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[Aqizzar]

There's one thing I just don't get.  What is it about smoking of all habits that makes people so goddamned militant?

I mean, I've seen INTERNET ARGUMENTS spiral out of control into a battle of supremacy for who's got the better asspull logic, but with smoking, it's like clockwork everytime.

[ChairmanPoo]

I tend to be unable to stay quiet in health-related topics. And tobacco is a particularily inflamatory one, due the seriousness of the matter, and the ammount of BS you get to see. "But this is just an online argument! you're taking it way too seriously!". The problem is that this BS you get to see, is also the BS you get to hear afterwards. I've seen so many sick people babbling all sorts of nonsense about  tobacco that is too far from being funny anymore. So it angers me to see it trivialized, or worse, see insane addict logic at work ("but cars are just as bad! So if you dont like me smoking, you should stop driving a car!" "I heard on TV that smoking a few cigarrettes a day is actually GOOD for your health!" "I bet the stress from quitting is worse than what smoking is doing to my health!" are just a few examples)

[x2yzh9]

I took a puff of smoke yesterday.

IT DIDN'T DO ANYTHING.

At least for me. All it did was taste like cancer, then again i wasn't really stressed at the time, so yeah. Free country(s)

[nil]

Smoke pot instead.  No proven cancer risk (with strong indications that it can actually prevent cancer in some situations), the smoke isn't as stinky, and its a far more sustainable crop.  It can be at least as expensive (in the context of prohibition) and taken to excess it'll have you playing Dwarf Fortress for hours on end instead of looking for a new job/girlfriend/graduate school, but its good fun nonetheless.

[Muz]

There's one thing I just don't get.  What is it about smoking of all habits that makes people so goddamned militant?

I mean, I've seen INTERNET ARGUMENTS spiral out of control into a battle of supremacy for who's got the better asspull logic, but with smoking, it's like clockwork everytime.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Smoking is a nice shiny moral flag for everyone to wave. Politician wants to pretend to work? Tougher rules on smoking. Need money? Raise cigarette taxes. Anyone who complains loves lung cancer. Smokers are treated like drug addicts.

It's ironic that even though alcohol is worse for one's health, it doesn't get that kind of treatment from the same people. There's even data that suggests it's good, but we all know drunkards who've ruined the life of other people as well. And what about porn? Porn is a money burner, addictive, and doesn't bring benefits, but you don't see heavy taxes on pornography or as many billboards, rallies, and campaigns against it.

I too think cigarettes are pointless and a waste of money, but all this righteous hate doesn't help anything. It's like religious fanaticism, your beliefs can be whatever, but once you start shoving your opinions (and 'rights') in people's faces, they're going to do the opposite of what you're forcing them to do.

[Siquo]

What it shows is that you lack the barest lack on logic. I am getting tired of having to explain the same thing over and over to you.

You may stop explaining now, it's true that I only had one year of university preposition logic, but you're clearly having a parallel discussion all by yourself, I'm sorry I thought you were actually having one with me.

Muz, smokers are drug addicts, but only treated as such when it's convenient. Alcohol is a lot more dangerous, but also a lot less addictive. Most people can stop drinking with no problems at all.

[G-Flex]

I love the implied fact that porn is physiologically addictive, pointless, and physically harmful. That's pretty classic.

Porn has a purpose: People get off to it.

It's no more addictive than any other activity that one can engage in that's at all enjoyable.


Tobacco and alcohol are physiologically addictive and physically (and in the case of alcohol, socially) destructive.


And the thing about alcohol is that, in moderation, it's not terribly harmful. And like Siquo said, it's harder to get addicted to it. I mean, sure, if you smoke a cigar once every month or two on special occasions you'll probably be just fine without any real ill effects from it, but that's generally not how people do it. The comparison would make more sense if the vast majority of people who drank alcohol were hardcore alcoholics, as the majority of people who smoke are addicted to that.

[Alexhans]

It only shows that you disagree but are incapable of putting it into words.

Nice Ad hom, siquo.  Ad hom comes when you're afraid of losing your argument so you attack the person?

ChairmanPoo, don't even bother.  You are not gonna change anything by arguing with him ad eternum.

There's one thing I just don't get.  What is it about smoking of all habits that makes people so goddamned militant?

I'll easyly explain it to you.  Are you a smoker? If you are.  I can't really show you.  If you aren't.  Non smokers usually are REPULSED by the output smoke of the cigarette (Wich, I'm given to understand, has not the same, eerr, flavour than the input, programming terms FTW )

The fact is that when something like this happens:
- someone listening to loud music in a public transport with some crappy speakers.
- Someone smoking in front of you (allowed or not) blows all the smoke in your face.

