I have been a smoker since I was 17 years old and while I agree I should probably quit at some point, I have to wonder...

Would I be quitting because I want to or because SOCIETY thinks I should.

I enjoyed wonderful health up until a year ago when I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. Since then my health has deteriorated to the point I become winded more easily. My smoking has decreased due to my inability to walk around as I once did, but it's not the smoking that caused my ill health, it was the RA.

Recently in Arizona, a new tax was passed, 80 cents on each pack of cigarettes sold in the state, to pay for a health care program for low income families. Not HELP pay for it, but to pay for it. Why is this tax only for smokers? Did smokers make these families sick? Did smokers make these families poor? Had they put this tax on milk or bread, I'd say, "BRAVO!" for more households use these items and it's a more equitable distribution of financial responsibility. But to make SMOKERS pay for this, well, this is taking things too far and it is making smokers responsible for the rest of society.

Smokers are being villified and made to seem as the root of all evil in the world. More people die each year as a result of alcohol and it's related incidents. Drunk drivers kill more people each year than smokers do. Alcohol can assume more reponsibilty for ill in the world than can smoking, yet no one looks at alcohol as a viable source of tax dollars. Is an alcoholic more socially acceptable than a smoker? Would you rather have a raging, anger driven alcoholic, who needs a drink simply to get out of bed each day, drinking all day long to put the facade or normality in place, working for you or a smoker who can relieve their tension with one cigarette and be good for the rest of the day, or at least several hours?

My father was a smoker who died of lung cancer not because he smoked but because he was exposed to mass quantities of radiation in the 50's when he was a member of the USAF. His death certificate doesn't say "Cancer due to excessive radiation exposure". It says simply, "Lung Cancer, small cell basal".

My mother was a lung cancer survivor who got it at a young age (50) due to exposure to asbestos when she was in her twenties. She was 75 when she died as a result of a bad heart valve that began development when she had rheumatic fever as a child. Her father died of cancer at the age of 58 having never smoked a day in his life.

My oldest brother died of lung cancer not because he smoked but because of the radiation my father was exposed to as was mentioned previously. He was born ten months after my father returned from the deserts of Nevada and New Mexico. No one warned my father of the risks. My brother was 28 when he died and the cancer had metastisized from his brain, which had metastisized from his bone marrow. However, the death certificate says simply, "Lung Cancer". How misleading is that?

I have had cancer twice, both under the age of 35, and my doctor tried to pin it on my smoking until I informed him of my father's excessive radiation exposure. I and my siblings have all been told (and none of my siblings smoke) it's not a matter of if we become ill with cancer, but when, given my father's high radiation exposure.

Cancer is usually hereditary. While there ARE risk factors that can speed things up, cancer is hereditary. And for death certs to list the cause of death w/o underlying factors, they have an axe to grind and they don't care who they mislead to get more federal dollars thrown at the problem.

Restaurants and bars should carry a warning that they allow smoking, thereby giving non-smokers the option of patronizing that establishment. Smokers are given no choices while non-smokers are being given all the rights.

Last time I checked, this was a free country. Why is it non-smokers feel their rights supersede those of the rest of the world? What if it were suddenly morally wrong to drive red cars because they made everyone sick to look at them and everyone in the world had to get rid of their red cars or pay exhorbitant taxes? This is the same arbitrary logic that has been put upon smokers.

Just my two cents.

If you have never quit, then you don't know how much healthier you could feel. Every day you smoked is a day you could have felt much healthier, more full of energy, etc. Don't knock it 'till you try it (quitting, that is). Since you've smoked for a long time, expect to feel worse before you feel better. Quitting tobacco comes as quite a shock to the immune system.

It's not "society" that wants to make you quit. Society is trying to make you want to quit... because it's good for you. Big tobacco is the conspiracy, not anti-smoking campaigns.

Um, rheumatoid arthritis is linked to smoking. Quotes pasted below.

As far as the "it's a free country" defense, perhaps you can find some slightly more sophisticated argument than a meaningless cliche.

Your smoke actively infringes on our environment. I choose not to increase my risk of such ailments as rhematoid arthritis, and enjoy being able to run up and down stairs without breathing heavily.

