"hippo" <south-sudan.net> wrote in message
news:46852fe1$0$9331$88260bb3@news.teranews.com...
"D. Patterson" wrote in message
[.]
Using that logic the same can be said for the internal combustion
engine, animal fats, booze, guns, red meat, soda, french fries, fake
sugar, barbecue and hearth fires, and even milk, cheese, and butter, oh
yes, and coffee, tea, and everything else with caffeine in it or
anything on the vast 'possibly carcinogenic' list. .
I think it should be a matter of choice. License places for smoking with
rigid standards of air exchanges and filtration and give folks a choice.
I don't like imposing my tastes or bad habits on others or their
imposing theirs on me.
I particularly disliked the morally superior attitude of non-smokers who
pass me shivering on the street in winter. They shoot their noses into
the air in a very superior way as if I was an unwashed homeless person
urinating on the sidewalk instead of a corporate VP chased out of my own
damned office.
In my less charitable moments, I would like to open a bar just across
the city line called 'Smokers' with a sign on the door that says
'non-smokers admitted at their own risk' and the picture of a protester
with a red line across him/her inside a red circle. The non-smoking
section would be a table for two between the doors to the latrines and
under the public phone. See how they enjoy being social pariahs. -the
Troll
Speaking as a person who worked as a professional bartender and bar
manager for more than a decade in my youth, I can observe that
non-smokers were treated in exactly that manner and much worse in many an
establishment ranging from the finest restaurants to the worst hole in
the wall beer taverns. If smokers today have to endure such treatment for
only a decade or so of the recent years, it hardly serves as more than a
minor inconvenience and recompense for more than a century of such
treatment and worse taunting at the hands of contemptuous smokers.
Indeed, non-smokers have always been subjected to the indignities you
suggest, and they are still subjected to them in many of the states which
still have a limited smoking ban today. If you were a non-smoker, you
would be indignant over the fact you still cannot enter a fast food
restaurant, a typical chain restaurant, or the fanciest of expensive
restaurants today without your hair and clothes becoming badly fouled
with the reek of rancid tobacco smoke. When you return home, the foul
stench on your person and in your clothing proceeds to permeate the
interior of your automobile upholstery, your home furnishings, and the
clothing in your closets. If it were yourself being assaulted by the
effects of the tobacco smoke, you would be quite indinant about the
injustice of it all, instead of patiently enduring and patiently
disapprovaing as most non-smokers have been about this serious problem. I
know this to be more likely true than not, becuase I have known life long
smokers of pipe tobacco, cigars, and cigarettes who have been quite
indignant about the problem after they quit smoking.
Note also that I have said nothing whatsoever about the carcinogenic
problems associated with tobacco smoke. However serious the carcinogenic
probelms may ultimately prove to be, the health problems associated with
exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke are serious enough to ban without
even taking its carcinogenic properties into account. Tobacco smoke and
the addictive properties of nicotine cause very serious autoimmune health
problems for non-smokers. We're talking about everything from diagnosed
emphysema to undiagnosed problems with mild to severely debilitating
allergies. This is not a problem to be treated lightly. It is a problem
which cannot be justly trivialized as comparable to caffeine and the
items you listed. Putting all issues of cancer aside, nicotine and
particles of smoke tobacco are each in their own right serious causes of
health problems in humns, other animals, and even many plants in the
Plant Kingdom. Smokers are not welcome in Iris gardens, because the
tobacco mosaic virus carried on their clothing and person can deadly to
Iris and can destroy an entire Iris garden by carrying the destructive
virus into the garden. So, please do not try to trivialize the problems
of tobacco and nicotine, because they can and do cause a wide range of
health problems for plants and animals which are not at all reasonably
comparable to caffeine or the assortment of other excuses smokers like to
use to trivialize the problems with tobacco use.
I am a non-smoker who had the misfortune of being raised within a
household of tobacco smokers. They smoked cigarettes, cigars, and pipes
with absolutely no regard whatsoever to the consequences for myself or
any other non-smoker, other than an occassional special guest. When I
went anywhere outside the home to school or elsewhere, my hair, clothes,
and other items from home reeked with foul smelling stale tobacco tar and
nicotine. Being smokers, they could no longer smell how bad their smoking
habits fouled everything their smoke permeated. I'm already well
acquainted with how smokers were treated in the past and are treated
today, having been treated as if I were a smoker bcause of the reeking
secondhand smoke that permeated my hair and clothing. To empathize with
non-smokers you should try quitting smoking long enough to experience
what it is like to be a non-smoker with a regained sense of smell
subjected to the tobacco smoke in most of the public places you must
frequent to pursue a normal life.
