<p>I typed “second hand smoke danger study” into Google and got 1,600,000 hits. Happy reading.</p>
<p>i don’t doubt that 2nd hand smoke is dangerous, but out in the open? please.</p>
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<p>Having to walk right through it right in front of doorways is not exactly “out in the open” is it?!?</p>
<p>Like I’ve said before, smokers feel free to smoke; just don’t expect me to be happy being subjected to it.</p>
<p>ok, well that’s y smoking within’ 10/20 ft of doorways should be restricted, but walking down a side walk and not being allowed to smoke is just stupid, it’s taking it too far.</p>
<p>Why did they ban smoking inside airplanes? Second hand smoke, not fire safety. There are fire extinguishers insider aircraft, the crew should be able to put out any fire caused by cigarettes pretty quickly, not to mention all the water they carry on board. I couldn’t care less if you smoke, that’s your choice and you have the right to do so. But you have to be respectful of those who don’t want to be exposed to second-hand smoke, or those who don’t smoke.</p>
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[QUOTE=quicksilver40133]
1of42: You have no more right to breathe clean air than I have to smoke. You perhaps have even less of a right to breathe clean air. You must have missed that part of my post. I admit it was fairly lengthy.</p>
<p>And your post is a bit derogatory. Maybe a simpler solution is for non-smokers to quit whining?
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<p>No. No. No.</p>
<p>I’d repeat that a few more times, but it’d be redundant.</p>
<p>Your reasoning that your right to smoke is equal to or greater than others’ rights to breathe clean air is absolutely, unequivocally, 100% wrong.</p>
<p>Here’s how this works. You have the right to smoke. I have the right to breathe clean air.</p>
<p>When you smoke, you infringe upon my right to breathe clean air. When I breathe, I infringe upon none of your rights. None. My breathing does not give you lung cancer or emphysema (yes, I know this stuff only happens over a long period of time, etc. etc.). Your smoking could easily do that to me.</p>
<p>I don’t see any ambiguity on this issue. If you can find a way to smoke such that I am not exposed to any of your 2nd-hand smoke, more power to you, and I won’t give you any crap for smoking. Until then, I have every right to defend my right to breathe clean air.</p>
<p>And yes, my post was a bit derogatory. It was also tongue in cheek (thus the ;), which you apparently didn’t get the point of). And also correct. If you are really so irritated with the inconvenience of having to go around all these problems to smoke, you could always stop smoking. It’s pretty simple.</p>
<p>The same isn’t true of non-smokers, because they can’t stop breathing, and they can’t stop walking to class, and so forth. Nice try on the superficial analogy, but it failed.</p>
<p>On another note, I failed to see this earlier, but was so appalled that I just had to comment:</p>
<p>
[QUOTE=quicksilver40133]
Furthermore, for those of you who claim to be deathly allergic to cigarette smoke: there are those of us who can’t be exposed to anything, for fear of dying (see the movie Bubble Boy). Some people can’t stand sunlight. Does this mean we should ban everything that could make Bubble Boy sick, or should we blot out the sun? Or should those who can’t stand smoke avoid it? This may sound unfair, but that’s just how I see the world working.
