<p>In LA a ban on smoke for peoples health is kinda pointless. The smog is much more damaging.</p>
<p>If littering is a problem, ban littering. But don’t ban smoking. </p>
<p>And your occasional gagging isn’t going to give you lung cancer one day. Not if you walk through second hand smoke outside for 2 hours every day.</p>
<p>The real objection is that non smokers just plain don’t like having to deal with it. Smoking being unhealthy is a straw man.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Do you have anything to back this up? Or is this just your personal bias that you feel everyone should just listen to?</p>
<p>Put a link to one (1) study which gives the increase in risk of developing lung cancer as a function of the total exposure time to second hand smoke, and if anything under… 50 * 365.25 * 2 = 365,250 hours of lifetime exposure to second-hand smoke (every day, 2 hours per day, for 50 years) raises the increases the risk by anything over, say, 75%, then we can talk. Alternatively, show me that 4 years of it happening for 2 hours a day raises it by even 10% and I will concede. You’re trying to take away my rights; show me the proof.</p>
<p>Littering is banned. I was just making that as a personal comment.</p>
<p>Read the following paragraphs for where I think the issue might be coming from from smokers. I am trying to understand your perspective better. I completely get that smokers have the right to smoke on public grounds, and support that right in an odd way. Given that a campus is government property, why should you have the right to smoke if government does not want to allow it? On public ground smoke all you want, and I will simply try to avoid it or hold my breath. It is my choice to go to areas where there are smokers, so i will deal with it.</p>
<p>Why is it ok that smokers can smoke on campus, but alcoholics can not drink on campus?</p>
<p>I guess from this perspective drinking should be allowed in public if smoking is.</p>
<p>Because the government represents me, and has no right to take away my rights without proper cause. I deny that proper cause exists. Government cannot just take away any rights if the majority says so; that’s a tyranny of the majority. Government exists to protect rights.</p>
<p>Drinking alcohol causes people to become intoxicated and disturb the peace. And technically, as long as you’re not disturbing the peace, you can drink all you want, so long as you’re not carrying a 40 around.</p>
<p>And, in my opinion, that too should be allowed outside.</p>
<p>The government does not represent you. It represents the voice of the majority (overly simplistic…I know). It is not possible for the government to meet every demographics needs.</p>
<p>I guess I should have been more specific about the drinking part. As long as you are not disturbing the public, you should be able to drink in public given you are at least 21.</p>
<p>Government is not taking away your right to smoke. On public property go ahead on smoke. The problem is that in college students lives revolve around government property, so it seems as if you are loosing your rights. I fail to see how that is so when a campus is government property.</p>
<p>While the government must go with the majority, it cannot do so to the detriment of the minority. That’s where the trick comes in.</p>
<p>And, today, as long as you don’t disturb the peace, you can drink in public at any age. I just don’t think you should have to conceal it, as we all do now.</p>
<p>This seems to me like it is more an issue of property than smoking. The laws/bans on smoking are an extension of what people or government can do with their property. This is honestly starting to get too complicated for me the more I think about it.</p>
<p>Part of why this particular ban is so complicated is that so many people support it. What if government was to ban running on their property since you increase the chance of knocking people over? The ban on running would be in place to protect peoples lives in the same manner a ban on smoking is. In the case of telling people they can not run, no one would support it. So what makes banning smoking ok? As I said before, it seems to come down to what you can or can not do with your property.</p>
<p>Your right is saying it is the governments duty to protect the rights of the minority, and I stated it was simplistic to say they only support the voice of the majority.</p>
<p>That makes perfect sense to me, oxypunk151, that’s what I think precisely.</p>
<p>Well I am glad we have established that this an issue of property rights. More specifically we are debating about what government should or shouldn’t be allowed to do with government property. I am in complete agreement that on public property smoking is a right. On private property the owner of the property should get to call the shots.</p>
<p>Given that government is supposed to support to views of the people the other question is why shouldn’t they be allowed to ban smoking on government property. From what you have stated a ban on smoking is abusing power over a minority.</p>
<p>Now it would be up to non-smokers to show how it is not an abuse of power, and smokers to show that it is.</p>