Do you mean you got kicked out of hotels, restaurants, bars, public
buildings, and people's houses to back porches and the street in winter
for *not* smoking? I don't think so.
Well, I happen to know so. A non-smoker's available choices are to either
inhale the secondhand smoke, leave the place to breathe the outdoor winter
air, or don't bother going to the event where the smokers are fouling the
air with secondhand smoke.
For example, I remember a classmate's wedding reception, where
non-participation would have been regarded as a rude snubbing of their
marriage ceremonies. It occurred in February, and the reception hall was so
choked with blue haze, even some of the smokers were making some mild
off-hand complaints to each other about the air becoming difficult to
breathe. Some of the non-smokers who were not members of the bridal party
left early, and the other non-smokers tried to take breaks outdoors to
breathe easier. Unfortunately, the temperature outdoors was -22 degrees
Fahrenheit with a wind chill and freezing rain producing a wind chill in the
minus thirties. Few of the non-smokers could endure such chilling conditions
for more than a minute or so. Schnapps served to warm the inside, but it did
nothing to reduce the risk of frostbite, even when we labored warmly to free
the autos from their pristine new prisons of snow and ice which immobilized
them in the parking lot. It was quite a night to remember.
In an other example, we were expected to attend a family gathering following
a funeral. Naturally, it would have been rude to not attend. Unfortunately,
this particular restaurant was a favorite hangout for smokers. The blue haze
permeated everything in the building. They had a a Kiwi lime cream pie which
would have tasted fabulous if it were not for the rancid and foul tasting
cigarette smoke in the whipped cream topping. It took months for the stench
of that smoke to dissipate from our clothing and the interior of our
automobile after that event, and we found it necessary to make excuses for
not attending any more family gatherings at that restaurant. So, it is fair
to say that the presence of that smoke constructively served to "kick" us
out of any family gatherings held at that restaurant.
Then there was the incident when I was a youth and I was barred from
visiting a patient in the hospital until I returned wearing clothing which
did not foul the air with the rancid cigarette smoke they were impregnated
with from the secondhand smoke at home.
Also as a youth, there were some occassions when I was not allowed to ride
to our team's baseball game in the auto of a teammate's non-smoking parents,
because my baseball uniform stank too much of secondhand tobacco smoke.
There is also the case of the university professor who could not smoke in
the building, so we students had to attend a few of his meetings at the
outdoor patio tables of the student center restaurant while the weather was
freezing.
These are just a few examples. There are many many more I can provide to
you. However, I am sure you can imagine or actually see countless examples
if you just look at everyday situations from the viewpoint of a non-smoker.
Better yet, imagine you are a person who suffers from a respiratory illness
like emphysema and other maladies resulting from childhood exposure to
secondhand smoke, and then put yourself in that person's position as they
try to conduct a normal everyday life. Pretend that exposure to secondhand
smoke triggers severe respiratory maladies and perhaps ultimately life
threatening consequences. Then see how difficult it can be to navigate the
hazards of secondhand smoke while trying to earn a living and participate in
ordinary social functions. Note how the enforcement of a total smoking ban
in some public places has benefited people who suffer from respiratory
illnesses, especially those related to causation by tobacco smoke.
No kidding, you get a lot of credit from me for not sucking up to peer
pressure to smoke. I did and try to keep the kids from taking up the
habit. My son doesn't smoke.
Good for him.
I particularly liked the smell of some of the pipe tobaccos, and I often
bought some of the good blends to give as a Christmas present. Nonetheless,
not adopting the habits of smoking tobacco or drinking coffee was a very
easy decision to make, after witnessing the health problems of the adults
and studying chemistry.
In later years on a visit to Rome, however, I was faced with a choice of
taking espresso with my breakfast or doing without any drink whatsoever.
They were out of stock with bottled water etc., so it was the espresso or do
without a drink. After drinking the espresso, I walked around Rome for the
next couple of hours feeling higher than a kite. My heart felt it was trying
to burst out of my ribcage like in the later movie Alien, and I was feeling
a bit worried about having a heart attack. No more espresso for me!
<chuckle>
The best argument against smoking is it is an addictive drug just like
every other addictive drug. No one likes to think of themselves as an
addict.
I still see no reason for there not to be free choice for establishments
and smokers. You can have bars and restaurants licensed for smokers and
smoke free ones. It is fairer and more just. -the Troll
It sounds nice, but the the practical reality always devolves into
unavoidably putting one of the conflicting parties into a situation of
disadvantage.
