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[Aqizzar]

First, no, I do not have a responsibility to do what you tell me.  It's your responsibility to convince me to stop.  Or convince the legislature to make me stop.

Second, the argument is going to keep going in a giant circle of increasingly spurious examples of other things that some people do that harm other peoples' lives that are considered perfectly acceptable.

I just don't get why some people give so much of a damn.

And just to throw a wrench in the works, I don't even smoke.

[ToonyMan]

That makes me wonder about e-smoke!

The smoke travels through digitally!  We're all doomed!

[JoshuaFH]

My neopets are at risk for lung cancer, oh no!

[Neruz]

First, no, I do not have a responsibility to do what you tell me.  It's your responsibility to convince me to stop.  Or convince the legislature to make me stop.

You do, however, have a responsibility to not violate my fundamental rights, like my right to privacy, or my right to breathe.

Otherwise; it should be fine if i go pipe bonfire smoke into your house; after all, i don't have any responsibility to not do that do i?

[Aqizzar]

And thank you for running to the furthest end of nonsense to prove your point.  Well done.

To answer your question, no, you do not have the right to a lack of irritation.

[Neruz]

And thank you for running to the furthest end of nonsense to prove your point.  Well done.

To answer your question, no, you do not have the right to a lack of irritation.

I have a Right to Health, it's part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The current era Right to Health is inclusive, and includes the right to healthy environmental conditions; an environment full of smoke is by no definition, 'healthy'.

This Right conveys the Responsibility to others to not violate my environmental conditions with unhealthy or unsafe intrusions. Smoke quite happily falls into the 'unhealthy' category.

[kcwong]

I want to smoke wherever it doesn't bother anyone, so mind all you like 

The problem is you can't be sure that you won't bother anyone. And there are plenty of smokers who don't care even if they know they are bothering others.

1. The location may be empty for the moment, but there may be other people later on, and if the location has at least two sections of walls, the poisonous gases are going to be trapped there for while, and people coming in later suffers even long after you've left.

2. Cigarette buds left burning. Plenty of those who left it burning on the ground; and those who care enough to use ash trays on top of trash cans but still left it burning.

3. Wind. Wind carries the poisonous gases to places you cannot imagine.

I live in high-rise apartments in Hongkong, and plenty of people smoke. They do understand smoking is bad - they don't smoke in their own apartments. So they smoke in corridors. They smoke in the elevators. They smoke in their balconies and blew the toxic gases out -- which the wind carries right into another apartment. Many times I was woken up in my room, the air filled with the stench of cigarettes. Peering out of the window and sure enough I saw a hand hanging outside the adjacent apartment, holding a cigarette. After a few times I had enough - on a weekday night, 0130am, my room was filled with the stench again and I confronted them. I went knocking on his door, and he didn't even dare to answer the door himself. I told his wife, politely, that his smoking was bothering me a great deal for too many times.

She promised her husband would stop smoking - and later explained that he was not feeling well that day and wanted to smoke one stick (yeah, right). Within a week he smoked at the balcony again, and I yelled at him through the window. He immediately ducked back inside, and then sprayed some cheap perfume out (yeah, right, like that would help getting rid of the toxins).

Next time he smokes I won't be so polite.

I am a victim of second-handed smoke. I had asthma as a kid, no thanks to my dad's smoking. If I ran, I couldn't breathe. If I cry, I couldn't breathe. I kept asthma spray with me constantly for many years. In the end my dad quit it for me, and I got better now. No more asthma attacks, but still not as good as they should be.

That explains the hate I have towards smokers. They are assholes. They know it's bad and they still do it. They know it's bad so they won't do it in front of their families - they just dump it outside to poison someone else. And such a selfish and offensive act is not illegal. Intense hatred fills my heart when I see people holding a baby in one arm, smoking with the free hand. And that's not an uncommon sight.

The legality of cigarette makes it all the worse. Makes people think it's okay to smoke, and one generation of smokers breed another generation. Cigarettes don't deserve to be treated as anything more than drugs like cocaine or morphine, and without a medical use.

[Cthulhu]

Like I said before.  Ultimate trollan.  All you have to do is light up and to some people you might as well have just punched their kid.

[G-Flex]

Like I said before.  Ultimate trollan.  All you have to do is light up and to some people you might as well have just punched their kid.

Trolling? I read kcwong's post and can completely understand where (s)he is coming from.

The only disagreement I have with it is the bitterness apparent, but considering their life story, I can at least understand it. The thing they need to keep in mind is that nicotine addiction is really, really, really awful, and that you can't just expect people to up and quit at the drop of a hat; it's no easier than any other drastic lifestyle change, with physiological dependency on top of it.

Of course, you CAN expect them to not smoke where it's going to wind up blowing in anybody's faces. That's why, at least where I live, it's illegal to smoke within X feet of certain buildings - so that you don't get it in your face while entering or leaving.

