Here’s to all you wonderful people who feel it’s a-okay to smoke in public. I support your right to damage your body in any way you choose, but I get extremely pissed when I’m walking down the street with my son and some arrogant, oblivious jerk decides smoke, blowing their dirty, disease filled second hand smoke in our face. Have a bit of respect for those of us that want to take care of the health of our families.
This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2007.
Oh, so people can’t smoke on the street now? What about the car exhaust? Maybe we should ban cars while wer’re at it. GET A LIFE WHINY BOY.
I have to point out that they are working on minimizing exhaust from cars…in some more progressive places ( California for one) they have imposed limitations on exhaust, directly with the car makers. And it is pretty rude to smoke around a child in the first place…outdoors or anywhere. There is a city in the United States that has created a law (or is creating) where if you have a child or minor in the car, and you are caught smoking in the car while they are in the car you will be charged. I understand smokers have a right to put that crap in their bodies…did it myself for 10 years…but many smokers have no clue as to how offensive the habit really is, unfortunately the denial effect that comes with any ADDICTION does not allow them to admit they are affecting others with their problem.
Oh and some food for thought…We are not allowed to drink in public nor are we allowed shoot heroin or smoke weed in public…why should it be any different, and before you replay with Heroin and weed is illegal, please remember drinking is legal but not in public and smoking is MORE addictive than heroin and pot has less tar and no other deadly chemicals like ARSENIC or CYANIDE, or BENZINE or…well you get the idea.
Comparing ourselves to other countries is pointless. In most countries throughout Europe you’re allowed to drink in public. I have no idea what point you’re trying to make. If you need a fucking law to tell you that you shouldn’t be smoking in a car with a child, you’re too god damn dumb to be breeding in the first place. An offensive habit? Seriously? You’re going to lose sleep over the fact that someone smokes? I may be arguing symantics here, but the offensive part (which really falls more under disrespect that offensive) would be someone who is pointedly smoking in your direction knowingly and willingly.Spewing out the chemical makeup of what’s comsumed from a cigarette is futile at best. There’s not a person on the planet with an ounce of grey matter in their head that aren’t aware of what’s in it or the long term damage they’re doing to themselves.Booze, heroin, marijuana etc… are all considered behaviour altering substances. Cigarettes are not (at least not considered as such).
I am so sick of hearing shit like this. Last I checked, it is still some what of a free country. There is a filter on the cigarette itself & there is a big dirty lung filtering the smoke I inhale. Compared to the pollution in the air, what I exhale is fuck all nothing. If you had any idea of some of the pollutants in the air, you would shut your pie-hole about cigarette smoking. There are a lot worse things then cigarette smoke going into your body via your lungs. Now give it a rest.
As I said in another thread, the city streets are full of every imaginable kind of airborne pollution. Singling out cigarette smoke as the Great Evil is stupid. I really doubt that the little whiff of cigarette smoke you get as you walk past a smoker outside is enough to do anything more than offend your olfactory organs. It’s different in an enclosed space like a bus shelter, but not many smokers are that rude these days. How about we focus on reasonable expectations, like not having to breath that second hand smoke. Getting a little whiff of a smell you don’t like doesn’t really count, and bitching about it makes you look like a princess, and renders your more reasonable demands less credible.Having said that, I find it a little unfair that you smokers can enjoy your vice pretty much anywhere in the Great Outdoors, but I am technically not allowed to have a beer on my front steps. But that’s hardly your fault…
I think its hilarious that the argument most smokers use to defend their disgusting habit is “there are so many other bad habits” Yes. But this post is about people who are bothered by smoking, not “the other horrors in the world”. I’m looking forward to 50 years in the future when our children will be reading history books and laughing at how dumb people used to be, : “Didn’t they KNOW inhaling toxic chemicals was bad for them? People were allowed to do that in public??”
God shut the hell up for christ sake you people whine and cry about a god damn cigarette not so long ago if you went to a bar you would be surrounded in smoke. Now your complaining about public smoking. Idiots!
Wow, way to use a fact the completely wrong way. People used to smoke when pregnant, in shopping malls, in restaurants, on the bus, in schools, in offices, on airplanes, etc. Don’t you see the trend? As people are becoming more and more aware of the dangers of smoking they are removing them from all public areas. There is an undeniable trend that will continue until cigarettes are no longer seen by those who don’t wish to see them.
Does nobody care anymore. I would love if I had the power myself to eliminate the need for everyone and their dog to have a car and drive it two blocks down the street to pick up their smokes, thus adding to the harmful pollutants I am forced to inhale everyday until I choose to live in a bubble…but sadly I do not!It would be nice if all we got was a whiff of your second hand smoke in our faces, which is more harmful to us than the smoke you CHOOSE to inhale btw. However, if I am walking down the street and the person in front of me lights up a cigarette, I am now stuck inhaling their second hand smoke until either a:they get a clue(as if), or b:I cross the street only to end up behind/beside/around someone else smoking a cigarette. How about those of us who would like to feel like it’s our choice to not have yet another pollutant stuffed in our faces? There are a lot of harmful toxins that we don not have the choice but to inhale everyday, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could all work together and eventually be rid of those as well?