You are free to smoke in your own home, and please do not give me ridiculous scare tactics about " that's next to go." As far as anywhere else - sorry, you're lucky to have anywhere to smoke besides your own homes. Your freedom does not encompass the right to actively pollute my environment with a toxin PROVEN to cause harm when passively absorbed.

You might want to acquaint yourself with centuries-old understanding of freedom before you give us your naive notions of what constitutes liberty.

And, sigh, yes, I know there's pollution out there, I know people do other unhealthy things. None of that changes the fact that smoked tobacco is incredibly invasive into non-smokers' environments. In a battle of "freedoms", you lose. I'm far more concerned with infringements on true freedom, such as freedom of speech or assaults on habeus corpus.

The link between smoking and rheumatoid arthritis was more evident in new research presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology.

In another study, after assessing 52 patients with severe extra-articular rheumatoid arthritis, including pericarditis, pleuritis, interstitial lung disease, Felty's syndrome, scleritis, and vasculitis, it was concluded that current smoking and high disease activity at onset of rheumatoid arthritis are risk factors for extra-articular rheumatoid arthritis. The study abstract is available online. (Presentation number 680)

I think most would agree this is a standard definition:

Villains are categorized as the type who would do physical harm to another person.

Secondhand smoke has been classified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a known cause of cancer in humans (Group A carcinogen). Did you know? Second hand some lingers in the air hours after cigarettes have been extinguished and can cause or exacerbate a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma.

Secondhand smoke exposure causes disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke. Secondhand smoke contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or carcinogenic, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic ammonia and hydrogen cyanide (The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: 6 Major Conclusions of the Surgeon General Report. A Report of the Surgeon General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2006)

I understand that when your parents were young, people could buy cigarettes and smoke pretty much anywhere — even in hospitals! Ads for cigarettes were all over the place. Today we're more aware about how bad smoking is for our health. Smoking is restricted or banned in almost all public places and cigarette companies are no longer allowed to advertise on TV, radio, and in many magazines.

Almost everyone knows that smoking causes cancer, emphysema, and heart disease; that it can shorten your life by 10 years or more; and that the habit can cost a smoker thousands of dollars a year. So how come people are still lighting up? The answer, in a word, is addiction.

Last time I checked, this is a free county that protects the well-being of others, not the other way around that protects those that seek to harm. If smoker's feel that their rights are being infringed, then learn that second-hand smoke is a very complex poison.

Smokers don't understand they are harming others. The fact that this causes harm to another person violates everyones human rights! So having separate establishments for smokers and non-smokers or some similar segregation is not the answer. Much like having a home with asbestos or lead is no longer right. 2nd hand smoke, asbestos, lead, are all harmful to everyone who comes into contact with it. Smokers wake up! Regardless if the other person is ok with you smoking, second hand smoke is considered harmful and potential fatal to this person. Smoking in public is inhumane!

At the very least, please try to be responsible, aware of others, and learn about the dangers of second-hand smoke.

Jagdish,

Go to the link. You have been duped along with millions of others. This should concern you. <link>

Uh, it appears the author of the blog you address, rrgabe23, must have had a rather extreme change of heart. Either that or he became the tobacco industry's whore.

>> It shows that the city realizes that secondhand smoke is an occupational health hazard,” says Siegel, a professor of social and behavioral sciences. “Everyone deserves to work in a workplace that is safe.”

The adverse effects of secondhand smoke are now well recognized, he says, pointing out that it causes about 53,000 deaths a year in nonsmokers. Because the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health declared that involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke should be eliminated in the workplace, many local governments, including 200 communities in Massachusetts, have prohibited smoking on job sites -- public and private. So have two states: California and Delaware. A few major cities have banned smoking in all restaurants and bars, including Santa Fe, Honolulu, and Boulder, Colo. Boston would be the largest city thus far to enact such a ban, although Mayor Michael Bloomberg is also considering a similar regulation for New York City.>>

<link>

Look, I really don't care about smokers. They have the right to kill themselves. However, their right stops where my lungs begin. Smoking is the only still-legal act one can do that directly and adversely impacts another person. Driving while intoxicated (whether by alcohol or drugs) is illegal and is the only other thing I can think of that is similar to smoking. I also don't want to pay the medical bills of smokers. The original poster has her head in the clouds. She'll unfortunately die, yes, but would rather believe death is not of her own making.

