Yeah, smoking is bad for us. It's bad for those around us. But aren't our priorities just a little confused here? There are plenty more SUV's on the road today than there was 20 years ago, and all our vehicles put out much more carbon monoxide than cigarettes. Don't believe me...lock yourself in your garage with your car running and let me know how that turns out. But I don't see anyone trying to outlaw cars, or make them produce less lethal chemicals. Obesity is just as much a health concern in this country as well. Why not ban sugar?!?! Why stop there? Let's ban electricity too?!?!? After all, it has been made quite clear that many of the processes used to generate electricity are responsible for polluting our air and creating greenhouse gases, which is ultimately destroying our planet.

If you ask me, I think our politicians are definitely confused on what exactly the real threats to public health are.

Do smokers receive a booklet of reductio ad absurdem arguments with each pack they buy?

Auto exhaust is a problem. It'd be nice to be addressed with technology.

But thank God I don't have to deal with your disgusting cigarette smoke in my face that much anymore. Quit sobbing and smoke in your own home. Have fun destroying your health, but stay away from me while you do it.

jrf0195, you're right and auto emission pollution and obesity are all health concerns people are addressing. I can't see us banning automobiles because of the economic impact, but smoking is not a neccessity of life. You can live quite well without ever ingesting tobacco.

For me the issue is not banning tobacco. You can smoke if you like. It's that it harms me. I can't prove that but I can prove that when someone smokes around me it makes me cought and hack.

There are those who are so sensitive to tobacco smoke that they would like to ban it's use or regulate it as a drug. I can understand why they don't want to compromise their health so you can enjoy something that is not necessary to life. I keep my yard clean so I don't lower my neighbor's property values. I don't blast my music or fight in public with my husband. I don't litter and I don't talk on the cell phone when I'm driving. These are things I may very well have the right to do but I don't do them because we live in crowded society and I must limit my actions at times to make society work. I think the vast majority of people simply want smokers to limit their activities voluntarily.

At some point life becomes more valuable than a liberty, no? We've proven this over and over in the US. We have safety laws that infringe on rights. You have every right to sacrifice your life for liberty but you don't have the right to sacrifice someone elses.

Adrasteia:

At some point life becomes more valuable than a liberty, no? We've proven this over and over in the US. We have safety laws that infringe on rights. You have every right to sacrifice your life for liberty but you don't have the right to sacrifice someone elses.

Give me liberty or give me death.

give you liberty or give you death. well guess what! you're already guarenteed ONE of those. you chose your method, i'll chose mine. all you people who eat right, stay fit, and don't smoke, are apparently going to feel REALLY stupid laying in the hospital bed next to me one day, dying of nothing. at least i'm happy and can die knowing that i made that choice.

DTaggart:

Adrasteia:

At some point life becomes more valuable than a liberty, no? We've proven this over and over in the US. We have safety laws that infringe on rights. You have every right to sacrifice your life for liberty but you don't have the right to sacrifice someone elses.

Give me liberty or give me death.

Super, DTaggart. Your die own death. I'll die for my liberty my way you die for your liberty your way...

jessicac, please don't choose for me how to die for liberty. I'd rather die facing up to terrorists like a true American than hiding behind the Patriot Act which takes far more of your civil liberties than any anti-smoking campaign.

If you bothered to read, which obviously you haven't or can't, I said I personally don't care if you smoke. Go ahead. Kill yourself. There are surely faster ways to do it. I've seen a person die of emphysema (yup jessicac, it's not just cancer) and frankly I don't care to see that again. So be sure you die somewhere private.

In the meantime, kill YOURSELF but spare others your selfishness.

"Your die own death" Correction for the grammar nazies.

"You die your own death."

You said you wouldn't die for liberty. I was saying that I gladly would (and using the words of Patrick Henry, natch).

Life is not more valuable than liberty. If you believe that, then please don't waste any more American space.

