Buck Fush

Colorado's state-wide smoking ban goes into effect this Saturday. I quit smoking 2 years ago and couldn't be happier about this.

I know people say that ex-smokers are the loudest opponents, but that is not true in my case. I have always been against smoking indoors. I was always very conscience of annoying people with my smoke. I've always believed that pregnant women who smoke and parents that smoke in enclosed spaces around their children should be charged with child abuse.

I don't go out that often, but last Friday I went to a bar with some friends and it was so smokey in there that my throat still hurt Monday morning. I inhaled so much smoke that night that I could feel the nicotine rush.

The opponents of the ban have used arguments that range from "it will hurt business" to "It's my god-given right to smoke when and where I want".(Yes, she said "god-given").

Massachusetts and California are both evidence that the former argument does not hold water. And my response to the latter would have to be that it would also be my "god-given" right to NOT smoke if I choose not to. The argument that employees can find employment in a non-smoking environment is also bogus unless you're willing to say that we can drop all safety regulations pertaining to the mining industry and if the miners don't want to work in those conditions they can just find new employment.

So where do you stand on this?

aeroripper

I'm not entirely convinced that second hand smoke kills people, then again I havn't been throughly researching it either. I'd rather have international research done on it rather than groups like Truth slandering people with anti-smoking messages and always painting "big tobacco" as the great satan trying to trick all people to smoke.

I saw this on cnn today:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/06/27....ap/index.html

Smoking will probably be illegal in a decade anyways.

Apologies for the ignornace, I really don't mind if people smoke as long as there are warnings about the diseases caused by it and birth defects. I use to smoke and I got tired of smelling like crap all the time and feeling irritable.

wildcat2000

I am also relieved that the whole state of Colorado is doing this. Its been so hard living in a city where we have a smoking ban then going to Denver and can't stand to be around it.

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GhostintheShell

We used to have public smoking. Now it just seems like some disgusting thing of the past.
Generally when I see someone smoking now I think, wow there goes another dinosaur destined for existinction.

C'mon really, you don't think second hand smoke kills people? You don't think it is harming your kid trapped in a car with you filling it with smoke? It's like there is a "peeing" end of the pool but thinking because you are in the "no-peeing" end that you aren't swimming in it...nothing worse than choking on someone else's addiction, knowing that person is harming you (perhaps in the tiniest incremental way), but they are most definitiely harming your health.

The interesting thing about addictions as strong as nicotine/crack/heroine/sex is that the human mind will find a way to rationalise/legitimise just about anything to obtain pleasure.

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Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter.
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leejo

My father used to do litigation for RJR. He would travel to SF a couple of times each year, where the world's tobacco companies' lawyers would gather. About 500 lawyers intimately familiar with what smoking really does. 3 smoked.

I smoked for 15 years and eventually quit. It's wonderful to have quit. I can't imagine starting again.

thebleakaffinity

I'm from Colorado as well, Aurora to be specific, and I don't support the ban, or at least the way it's being executed. The whole casino exemption doesn't sit well with me, especially since bars aren't exempt, and those are just as dependent on smokers. The only difference is that the bar industry is less influential on government than the casinos. I also find people are overly dramatic about the irritating effects of smoking - I'm a non-smoker, but I'm around quite a few smokers, and I've never been really bothered by the smoke. But I read in the Post about people being affected by their neighbors' smoke, even when they're inside their home. It's just gotten out of hand - either go all the way and make it totally illegal, or leave smokers in peace.

Switchcraft

I don't support this kind of legislation. I think if smoking is going to remain legal then there is no legit need to ban it private business establishments.

In Virginia, bars that are non-smoking make tons of money because other bars aren't. That's how it should work. Choose to go someplace that smells the way you want it to, don't make the government step in and regulate.

I see this as a terrible slope to be on. The next step will be government regulation of calories, because of "obsesity." And that's one step from being able to tell you who you can have sex with.

xTYBALTx

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Obi

Scotland banned smoking in public places recently. I've been in a couple of restaurants and bars where people have un-lit cigs in thier mouth.

From a non-smokers perspective I think it's good that I don't have to come home smelling of smoke after I have been out. Most of the people who have to smoke just go the the entrance of the pub when they need to go.

I very nearly said "fag" instead of "cigarette" but that wouldn't have gone down well with you Yanks would it?

leejo

Well...I was going to ask where you live in Scotland. I went to a gay bar in Edinburgh with my grandfather once. For about 5 seconds.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Anyway, it's funny to see that Scotland's banned smoking. I guess Ireland is the holy grail for banning smoking though.

Karkianman101

When the guy next to me eats chips and gets fat, I myself am not gaining weight. If I pass by a girl in a hall that had sex with 10 different randomly selected homeless people, I'm not likely to contract anything from her, though she herself may have a nice pocketful of STD's.

When I sit down in a restaurant and the table next to me has smokers, I get smoke in my lungs, and its typically unfiltered smoke, at that. Secondhand smoke is what burns off the end. The exhaled smoke has been filtered by the teeth, mouth, throat, lungs, and back again, plus the initial filter itself. This would be like the guy next to me gaining one pound and me gaining by proximity, or the girl in the hall having crabs and me getting hepatitis by way of air transmission.

SuperDudeBT

clap clap clap clap!!!!!!!!!

Well, when I can't breathe well due to the smoke & my asthma, and therefore, I have to go take a puff of my inhaler (which is a steriod, that if used several times a day every day, will shorten my lifespan by 7 years), and as I side effect, my hands are really shakey for the next 3 hours, I think that's a little more than an "irritant"..

Georgia banned smoking in public buildings unless it is either a place where only 18+ year olds are allowed, or if the smoking area is completely closed off, and only 18+ year olds are allowed to enter. I'm totally for the ban!

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1x Lieutenant General, 1x Major General

marstein

Isn't a cigarette a weapon and therefor protected by the second amendment?

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marstein

I used to work in a bar (during military service) and after a couple hours in the smoke the shampoo I washed out of my hair after the shift smelled like tobacco juice - disgusting. That's what you get for serving your flag. Gunpowder would have been more fun I guess - but probably even more unhealthy.

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UnDeaD77

I'm a smoker, and therefore I don't support it. I usually don't smoke in resturants though, normally grab non-smoking, because I hate sitting where a BUNCH of smoke is. Weird as it sounds, I don't like sitting in a room filled up with smoke.

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