Should smoking near other people be illegal?

[Aerostel Trethiraz]

The idea of this thread was rooted from the Planned Parenthood thread.

I'm sure most people out there have stepped into a cloud of smoke before or inhaled some fumes, not by choice, but it just happens sometimes.

I get kind of pissed off when I walk by a group of people or just an individual and I inhale some smoke. As everyone knows, inhaling it can take away minutes of your life, and sometimes, we don't even have a say in it.

If I wanted to inhale those fumes I would buy my own pack of cigarettes, atleast then I would have a say in that.

What I'm getting at is that I personally do not think it should be legal for a person to smoke in a public place, especially with children around, and lots of people do it.

Which raises the ultimate question:

Should people be aloud to smoke in public places or around others?

[MorganaFang]

Food for thought: A lot of ads and skewed education for anti smoking is funded and even carried out by cigarette companies.

Inhaling a little won't kill you or actually take minutes off your life. People really do not give the human body enough credit. Unless the second hand smoke is an extreme trigger to cancer cells already in your body makeup you will go on with your life.

That all said. Public place should have a ban on cigarette smoking in doors and within a certain radius of doors. In this county in MN we've been doing it for awhile and it actually has made things a lot easier and brought more patrons to some small business (not so small anymore) in the twin cities. Note though I'm not saying or going for the illegal vote though. More just management of space and regulation of place. I'm totally up for business owners deciding they will allow their patrons to smoke. It's their choice and people who do not want to be bothered by that can avoid that place. If people wanna smoke in a public park, fine. There is usually plenty of space out in the open to get away from it. Like I alluded to earlier, even though it can be annoying and gross for some of you it cannot hurt you that much to get one sniff and high tail it away from a smoker.

Besides I think a greater danger and annoyance comes from public cellphone conversationalists than smokers.

[Fenris_brood]

Firstly I would like to apologize for me denying that what Aero said that second hand smoke was more carcinogenic than main smoke, I've been reading some scientific reports and the general results show that the condensates of the secondhand smoke are in fact up to four times more toxic than the main smoke, now I understand in full the exact benefices that the anti-smoking law in closed public spaces is providing, however I still find the law a bit far reaching, to which it should give the establishments the freedom to denominate their own establishments as smoking or non-smoking, giving warning to their clients.

However none of this seems to alert to any massive illegalization of tobacco, it's harmful, sure it is, but it's not presently harmful to any innocents with the current non-smoking laws, any malificies from open spaces secondhand smoking would require the second party to be technically sucking on the other end of a cigarette, pretty much what Morg said, basically, in an open space the smoke dissipates to fast to generate a quantifiable toxicity, as well as people seem to find cancer a intstantaneously deadly disease, which is refuted by the fact that the natural mutagenic frequencies of cells by itself means that each individual has a few tumourous cells to say the least. That being said I heard from LV that your non-smoking laws sometimes do extend to open public spaces and sometimes to closed personal spaces, as the case of apartments and such, this I really can't defend, but I do not understand the complete legal protocol, so that's a new level for discussion to this thread.

Furthemore, as in with illegal drugs in these days and alcohol in the last century, illegalization would only cause a criminal market to take over the distribution of the illegal substance, which is a bit more harmful than cancer.

As an adding just to defend the average smoker, although alot of humanity has an asshole complex (and sadly that can't be illegalized), alot of smokers, being reasonable people, will understand and be alert to when their presence is bothering someone else and will apologize and act accordingly if asked nicely. Most smokers I know have the decency and morals to not smoke near where it would be harmful to people and will actually ask non-smokers if they can smoke around them.

[Sinanju]

Define "public place". I can understand state institutions not allowing smoking on their grounds, but FUCK those people who try to make smoking in a privately owned bar illegal. Government gets the hell out of private business policy here as far as I'm concerned. My city just passed a "no smoking in bars, on streets, in parks" kind of law and it's basically unenforceable because private bar owners have responded with "fuck that", and rightfully so. Don't want to be around smokers? Go to a bar that caters to your tastes then.

[Fenris_brood]

Define "public place". I can understand state institutions not allowing smoking on their grounds, but FUCK those people who try to make smoking in a privately owned bar illegal. Government gets the hell out of private business policy here as far as I'm concerned. My city just passed a "no smoking in bars, on streets, in parks" kind of law and it's basically unenforceable because private bar owners have responded with "fuck that", and rightfully so. Don't want to be around smokers? Go to a bar that caters to your tastes then.

Exactly what I mean, ilegalizing this is pointless, instead of making people stop smoking, people just smoke ilegally. I could get behind some restraints on public closed environments, but outright prohibiting it in places that either thrive on the act of smoking or should be available for the average smoker is as much useless as it is unplanned.