Also, this has nothing to do with my personal liberty to smoke, drink, eat fast food, shoot heroin, etc. I am talking about freedoms in general. It's a slippery slope from outlawing tobacco to outlawing everything else deemed to be unhealthy. Did you ever see the movie Supersize Me? Fast food is horrible for a person's health and causes almost immediate damage (Morgan Spurloch's liver started failing in that movie, didn't it? I don't remember that clearly, but it was something shocking like that). How soon before there are calorie and fat content limits on all food?

Look, Andre, I'm sorry you feel somehow jilted by smokers for some reason, but most of them are not trying to make you angry or blow smoke at you. Just be polite and ask them to stop. When my neighbors play loud mariachi music until 2 am, I don't rail on about how Mexicans are loud or obnoxious or rude. I politely ask them to keep it down.

DTaggart:

You said you wouldn't die for liberty. I was saying that I gladly would (and using the words of Patrick Henry, natch).

Life is not more valuable than liberty. If you believe that, then please don't waste any more American space.

DTaggart, I had high hopes we had made nice and were friends. I did not say I wouldn't die for liberty. I wish you would read exactly what I said not what you want to hear. I said at some point life becomes more important than A LIBERTY. You probably alter your behavior ten times a day in order to protect the lives of people around you. You could say you have a right to burn trash in dry field or forest but you don't for fear you might kill someone. Please say you don't.

I don't think I have to defend whether I would die for liberty as a concept or not since I recently retired from 24 years in the military and am still employed by the DoD.

I wasn't going to post anything about this topic, being a smoker for 54 years, but I have to say a few things also.

True one can die from many things, mentioned was auto exhaust, coal burning pollution, alcohol, etc.

Then there are those who rant about how they can't stand the smell of smoke. Well there's some things I can't stand the smell of also, amoung those, over dousing in some perfumes and men's cologne. The worst is AXE. Smells like urine to me! Yet men douse themselves in it thinking it makes them sexy. Then there is the opposite end of the spectrum, body odor of those who have lousy bathing habits. So why can't we treat those problems the same as smoking?

Also why can't we treat alcohol the same as smoking? Someone sucking on a bottle of beer is as abhorent to me as the rest. It's as though those who suck on a bottle never got out of their babyhood, or they can't live a normal life without being saturated.

As for the taxes and tobacco settlements, my State has decided to use it for purposes other than that for which it was intended. Put the settlement in the general fund and fritter it away or pocket it.

Time for making decisions on things other than just smoking.

Chances are your roomate at the hospital will be another fool, just like you. Healthy people tend to die at home, of natural causes... or by aaccident. That's how everyone in my family died, and they all lived past 90. Your likely roomate will be another smoker, or some obese person, or a drug addict who contracted aids, or a shooting victim from the projects. You will have made the choice to die yound, of preventable causes, and you will be torutred by the hospital you die in before they let you go, which will be a week after your medical coverage runs out. Best of luck, and enjoy.

Hopefully if the person next to you has cancer and it is genetic, they can move to another room so they don't need to go through their ordeal in the presence of a fool like you. That would be an unfortunate fate for them indeed, since you will have chosen to die miserably, and they would not have had a choice. Obviously free will is for idiots, too... not just smart people.

There was a time when cancer was a "natural cause".

You may think that smoking is for "idiots", but at the same time, not all people care to live cautionary lives until they are 90. Some people choose to smoke because they like to, and they feel it makes their lives better for it (cigar or pipe smokers, especially). Some people choose to do other things which endanger their lives, like driving racecars, surfing, climbing Mount Everest, etc.

I bring back my previous dichotomy: would you rather do something that you felt improved your life daily and chance the odds that you would die sooner (and then likely by few years), or go without and live those years, guaranteed?

I think that you would choose the second option, and nothing's wrong with that, but you can't fault people for preferring the first.

What an absolutely pointless "point". Also, thank God there are perfect individuals like yourself out there that don't do anything that annoys people.