[Sergius]

My leisure is to smoke, yours is to drive everywhere instead of walking.

Oh, how nice, some people are so spoiled that they want to get to their workplace in less than 24 hours of walking so they don't get fired and have money to eat! That is definitely the same as lighting a fire in your mouth and breathing on other people!

[G-Flex]

Yeah, a pretty obvious distinction has been established.

Using gasoline motors is not good for people or the environment.
Smoking is not good for the environment.

You can try to conserve gasoline by altering your lifestyle, but for most people this is only feasible to a given degree; most goods we purchase rely on it in some way or another, and you can't have everyone in a situation where they never have to drive (or even take public transit).

Whereas smoking is a luxury that doesn't even particularly accomplish anything. It satisfies a chemical dependency in your brain that wouldn't otherwise be there, and in exchange, you give yourself health problems that society has to cope with and, unless you're really careful, contribute to local air pollution and irritate other people's lungs.

Now, if you're the type to just smoke very very rarely, it's not a huge deal at all provided you do it in the right places, but I'm talking about people who smoke regularly.

[codezero]

My leisure is to smoke, yours is to drive everywhere instead of walking.

Oh, how nice, some people are so spoiled that they want to get to their workplace in less than 24 hours of walking so they don't get fired and have money to eat! That is definitely the same as lighting a fire in your mouth and breathing on other people!

It's not practical for everyone, but before you consider ways of limiting me for your health, see if you can think of any limits you can apply to yourself for your health. You can easily walk 5k or ride 20k's in under an hour.

But the truth is imposing limits on someone isn't going to work, rather than forbid you driving short distances, it's better I encourage you to take up a fun sport. You don't have to sacrifice your leisure if you expand your physical activity, like you can eat all the meat you want if you eat enough fruit and vegies.

So my advice to you is to leave your windows open, walk to the shops for your groceries, and cook more at home, then your health won't be in my hands.


*lights a smoke*
This argument is out of context, how hard was it really last time you were in the city walking in through the entrance of a mall (where all the smokers hang out). Consider holding your breath if it really is that bad, I thought it was part and parcel of heading into the city.

[Sergius]

My leisure is to smoke, yours is to drive everywhere instead of walking.

Oh, how nice, some people are so spoiled that they want to get to their workplace in less than 24 hours of walking so they don't get fired and have money to eat! That is definitely the same as lighting a fire in your mouth and breathing on other people!

It's not practical for everyone, but before you consider ways of limiting me for your health, see if you can think of any limits you can apply to yourself for your health. You can easily walk 5k or ride 20k's in under an hour.

Again, you're equating someone telling you not to light a fire on your mouth for pleasure, to forcing every city in the world to not have more than 1000 inhabitants and having everyone live within stone-throw distance of their workplace, along with no longer having any sort of import/export business or long-range travel via truck/ship/airplane, stopping all operation of any kind of polluting industry or energy generating that pollutes. So, in fact, smokers in this thread argue that telling them not to give other people second-hand smoke is the same as blasting the entire civilized world into the bronze age to get people to live maybe 1-2 years.

Of yourse, you can't lose THAT argument, can you? Unless, I don't know, people actually live longer because a lot of polluting industries actually make advancements to increase human health and lifespan, or maybe a gasoline engine in an ambulance may get a dying person in time to an hospital. Maybe smoking does that too? Geez, I don't know.

So my advice to you is to leave your windows open, walk to the shops for your groceries, and cook more at home, then your health won't be in my hands.

The second you light a cigarette next to me, you have DECIDED to place an important part of my health in your hands. If I lead an exemplary healthy life doesn't make it any less so. And you didn't actually achieve anything by lighting up other than feeding your addiction, which you also imposed on yourself.

Lowering my chance of dying of a heart attack due to high cholesterol doesn't in ANY way lower my chance of dying by lung cancer by breathing second-hand smoke, any more than not going out to avoid being hit in a bus doesn't make me resistant to anthrax.

What if it's been proven that people that eat all their vegetables have a lower chance of bleeding to death. Maybe if people ate right their life wouldn't be in my hands after I shoot them. Sheesh.

[ChairmanPoo]

for the #nth time...

This isn't about you being forbidden to smoke at all. This is about you not smoking in certain places, in which you are forbidden to smoke anyway. Buses. Hospitals. Your workplace. In general, enclosed public spaces in which your freedom to smoke is limited by our freedom not to get intoxicated by your fumes.

AND, there are a lot of things that a person can do to improve his or her health, and which he or she might or might not do. This bears no relationship whatsoever to the issue at hand. This is not about "healthy habits in general". This is about not having to swallow the byproducts of your petty drug addiction.

[Neruz]

Exactly; you can smoke in private all you like, the objection occurs when you smoke in public.