smoke, and there is, statistically speaking, a 99% chance that I'm smarter than you. Of course, the fact that you support the government being able to forbid personal choices for what you cite as financial reasons puts you pretty far on the western slope of that particular bell curve.

And then there's your buddy from CA, hanging out with you at the hind end of evolution. You know, the one who opens up with a logical fallacy and then dismisses using the same treatment for alcohol and drugs because they don't "cause health problems for the rest of us." I guess drug- and alcohol-related crimes, as well as the tens of thousands of D.U.I.-caused injuries and deaths every year don't constitute any sort of meaningful risk in your "educated" world.

And Fred, I have a hard time believing you hold down a job with grammar like that. If you want anyone to take you seriously, I recommend composing yourself like a literate adult instead of a cat walking across a keyboard. Must be hard for you.

As a smoker, I have absolutely no problems with the government telling me what I can and cannot do in the realm of public health and public safety. Protecting the health and welfare of the citizenry is government's chief purpose, and I get that. However, that does not extend to the government protecting a mentally competent adult from his or herself. One's personal beliefs on smoking should have no bearing on anyone else's actions. Well, really, one's personal beliefs on ANYTHING should have no bearing on anyone else's actions, but our government has made legislating morality one of its favorite past-times.

Regulating the level of nicotine may not necessarily be an overextension of government authority, but it is a breach of fairness. Why does the government not regulate the amount of fat, salt, and sugar in our food and drink? Our brains develop a fixation upon the taste of particular foods, and the massively unhealthy fast food and soft drinks on the market are loaded with these aforementioned ingredients specifically BECAUSE they engender this fixation (one might call it, say, an addiction). And I can assure you that the cost to the taxpayer (Hi, Tim) of medical care for the complications of the average American's poisonous diet far outweigh the cost of treatment for smoking-related illnesses.

But wouldn't that be wrong? I mean, everyone loves McDonald's, right?

And a final note: Gregory Connolly should be exiled from this country for this statement: "What we first have to do is stop innovation."

I feel no need to elaborate as to why. If you don't understand how frightening this idea is, go join Tim, Fred, and James over on the left-hand side of the IQ curve.

Something no one is talking about

When you reduce the nicotine content in cigarettes, there is a possibility that now-addicted people will smoke MORE of them to get the same level of nicotine intake.

More cigarettes. More sales. More taxes. Don't be too sure that we're not being "had" in these changes.

Alcohol too!

Joe of Michigan is right on! Smoking very is bad for you. We know that. But so is alcohol. Why the double standard?

At least with smoking people get sharper, not dumber, when they have had too much to smoke.

Extraordinary numbers of deaths have been caused by accidents and many more due to long term alcohol effects. How many families have been destroyed by alcoholism or alcohol-related goof-ups?

I'm all for personal responsibility, but there is a massive double standard here. Why is it okay to blare alcohol advertisements at children all day long?

They don't care about you!

What really gets me is the government is doing this "for our protection" BS. Look at Joe's statement, If they actually cared for us the government would actually target alcohol as well. Ciggarettes are unhealthy, but so is excessive tanning. are we going to ban the sun? & to Timothy of Florida I cannot cuss on here but BLEEP YOU! You actually think you are a better class of person, more educated, better paid & and have a higher IQ. You think you can tell that from a person simply because of one of their vices? You make me want to smoke so I can blow smoke in your face. I agree smoking is a destructive vice, but should we really let the government tell us what is good for us and what is bad for us? While I do agree this law is good to certain degree, but let me ask you this from my understanding in Madrid Spain (my best friend's father lives over there and I have visited before) Since spain has taken up this approach about the labels they have seen no decrease in ciggarette purchases, so is this really going to accomplish anything? I started smoking when I was 17 because of peer pressure not because of the "cool camel" and well flavored ciggarettes don't make people start. They start because of an image they want to portray to other people, not because they saw a pack of ciggarettes that said vanilla flavor. I quit smoking because it is harmful to your health I can breathe better now and food even taste better. But what I refuse to do is become some know it all a-hole trying to tell other people how to live their life.

Dear Joe from MI

"When am I going to see labels on liquor bottles that show the thousands of dead and dismembered bodies of innocent people who were killed by drunk drivers?"

Is that really what you want? You should call your congressman right away.