Too bad all these anti-smoking whiners don’t whine about all the other pollutants being pumped into our air. Maybe we need to refocus and lessen our usage of fossil fuels rather than blaming smokers for all the ills in the world. But maybe I’m wrong, that only affects the planet that everyone lives on. Ok Mr/Ms Smoker don’t smoke anywhere anytime cuz it offends ME to even see you smoking not to mention what your 2nd hand smoke is doing to ME!
What an utterly ignorant comment Barb. To assume that just because one has a strong opinion regarding smoking in public (on a message board in which the topic is “blowing smoke”), they have no other opinions whatsoever. I didn’t realize that my views on smoking also required a complete inventory of every other “ill of the world” that worries me. . . Since it seems to matter to you, I happen to be a conservation biology student who is very concermed about the state of out planet and I am working towards helping it. Smoking is only one of the factors that is making our world ugly, but I do realize there are countless others, which I will save for. . . I don’t know, the next post about smoking in public?
Oh Jenna. Pull the broom out of your ass and go get laid. This looking down your nose at people shit is old. Let’s see… you from the South End or Bedford?For someone who claims to be a student, you have an woefully closed mind. I thought tree huggers were supposed to be better than that.
Jenna my comment far from being ignorant was meant to invoke a little sanity into the conversation. I don’t give a damn whether your a conservation student or not somehow I highly doubt it be that as it may, my comment still stands. There are far more important things to worry about and as long as your distracted by the minor details we are bound to lose the war. Please remember as long as the ME is more important than the WE then the planet loses.
Yes, you are absolutely right. The fact that smoking is the single largest preventable cause of disease and premature death, killing more Americans than AIDS, drugs, homicides, fires, and auto accidents combined is completely beside the point.
Amazing. Someone can complain about having to walk through smoke on a sidewalk and the only argument the “other side” can come up with is that there are far worse things out there. Huh??? Your rights stop when they infringe on mine or anyone else’s. I don’t take issue with having to walk through smoke from a cigarette belonging to the person in front of me or whatever (although why should I have to go to work or wherever smelling like an ashtray?) as much as I do parents bending down to tend to their child in a stroller all the while holding and/or puffing a cigarette! Or those who are trying to drive while holding a cigarette! Both of those should be illegal! Let’s see, using the rationalization that “there are more important things out there to worry about”, that would mean one shouldn’t complain about being beat up because hell, other people are being murdered … gee, what a great way to think. What I will never understand is how someone can militantly defend their right to poison themselves and everybody else? Hey, all you heroin/crack/cocaine/meth addicts! Guess what? You have a right to poison yourselves! WOO HOO! People should conduct themselves with courtesy and respect for others and that means not blowing smoke in my face!
There are few good posts here. Now this is going to make me sound even more like an arsehole but with this issue, so be it. I use to be somewhat considerate with my smoking, but not anymore. The non-smokers have taken this too far and will not shut up. I am going to smoke more outside and where the law allows. Doubling up my smoking efforts to create secondhand smoke. I am going to blow my smoke without thinking of where it goes for now on. When I soon die of lung cancer I hope they bury me upside down……..
You know what I’ve found works quite nicely — when someone smokes in my face, I spit in theirs.
Here is a thought. Maybe we should put all these CRIMINAL smokers in prison. I just can’t believe you people. I hope none of you imbibe in the pleasures of alcohol because you are next.
I am a Smoker, I dont want to Smoke, but what I have going on here is an addiction, one that I am truley haveing a hard time beating, I hate the smell of smoke I hate what it is doing to me, But come on guys give us a break, we cant smoke anywhere that it doesnt offend sombody,,,I cant wait for the day that we cant do it at all, Maybe i will hide behind a garbage can and smoke then, who fucking knows, just give us a break for fucks sakes,
“Please remember as long as the ME is more important than the WE then the planet loses.”-BarbHow eloquently put Barb, if only WE could realize that this isn’t a war against non smokers and smokers, it is simply a request to consider that the non smokers have a right to choose as well. How tasteful that you choose to live in a ME focused world as you support public smoking. I don’t hate people who smoke, I just don’t like it when I’ve made the first step in choosing not to pollute my body by not smoking and then the person walking beside me takes that choice away from me.If I thought it was even slightly possible to ask people to stop driving their cars for even a whole day…I would, but seeing as how much you smokers are bitching about being asked to simply smoke around others who choose to as well…forget it. Oh wait…now that means I only care about smoke and vehicle pollution…how narrow minded of me to forget about pesticides, toxic waste, etc. I just don’t have all day.