You are greatly bothered and want to set things right.  In the case of the music, I'm not really in danger (but my sanity) but I still ask them politely to lower the volume.  I don't have much problems with it.

When I ask a smoker to move, turn it off, whatever... There's a decent possibility that they will "snap" and start cursing you.  I can only think that  it's some kind of protection mechanism because they're ashamed of their habit OR they're just selfish asses.  A lot of people are thoughtful and realize that they bother and usually find a solution (move, turn it off, whatever).

Smoke pot instead.

yeah!  Why do we need brain cells after all?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-slZNNxk9a4&feature=channel

fact 1:  Smokers are too defensive.
fact 2:  I don't really care unless they smoke in my face without my permission.
fact 3:  If they want to smoke in my face I can start singing opera.
fact 4:  I do NOT sing well.
fact 5:  Smokers are likely to quit rather than to hear me sing so I may go on a tour.

[nil]

The reason smoking debates get so heated is that the anti-smoking side has all the facts and logical arguments, but nine times out of ten their health-based arguments are being made in bad faith.  Most people who support smoking bans aren't worried actually worried about their health (nor should they be, hitting a smoky bar for a few hours every other weekend isn't going to give you cancer).  Usually they just don't like the smell, and sometimes its about moving towards the general abolition of tobacco.  So everyone looks like a jerk--one side defends the indefensible, the other is being insincere.

If I were king of the world, the employees of any workplace would be able to vote on whether or not they want to allow smoking where they work, and there would be substantial tax benefits for any establishment that went smoke-free.  I don't like these outright bans, though; far too draconian for a problem that could be managed a lot more subtlety.

[G-Flex]

To be honest, being in smoky bars and restaurants as a nonsmoker, even if it doesn't have long-term health effects, is extremely irritating in the short term.


Also, a lot of people actually are more sensitive than normal to that kind of stuff, be it an allergy or an asthmatic condition or such. It's like if you walked around everywhere with a mild peanut allergy, if peanut were frigging gaseous.

[Jude]

most people just get addicted. They start saying " I am not addicted. I smoke a cigarette at most once a month... week... day... 6 hours... give me one now! I need it." That is goes often. People think they are not addicted, and drag it as long as they can, for years even, up to the point that the claim of not being addicted is ridiculous.
Few people are like you, Jude. I , at least, never met a person who would claim to not be addicted, and actually saying the truth.At least not for more than a month or 2.

I actually know quite a few people that smoke like I do, and very few who are actually addicts.

[Zironic]

Smoke pot instead.  No proven cancer risk (with strong indications that it can actually prevent cancer in some situations), the smoke isn't as stinky, and its a far more sustainable crop.  It can be at least as expensive (in the context of prohibition) and taken to excess it'll have you playing Dwarf Fortress for hours on end instead of looking for a new job/girlfriend/graduate school, but its good fun nonetheless.

Smoking pot has the same exact risks, it's been show in medical studies. However, You'd have to smoke pot like you smoke cigarettes, and only the most stoned of the legion of potheads can pull that off.

[Footkerchief]

I actually know quite a few people that smoke like I do, and very few who are actually addicts.

For some reason this seems to work better for people in their 20s than people in their 30s/40s.

Smoking pot has the same exact risks, it's been show in medical studies. However, You'd have to smoke pot like you smoke cigarettes, and only the most stoned of the legion of potheads can pull that off.

Cite please?

[Jude]

I actually know quite a few people that smoke like I do, and very few who are actually addicts.

For some reason this seems to work better for people in their 20s than people in their 30s/40s.

Maybe so. I don't really know more than a handful of people in their 30s or 40s so who knows

[nil]

Smoking pot has the same exact risks, it's been show in medical studies. However, You'd have to smoke pot like you smoke cigarettes, and only the most stoned of the legion of potheads can pull that off.

It is far from settled science, but some of the worst carcinogenic effects of tobacco appear to unique to nicotine (inflammation of lung tissue and stimulation of blood vessel growth in tumors).  Pot not only doesn't cause those forms of damage but, in some cases, may even work against them.

http://www.webmd.com/lung-cancer/news/20060523/pot-smoking-not-linked-to-lung-cancer
http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/2/1/17

When it comes to non-cancerous lung diseases, however, pot is probably just as bad. Although those can be mitigated through vaporization or by eating instead of smoking, there's no such thing as a safe drug.