You can smoke in your own home. Period.

Sadly it is still legal to walk around in public if you have the flu. You can even dope yourself up on Dayquil, go to work, and infect your co-workers by sneezing, or fly on an airplane and infect a bunch of strangers. You might even be a cook or a clerk with the flu, passing it out to all your customers. People with the flu have rights smokers can only dream of these days.

jennj99738:

Smoking is the only still-legal act one can do that directly and adversely impacts another person.

True, but the flu, or norovirus, etc., isn't going to kill you-- unless you have some other disease that makes you strangely susceptible and then you have to take certain precautions. Serious diseases usually require quarantine. I don't think it's at all a fair comparison.

You are wrong about the flu , the death toll from the flu is about 36,000 a year in the us alone, and a major outbreak of a virulent new strain could easily kill millions.(like the "spanish flu", which killed more healthy men in their twenties than any other group, total deaths was 20,000,000+).

this is why people are so jumpy about the "bird flu" , it has a high mortality rate among those that contract it.

fortunately it is not easily transmitted from one human to another, but a simple mutation could change that , or the next "spanish flu" could come from somewhere else entirely.

Smoking is a voluntary act done for the purpose of feeding an addiction. The same cannot be said by people who contract a disease such as the flu. Yes, you can say there is a voluntary act in leaving the home when someone knows they have the flu. However, it's not the same as someone smoking outside their home in the presence of others.

Moreover, if it's the "spanish flu," bird flu or TB and they're subject to a quarantine order, they're breaking the law which was what I first said. Smoking is the only voluntary act done by someone which adversely affects others that is still legal.

Well , "spanish flu" didn't usually give a person time to get a quarantine order in the fatal cases , since it could kill in as little as 8 hours.

the weird thing about it was that in the healthiest people their deaths were probably a case of their immune systems reacting too strongly to the disease.

I already live in California (LA), and therefore have most of the "indoor bans" already in place, and I have no problem with the indoor bans.

I even understand not smoking 25 feet from a doorway , the smoke might get in,(we won't talk about the LA smog though , will we?)

what is happening here now , is that there are groups of people trying to eliminate smoking outdoors , even when someone is across the street , park , parking lot , or whatever.

The city of Calabasas was the first, (no outdoor smoking anywhere in the city) I don't know if it held or not.

The simple fact is that if I am 20 ft or more from you , you are NOT going to be exposed period , and any whiff that you might smell is going to be so far below any exposure threshold as to be utterly insignificant.

although if somebody asked politely( I'm sorry , but smoke bothers me ,could you please move?) ,(oh , I'm sorry to bother you too) , I would either move downwind or put it out , I will happily try to accomodate any polite and reasonable request.

Of course if someone comes up to me with an attitude and says something like "put that thing out now!", or quotes some "rule they probably made up" they are going to get their own attitude back in their face , (as well as maybe a facefull of smoke).

jennj99738:

Yes, you can say there is a voluntary act in leaving the home when someone knows they have the flu. However, it's not the same as someone smoking outside their home in the presence of others.

Smoking is the only voluntary act done by someone which adversely affects others that is still legal.

Right. Because we someone chooses to smoke in front of others, the others are AWARE that the person is participating in a LEGAL ACTIVITY in an ACCEPTABLE place. If flu person comes by, he or she infects everyone without their knowledge. So it IS different, but the flu seems worse.

we=when

That's the point. Dr. Sieigal realized that he was wrong. He was part of the movement that believed the end justified the means. read what he says today not an article from 2002. Even you don't believe 53,000. If you do, name one. You can't because there has never been a documented death from SHS. Oh, by the way, the 53000 is a virtual number created by a statistical computer program (SAMEEC).

Well, killing someone is not the same as "the only still-legal act one can do that directly and adversely impacts another person."... so why is the comparison or second-hand smoke to sneezing in public when you have the flu a bad one?