For example, look at the problem of passengers on a commercial airliner.
Some international airports have established special smoking rooms on the
concourses to the boarding gates. The smoking room is so crowded with
smokers and the smoke is so dense like an evil fog, the scene looks like the
Damned out of a scene from Dante's Inferno. The smoker finished his
cigarette, exits the smoking room, and sits down in te seating immediately
near the gate. The eyes and noses of the non-smokers sitting nearby are
irritated and may begin to run as the stench of the secondhand smoke on the
person and clothing of the smoker permeates the air around the smoker. The
non-smokers find it necessary to standup and try to find seating far enough
away from that smoker and all of the other smokers near the gate to escape
the effects of the secondhand smoke.
Passengers then board the aircraft, and the smoker or smokers are seated.
Non-smokers in the adjacent seats and rows are then exposed to the
contaminating fumes of secondhand tobacco smoke which is still strongly
emanating from the person and clothing of the smokers. The non-smokers would
like to change their seating and move away from the ill effects emanating
from the smokers, but the flight crew do not have enough seating on the
aircraft to do so. Trapped, the non-smokers are forced to endure the hours
long trip while swabbing runny noses and eyes irritated the by effects of
the secondhand tobacco smoke emanating from the smokers' persons and
clothing.
After arrival at the destination, the non-smoker must now run new gauntlets.
If you take the shuttle bus or taxi to the hotel, you can find yourself
surrounded by smokers who have just renewed their aura of seconhand smoke by
desperately smoking cigarettes after leaving the aircraft. Even if there are
no smokers on the shuttle bus or in the taxi, they may have left their aura
of smoke behind on every seat they occupied, where it can then contaminate
the clothing of the next occupant of the seat.
Likewise, renting an automobile can be probelmatic as well. Having reserved
a non-smoking vehicle, you discover upon arrival at your destination that no
non-smoking car is available, notwithstanding your reservation. Even though
you succeed in renting a non-smoking vehicle, you discover the uphosltery is
badly contaminated by smoking residue, because one of the previous
passengers in the vehicle was a smoker with smoking residue on their person
and clothing.
Upon arrival at the hotel, the hotel asks the non-smoker whether he/she
wants a smoking or non-smoking room. Safe at last? No, not at all. Smokers
smoke in their room, and the seconhand smoke permeates their hair and
clothing. Then they visit the public areas of the hotel and sometimes the
non-smoking rooms, and everywhere they go the secondhand tobacco smoke on
their person and clothing permeates the air, the textiles in the upholstery
and draperies, the seating, and other facilities of the hotel. In best case
circumstances, the effect of the transfer of the secondhand smoke
contaminants may be only mildly irritating to the non-smokers. More often,
however, the smokers' secondhand smoke residues contaminate the hair,
clothing, and possessions of the non-smokers.
In the days before there was a general ban upon smoking on domestic
commercial flights, I experienced some similar problems with hotel rooms on
occasion. There were some hotels who especially catered to the airlines and
their flight crews. Sometimes the only hotel rooms available were located at
one of these hotels. They rented a non-smoking room for the night, but it
still made little difference. The room stank very badly of rancid cigarette
smoke. When queried, the hotel staff apologized and explained they were
aware of the problem and had done all it was in their power to do towards
mitigating the conditions. They explained how the non-smoking flight crews
could not avoid having themselves, their clothing, and their luggage exposed
to the secondhand smoke in the aircraft cabin, and it was this secondhand
smoke residue which was contaminating the non-smoking hotel rooms, despite
the hotel's efforts to mitigate the problem with more frequent cleaning of
the rugs, draperies, and so forth.
In the case of bars and restaurants you mentioned, you also have the problem
of a smoker continuing to contaminate the surroundings long after they have
departed from a smoking venue. You also still have the problems caused by
segregation of smokers and non-smokers for commercial, social, and other
activities. You have to ask which is more fair: requiring a non-smoker to
sacrifice either their health or their opportunity to participate in
activities occurirng only at a smokers' venue, or requiring a smoker to
sacrifice the smoking of tobacco and keep their health in exchange for the
opportunity to participate in activities occurirng only at a non-smokers'
venue?
I can see no -- effective -- means of segregating smokers and non-smokers
well enough to keep smokers' tobacco residues from causing discomfort and
serious health problems for non-smokers. Until and unless such an effective
means ever occurs, you have to ask the question of who should fairly bear
the burden of disadvantages, the smokers who contaminate the air we breathe
with discomforting and harmful substances or the non-smokers who do not
contaminate the air with discomforting and harmful substances?