Aside from the health dangers of secondhand breathing and absorbing someone else's filthy habit (could debate that night and day), what about the issue of personal safety? Some yahoo smokes in bed, falls asleep, and burns up the building, putting lives and possessions of innocent people at great risk. Worse yet that yahoo has been drinking and is even more oblivious. Smoking should be banned from all public domiciles for a zillion good reasons. Smokers rights end where innocent lives share boundaries. Has nothing to do with discomfort or inconvenience, and everything to do with safety and health.

I don't agree with you that government should ban smoking from apartments since these apartments are PRIVATE businesses. The owner should have the right to decide if THEIR apartment complex allows smoking or not.

Of course I would only rent in a non smoking complex but the market place should decide and not government. The government shouldn't impose on private property rights.

For a Condo complex, where there are multiple private property owners, the Condo Association should decide according to existing Fair Housing laws in each state.

I am fire phobic, and although there are a great many dangers, fire and otherwise, associated with living in a home or apartment, the smoking in bed or couches or anywhere a smoldering ash could get an unknown toe hold makes me cringe. Especially with drinking. And the 2 so often occur together. I don't care who bans it, but just that it gets banned. Let the smokers smoke in designated areas that don't infringe on other's air, and don't create fire hazards.

I believe candles are the number one reason for home fires, so it would be better to have candles than smoking.

Also, one should care who bans something unless you wish to live like the Taliban.

For all intensive purposes, smoking is a public health threat and already costs each and every nonsmoker or future nonsmoker money without their consent. It concerns me that everytime a smoker engages in their "divine right" to shorten their life, I pay higher taxes and higher insurance premiums to cover their filthy little habit. When they post a bond for their future health care for when they lose their jobs, due to a smoking related illness, which disables them from working so that the nonsmoking taxpayers have to fund their poor lifestyle choice, maybe I will feel a bit better. Better yet, invest in their own personal bubble so they may have the pleasure of breathing their own noxious fumes instead of inflicting them on the general population. Just a thought.

For that reason, a candle never burns in my home except on holidays at the dinner table!

And of course we ban behaviors all the time. Speeding and reckless driving are banned. Drinking and driving is banned. Nudity in public is banned. Carrying concealed weapons without a permit is banned. ETC. ETC. We suffer consequences when we violate these laws and bans. We have to have laws to live as a society, and it doesn't come close to TaliBAN!

An apartment is NOT a public place but a private owned business. The public doesn't OWN the apartments but a priviate person or business. Thus your examples are total BS.

Now bars and restaurants are private businesses and smoking is banned in those. I disagree with those laws for the same reason I don't think the government should dictate to apartment owners. Now I would never drink or eat at a private business that allowed smoking but just because that is my perference doesn't give me the right to control what a PRIVATE business wishes to do with THEIR PRIVATE property.

That is Taliban type thinking in my view. Private property rights are what this nation was founded on!

Every time a women that isn't financially secure has a child and goes on welfare I pay higher taxes so should abortion be mandated if a women doesn't have a certain income?

Exactly, jazzguitarman. Obesity costs MUCH more money in medical costs every year than smoking related illnesses. But the government has no right to tell people what to eat or how much to weigh. If everyone stops smoking, who will pay for the SCHIP children's FREE healthcare law signed in February 2009? How will the tobacco companies pay the states for the 1998 Masters Settlement Agreement that has 14 years left on it? I have a right in a free country to smoke where I want. This is the United States, not communist China, or fascist Nazi Germany in the 1930's-40's. Besides, all I have to argue is that my cigarette smoking is my cultural activity. There is nothing you anti-smokers can do about it. I will NEVER pay a smoking related citation. This is called passive resistance. I will smoke where I want in a free country.

Just keep you and your brat kids away from me smoking my cigarette. Don't like my cigarette smoke, but you same people want to legalize "medicinal" marijuana? What about that in an apartment or condo? All the pot smoker would have to say is "it's for medical use". The taxes on my pack of cigarettes comes to 85 to 90% on a $5.00 pack. Name one other product that is taxed this high. Tobacco sales in the U.S. reap hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars every year. Where will the tax money come from if tobacco is outlawed? Oh, and by the way, your rights will be taken away next.

An apartment owner should have the rigth to tell you if you can smoke in THEIR apartment or not.

This isn't the government telling you what do to or not, but a private property owner deciding if they wish to allow a specific behavior or not. Smoking clearly causes damage to THEIR private property so they should have the right to either ban it OR charge more for rent and \ or a secutiry deposit.

If you are renting someone's apartment you are in THEIR apartment and NOT in a free country. Buy a home if you really want to be free! (well at least a lot more free).

init4kicks:

For all intensive purposes, smoking is a public health threat and already costs each and every nonsmoker or future nonsmoker money without their consent. It concerns me that everytime a smoker engages in their "divine right" to shorten their life, I pay higher taxes and higher insurance premiums to cover their filthy little habit. When they post a bond for their future health care for when they lose their jobs, due to a smoking related illness, which disables them from working so that the nonsmoking taxpayers have to fund their poor lifestyle choice, maybe I will feel a bit better. Better yet, invest in their own personal bubble so they may have the pleasure of breathing their own noxious fumes instead of inflicting them on the general population. Just a thought.

Oh, please. You are not paying higher taxes because of smokers. Taxes on a pack of cigarettes exceeds the cost of the cigarettes themselves, if everyone that smokes quit, they would raise everyones taxes to make up for the lost revenue. With additional taxes on cigarettes (at least in NYS), you can figure that a smoker who smokes one pack a day pays approximately $1,500.00 a year more in taxes than the non-smoker. That is revenue that was supposed to be allocated for smoke related illnesses although it has been used to bring down deficits as opposed to raising taxes. Who do you think will have to make up those billions of dollars that the government will lose? Smokers also pay higher insurance premiums than non-smokers.

My friend has had ovarian cancer and breast cancer twice, should she have to pay a bond so that your health insurance and/or taxes won't have to be raised as she is at higher risk to lose her job (actually she is already on disability) and need a lot of health care in the future? Should alcoholics, drug addicts, obese people, people who have a family history of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc have to pay a bond so that your health insurance and/or taxes won't have to be raised as they are at a higher risk to lose their jobs and need a lot of health care in the future? Or is it just smokers who already pay more for their "dirty habit" which is actually considered an addiction than anyone with any other poor lifestyle choice.