<p>Perhaps a school vote over the ban would be appropriate giving conclusive evidence as to the will of the campus since government property laws/bans should reflect the students/faculty who use the campus the most. I would assume the non-smokers would win. At this point the school would have to work out an agreement with smokers to limit smoking on the campus. Perhaps increasing the distance people can smoke from a building, or creating designated areas for smokers. Through a compromise it would be safe to say government is not abusing its power. Smoking would be limited reflecting the views of the majority, but not alienating smokers.</p>
<p>I agree completely with this smoking ban. Smoking causes all sorts of diseases and not just to the one smoking the cigarette. It is not fair that nonsmokers should have to be exposed to poisionous and cancer-causing smoke because smokers like to stand right outside of buildings. </p>
<p>If you want to smoke, you should have to go far away from areas where nonsmokers have to go such as buildings.</p>
<p>Name any other habit by man that seriously endangers the health of those innocents around them? There is none. Chewing tobacco, as pointless and grotesque as it may be, at least does not deliver second-hand smoke to others.</p>
<p>After years of breathing the carcinogens for “others’ pleasure”, I feel no sympathy toward smoker-related anxieties. </p>
<p>Smoking is not a right. It is a proven cancer-causing habit for which Big Tobacco has been found liable – billions upon billions of dollars liable. </p>
<p>To smokers, I say get over it. Smoke in your privacy – and not intrude upon others. Since, this has not been achieved on a voluntary basis in the past, laws like these will continue to be legislated.</p>
<p>I would add one more legislation – $10/pack tax. Deliver that tax revenue to a cancer fund for medical expenditures which are attributed to tobacco. Maybe with such a cost, the indoor/outdoor on-campus/off-campus laws would become moot as the expense will make the demand de minimis.</p>
<p>Why is it that in many states it is against the law to smoke at a high school football game or the like, but not against the law to smoke on a college campus? Public school property in both cases…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Same reason liberals feel it is important that we have a “universal health plan”-- for the HEALTH of EVERYONE.</p>
<p>Being able to breathe fresh air is a BASIC RIGHT for ALL HUMANS. It’s not one that is given to you by a government.</p>
<p>“breathe fresh air is a BASIC RIGHT for ALL HUMANS”</p>
<p>Well then go arrest the mayor of LA. Calm down, for Christ’s sake.</p>
<p>The real, plain, honest to goodness truth is that nowhere is it stated that you, I, or anyone else have the right to breathe clean air. The air isn’t owned by anyone. Any of us can do with it as we please, on public property. And public universities are public property.</p>
<p>quicksilver:</p>
<p>Your continued arguing that humans have no right to clean air is stupid, misguided and I suspect at least somewhat facetious.</p>
<p>People have the right to good health. Dirty, carcinogenic air impairs good health. Therefore, people have the right to clean air.</p>
<p>Yes, I know pollution is omnipresent and in many ways worse than smoking. That is a problem that needs to be dealt with, no doubt, but it is separate from smoking, and the fact that pollution exists is not a justification for secondhand smoke to be allowed.</p>
<p>Look, at the end of the day, it’s as simple as this:</p>
<p>You chose to smoke, at one point, You may be addicted now, but a positive choice is being made, or was made, to take up the habit and continue it. Your actions - your habit - can infringe on others’ rights.</p>
<p>Only insofar as you infringe upon others’ rights, are your rights restricted. No further. You may think it unfair, you may think it unjustified, but it’s pretty simple: when you’re not restricting people’s rights, yours are not restricted.</p>
<p>Smokers are the minority now, but maybe you’d care to think back to 30 or 40 years ago, where non-smokers had no choice but to inhale smoke-filled air wherever they went; many later developed health problems as a result. I’m sorry, but your need for nicotine does not trump anyone else’s right to health.</p>
<p>And, as an after note, it is not required to prove a causative relationship between any particular level of secondhand smoke and any particular lung disease. Secondhand smoke has been shown to cause lots of health issues. It contains poisons. Lots of poisons. Therefore, it is something that people should not have to inhale for someone else’s convenience and addiction. Period.</p>
<p>quicksilver and 1of42</p>
<p>It appears quicksilver that we do have a right to clean air, and organizations abound for enforcing or prescribing how to obtain or preserve such rights –</p>
<p>[Smoke</a> Free Communities – Everyone has the right to breathe clean air.](<a href=“http://www.smokefreecentralmn.org/]Smoke”>http://www.smokefreecentralmn.org/)
[SmokeFreeOhio</a> - Protect everyone’s right to breathe clean air (Ohio smoking ban)](<a href=“smokefreeohio.org”>http://www.smokefreeohio.org/)
[Campaign</a> for Tobacco-Free Kids](<a href=“http://tobaccofreekids.org%5DCampaign”>http://tobaccofreekids.org)
[Clean</a> Air Council | Protecting Everyone’s Right to Breathe Clean Air](<a href=“http://www.cleanair.org/]Clean”>http://www.cleanair.org/)
[Clear</a> the Smoke: Tobacco Hurts Everyone](<a href=“http://www.clearthesmoke.org/]Clear”>http://www.clearthesmoke.org/) </p>
<p>And many, many more exist.</p>
<p>I believe 1of42 is more appropriately described as 1ofmillions or 1ofbillions.</p>