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<p>That is absurd. I am actually floored that you just made that argument.</p>
<p>What would you suggest for someone with severe allergy and asthma that is aggravated by smoke? That they try to run between classes, dodging smokers like some kind of minefield, just so they don’t have a severe reaction? Are you seriously making that argument? The sun analog you made is also dumb, for reasons that speak for themselves.</p>
<p>And before you bring up things like peanuts (for example), there is a vast difference between allergies to substances that are relatively innocuous unless one is allergic (foodstuffs, etc.), and an item (cigarettes) that are always poisonous (in small amounts, but nonetheless) when smoked. Vast difference.</p>
<p><em>edit</em> For the record, I would never actually push for such a ban on my campus, and I’m not enough of an ******* to ask smokers to not smoke around me. I have friends who smoke, I smoke weed regularly, and so forth. But in a theoretical sense, smoking bans are on rock-solid ground when it comes to issues of rights. For the sake of friendship, convenience, and not being a *****, I don’t push for bans like that, and don’t give smokers any lip about it. But I can see why some people would, and they are on the strong ground when they do.</p>
<p>1of42:</p>
<p>While you’re right that it is your right to breathe clean air, nobody said it was your right to breathe it for free. Go buy a gas mask if you like, or buy some air filters. They exist. Smokers buy cigarettes, but people don’t buy a thing to ensure they have clean air. If they start handing out cigs for free, I’ll smoke them where they tell me to. Otherwise, your argument is as irrelevant as it is poorly thought out.</p>
<p>I shouldn’t have to go out of my way to accommodate you, just as you shouldn’t have to go out of your way to accommodate me. However, I believe that the concessions smokers have already made - and some that we are still willing to make - vastly outweigh the current concession by non-smokers: to suffer through a minute or two of discomfort.</p>
<p>If someone is severely asthmatic, let them go somewhere that they won’t run into smoke. Make special universities for them, or give them special equipment. Or they can have special transportation to and from classes arranged by the university, or they can take special routes to class. Yes, the burden falls on them, not me, if they can’t handle it. It’s just not my problem. And again, if they started wheezing and spasming, I would put my cigarette out. But that’s because I’m a good person, not because I should.</p>
<p>That cigarettes are poisonous makes no difference. It’s smokers’ choice to do what they will, and it should remain as such. </p>
<p>You do a lot of hand-waving in dismissing my arguments. Apparently anything you disagree with is “dumb”. I normally try to refrain from passing judgment on anyone in these forums, but you seem to lack a certain open-mindedness that one would normally associate with pot-heads.</p>
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<p>It is a smoker’s choice to smoke, and I have no problem with someone ruining their own lungs. But if people have to pass through a big cloud of smoke just to get into a building, that’s ridiculous. I would prefer not to hack out a lung just to get to class thanks. </p>
<p>The fact that you waste your money on cancer sticks has no bearing on me. I waste my money on ice cream and cookies sometimes. It’s our prerogative what to do with our own money. But just because you’ve paid for your crap, doesn’t give you a damn right to light up anywhere. I have nothing remotely related to asthma or any sort of breathing difficulty, but I still cough if I accidentally walk through a puff of smoke. Know why? BECAUSE LUNGS DONT LIKE SMOKE. </p>
<p>Look at it this way: your right to smoke stops at my right to breathe clean air, the same way my right to hit something stops at your right to have a face that isn’t broken.</p>
<p>You guys keep talking about your right to breathe clean air. That right does not exist.</p>
<p>it does not exist? omg that is soooo funny, and sadly pathetic</p>
<p>I would say it would be legitimate to ban smoking within 10 feet of buildings, but to ban it off all campus property and sidewalks is ridiculous.</p>
<p>I have actually emailed the campus and THANKED them for their bold move to a smoke free environment, they should be proud</p>
<p>It is truely amusing that smokers feel they have the RIGHT to pollute the world, dump their cigbutts anywhere, and blow smoke anywhere they please</p>
<p>Fewer people are smoking, fewer people with date a smoker, so smokers are having less and less options for dating etc</p>
<p>But hey, keep defending a disgusting addiction, yes its your choice, but don’t be upset if others find it nasty</p>
<p>well, maybe if smokers had more manners, didn’t trash the sidewalks, held their cigarettes safely, didn’t fling things on fire into the airm didn’t blow them towards the door or people, this wouldn’t be necessary, but as the vast majorty doesn’t smoke, I think most people will be happy with</p>
<p>I assure you my radiation analogy is not exaggerated at all. Everyone gets x-rays, whether it be at the dentist or physician or hospital. Do you suffer any immediate adverse results from that? No. So what is wrong with me zapping everyone around me with 10% of the radiation in a dental X-ray whenever I feel like it? You won’t even cough or suffer from a bad smell, I promise.</p>
<p>You can’t argue for public smoking and against public radiation. Maybe I like subjecting myself to radiation. And according to quicksilver, if I buy it for $100 a gamma-ray pack (more than cigarettes) then I have more than 10x the right to radiate myself than you do to smoke. Buying something does NOT give you the right to use it.</p>
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Neither does any smoker’s right to breathe smoke-filled air.</p>
<p>The fact that the majority does not smoke, coupled with the public health issue presented by smoking, weighs heavily in the non-smokers’ favor.</p>
<p>I saw the saddest thing: some amusement park I went to banned smoking everywhere but these teensy little pavillions placed sporadically around the park. So everywhere you go there were cheery little children and lovestruck giddy teenages and bouncy babies, and then you walk past one of these pavillions and see a bunch of fat middle aged depressed looking adults squished into this 6 x 6 foot pavillion puffing away and grumbling about how stupid these no smoking rules are.</p>
<p>If anything would keep me from smoking, it’s not a blackened lung or a smoker’s cough, but the sight of those people, because it makes me laugh.</p>
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[QUOTE=quicksilver40133]
If someone is severely asthmatic, let them go somewhere that they won’t run into smoke. Make special universities for them, or give them special equipment. Or they can have special transportation to and from classes arranged by the university, or they can take special routes to class. Yes, the burden falls on them, not me, if they can’t handle it. It’s just not my problem. And again, if they started wheezing and spasming, I would put my cigarette out. But that’s because I’m a good person, not because I should.
