<p>I have good friends in their 30s and 40s and 50s, productive citizens who smoke and cannot break the habit. One, 38 years old, was recently hospitalized for almost 2 months including 3 weeks in ICU as a result of the harm that smoking did to her lungs. Smoking is extremely addictive and extremely dangerous to anyone’s health, and anyone who thinks otherwise is lying to him/herself. </p>
<p>If you think you are not addicted, I suggest that you try to stop. You will want to stop later on in life when you have children. Why spend all that money and do all that damage to your health before then?</p>
<p>Smoking has indeed decreased in NYC (where I live). The biggest plunge in smoking rates here came when the tax on cigarettes raised the price of a pack to at least $8, then $10. </p>
<p>Although I don’t think anyone wants to admit it, I know some people who are afraid to quit for fear that they will gain weight. I stopped smoking when I was 40 and I did gain weight. I am not happy about it but I am glad that I will likely live longer, hopefully well into my daughter’s adulthood, because I stopped.</p>
<p>Hahhahahaha. That study was done in 1978, literally over 36 years ago, and even then the study called it equivalent to four cigarettes a day (and that’s if you were walking around outside all day), not a pack. Nice outright lie. That paper has absolutely zero relevance today. Your arguments are ridiculous and absurdly judgmental. Again, I don’t smoke, but I’m sure glad I can go through life not getting this irrationally worked up about things that don’t affect my life.</p>
<p>I think the bigger question here is at what point does your freedom become more important than mine? You can’t reasonably argue that there are significant health effects from walking past someone on the sidewalk who is smoking. You might not like the smell of it, but the amounts you are actually inhaling are so insignificant that they are not cause for concern. If we’re talking about being trapped indoors with it for extended periods of time, then you have a case. </p>
<p>It wasn’t all that long ago that universities often allowed smoking -inside-. One of the lecture halls at my school has seats with freakin’ ashtrays built into the arms. They obviously haven’t been used in a long time, but smokers have already conceded to the fact that smoking inside was a hazard to the health of other people. So they started going outside. </p>
<p>The fact that so many campuses have gone “smoke free” on paper, but don’t actually enforce the policy is testament to the fact that this is not really a big concern for most people. </p>
<p>College freshman here. Haven’t read the whole thread and don’t plan to, but my campus is nominally “smoke-free” and I’ve seen quite a few (5-6 since I got here) people vaping, but never smoking. Even in party circles and all that I’ve yet to see a cigarette.</p>
<p>I did not read this whole thread but wanted to add that second hand smoke can cause serious breathing difficulties for a person with severe asthma. Minor exposure will cause my daughter to have an asthma attack that can take days to fully recover from. Exposure to pot smoke can require an ER visit. The problem with designated smoking areas is that smoke travels. </p>
<p>As for the freedom to smoke what about the freedom to breath. Should a person have to go to an ER just so you can smoke? Yes most people are not effected but some ARE. I can definitely argue that there can be severe health effects walking past a smoker!</p>
<p>I was never mad at my friends who smoked in college. I hope it never seemed like I was judging them. I was confused by their decision - I was surrounded by all of these incredibly intelligent people and I couldn’t believe that so many of them would choose to become addicted to a dangerous drug. But most of my friends also drank far, far too much and used illicit substances. </p>
<p>Mostly, I remember my uncle dying of lung cancer in my junior year. How, the summer before that year started, he was diagnosed and it was already, they were almost sure, too late. How by the winter he’d lost the ability to move his arm. How he was sent to a hospice in the early spring with weeks to live. How I called him for the last time and didn’t know how to speak to someone with such a weight on their mind. I remember not wanting to mention this to my friends who smoked out of fear that it might be taken the wrong way, that they’d think I was trying to make a point. The day after he died, I stood outside with my friends while they smoked. I never said anything. </p>
<p>@Mandalorian - Your freedom to eat and drive ends where my freedom to breathe and smell begins. </p>
<p>Seriously, if you’re that bothered by walking past someone who is smoking on the sidewalk, then you need to find a hobby or something. You’re inhaling more carcinogens from breathing the onslaught of car exhaust in the air than you’re getting from cigarettes.</p>
<p>I smoke because it’s legal, I can afford it, and I enjoy it. Society is doing its best to eliminate those first two things, and having to listen to the incessant entitled whining of spoiled nincompoops who misrepresent medical science to smugly justify morally masturbatory outdoor smoking bans is starting to work on the third one.</p>
<p>@Millancad
It’s more dangerous to drive a car or go skydiving or binge eating, but I don’t say I’m surprised intelligent people do these things because that would make me sound like a cocky prick. My grandfather died of skin cancer but I don’t run around telling people they’re idiots for not wearing sun screen because I respect them enough to realize they have already thought it through and made a choice that they can live with.</p>
<p>I don’t really care if people smoke, just as long as I can’t smell it. The smell makes me nauseous. </p>
<p>I had the most awkward situation last week when one my friends and I were looking for a lounge to talk in. The lounge near my room had someone in there already, and the boy was talking to his family, so we left out of politeness. The other lounge on the floor was empty, but the instant I entered the room, I said “Ugh, why does it smell so bad in here?” I didn’t notice the two boys on the balcony who were smoking, and had left the windows between the balcony and lounge open so all the smell was wafting into the lounge. Needless to say, I was not happy and went to a lounge on another floor to talk to my friend. When I ran into the boys afterward, they apologized and said that if the smell was bothersome, they’d go to somewhere else to smoke. At least they had the decency to apologize and try to come to an agreement with me, so I appreciated the effort.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus - The study you cited was comparing the effects of second hand smoke -indoors- to the effects of car exhaust. That’s hardly a fair comparison given the subject of this thread. We’re not discussing the effects of being trapped inside and exposed to high amounts of second hand smoke. We’re referring to the effects of essentially walking past a few smokers outside and being exposed to it for a few moments. </p>
<p>This doesn’t really seem like a very realistic comparison. One is constantly exposed to car exhaust. Everywhere. You can hardly walk outside without being exposed to it. One is breathing in car exhaust before, during, and after walking past that group of people that are smoking. </p>
<p>I don’t much see what jimmboy23’s response had to do with my post, but if you believe that driving or sky diving are as dangerous as smoking, please see this and click on Risk: <a href=“The NHS website - NHS”>The NHS website - NHS; There’s a reason fewer teens smoke now that any time in the recent past, and a great deal of it has to do with education about the risks involved.</p>