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<p>Yes, the university could do that. Or, they could just eliminate the source of the problem (here’s a hint, it’s not the asthmatics) at no real additional cost to them. I wonder which seems more reasonable?</p>
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[QUOTE=quicksilver40133]
That cigarettes are poisonous makes no difference. It’s smokers’ choice to do what they will, and it should remain as such.
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<p>Here’s a thought: if I wanted to walk around huffing solvents, spilling them, letting them leak, getting the vapors in everyone’s faces, would you support my right to do so? Because frankly, while you like to smoke, and you appear to be in denial in some ways regarding the true effects of smoke (like when you slipped in that bit about anecdotal stories of studies of secondhand smoke not being harmful, which is unequivocally false), what you’re doing is polluting. Before you compare to cars, the difference is that as a society we have decided that pollution from some sources is necessary. Cars, trucks, planes, power plants, etc. etc. provide valuable things to humanity, and serve a huge role in society. Your need to feed your nicotine addiction serves no positive role to anyone, and insofar as you want to continue smoking, the onus is on you to do so without infringing upon anyone else.</p>
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[QUOTE=quicksilver40133]
You guys keep talking about your right to breathe clean air. That right does not exist.
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<p>I can’t even believe you’re actually making this argument. But I’ll make a similar one: your right to have an unbroken nose doesn’t exist. So next time I meet you I’ll break your nose. Sound fair?</p>
<p>Ok, here’s the problem with your guys’ arguments.</p>
<p>The radiation thing is at least plausible. In fact, I would be completely in favor of the guy being able to radiate the hell out of people, so long as it wasn’t too harmful. So by all means, go for it. It won’t kill me any faster than second hand smoke will kill you.</p>
<p>The broken nose / hitting analogies are sad and puerile attempts to make my position sound absurd. Obviously hitting someone is wrong because it is an immediate, intentional, and (presumably) unavoidable attack. If you choose to walk through a cloud of my (by comparison nearly harmless) smoke, that’s your fault. Hold your breath for a few seconds if you don’t like it. Sheesh.</p>
<p>Honestly, though, I don’t believe in the system at all, even fundamentally. If it were me, nothing would be legal or illegal. I can elaborate later.</p>
<p>I would be a lot less annoyed by smokers if they didn’t throw their cigs everywhere. It is disgusting when you walk by a corner with nothing but cigs everywhere. It really does just annoy the hell out of me.</p>
<p>As for the ban on smoking on campuses does not seem like it should be a big deal, except for the fact addictions play into the ban. If smoking were an enjoyed pastime, it shouldn’t be such a bid deal to wait a little longer and smoke on public grounds rather than school grounds. Due to the addictions that is not realistic. </p>
<p>So I guess this comes down to whether or not addictions justify allowing people smoke on sidewalks or not on campus. I guess I see it as the smokers fault, so I have no problem with the ban.</p>
<p>I wrote this on a whim, and am trying to be objective about what the issue is. Inform me if I am completely missing the point from a smokers perspective.</p>
<p>I support the ban. I know some smokers would say “well, it’s other’s choice to not smoke”, but frankly, smoking is an extra habit picked up by some and left alone by others. It’s a habit that damages the health of those who choose to do it, and can damage even those who don’t participate. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked through someone else’s smoke and gagged. I don’t say eradicate smoking across all campuses, but maybe designate certain smoking-only-spots. Maybe it will entice some students to quit altogether…but even if it doesn’t do that, it will help the health of those who choose not to smoke, including those with respiratory issues who are extremely affected by the smoke (and no, they can’t just “avoid” the smoke )</p>