Lovely. Since alcohol prohibition was such a smashing success and the "War on Drugs" has been such an amazing winner, we now wish to create yet another gigantic black market economy and source of crime. Good thinking America!!!

Banning smoking in private residences in condo and apartment complexes may seem logical and justifiable, but it is neither. In the first place, the neighbor's barbeque grill on his back deck generates far more carcinogenic pollutants than my secondhand smoke does. Unless we are prepared to also prohibit backyard barbeques, the prohibition against smoking cannot be justified on the grounds of secondhand smoke. Not without being completely hypocritical.

In the second place, it cannot work. No prohibition ever has worked. No prohibition ever will work. People who smoke will smoke, regardless of the prohibition, just as people who wanted to drink continued to do so during the failed experiment of alcohol prohibition and just as drug users continue to use drugs despite more than six decades of prohibition, hundreds of billions flushed down the toilet trying to enforce it and mandatory sentences resulting in over a million "drug offenders" being currently warehoused in our prison system.

I don't smoke inside the house. There are other people living there who don't smoke, so it would be rude. But if I want to smoke on my back porch, I'm going to whether it's banned or not. If the condo association - or the city council - really wants to make an issue of it, I'll be happy to make it a very expensive issue for them to fight by filing suit on the grounds that the ban unconstitutionally discriminates against Native American religion (for which legal precidents have already been established). At a guess, I'd say I can drag it out in the coursts for a decade or more and make it cost the idiots millions.

the same forces that want to outlaw cigarette smoking are also pushing to legalize pot and a bunch of other drugs.

the california mentality at work.

I'm an ex-smoker...with that in mind I am frankly sick of the simplistic, knee jerk reaction to health issues. I want to see the actual research and find out just how MUCH smoke passes through walls. Then I want to see the study showing the actual impact of this smoke on people over a set period of time. And I want to know the financial impact as well. I don't want to hear that if there is ANY crossover, even one part in a billion, that we have a problem.

If this is such a huge health problem, and I agree that it is, why haven't we outlawed smoking? Because that would hurt Big Tobacco and everyone else affiliated with them. But we will gladly take away the rights of citizens before we take money out of the pockets of big business?! What am I thinking, of course we will...and that's what we continue to do. THAT is what sickens ME.

baltimore aureole:

the same forces that want to outlaw cigarette smoking are also pushing to legalize pot and a bunch of other drugs.

the california mentality at work.

I agree - provisionally - with the "California Mentality" crack. It's more of a P.C. thing, and is just as common in New England as it is in California, but the observation is valid enough. The mentality is idiotic.

That said, the push for drug "legalization" is hardly a "liberal" idea. I would refer you to <link> for a look at what some leading "conservatives" have to say on the subject. The point is, very simply, that prohibition does not and can not work and that all attempts to make it work create new problems, often worse than the original one, without alleviating in the slightest the original problem we claim to be addressing.

I am not advocating for smoking, any more than I am advocating recreational drug use or alcoholism. I am, however, saying that prohibition - of any of those vices is a stupid way to approach the problem... on a par with beating on your car with a sledge hammer because it won't run right for you. It cannot solve the problem, or even lessen it. It will create new problems in addition to the original one, that are, in many cases, worse than the original one.

If we must label vices like these "problems" society needs to address, we should at least find ways to address them that actually work instead of throwing knee-jerk, feel-good and demonstrably futile legislation at them.

Do I have a right to collect raw sewage in my condo? What if it's just a habit I developed? I just put all my waste into a big vat and sit it in the middle of my living room. Who's to say it's wrong? So what if my neighbors can smell it and it causes disease. It's my condo. I can do what I want with it.

Fact is, to some of us, smoking smells just about as bad as raw sewage. And while it may not be as acutely disease-causing as festering waste, it certainly is a public health issue that communities, neighbors and governments have every right to control.

Seems like a strange comparison, sure. But smoking is pretty weird if you think about it. It would certainly not be considered the socially acceptable vice that it is today without two factors that enabled it to proliferate: 1. decades of aggressive marketing and 2. it's highly addictive properties. What a great idea! You suck the smoke from burning leaves into your lungs, and it you get a slight buzz and get to look like a rebel. Your teeth turn yellow, all your clothes stink, and it kills you. And smells really awful to everyone within 20 feet of you. Oh, and you can pretty much never ever quit completely. Yay!

It seems to me that smokers get away with a lot of truly inexcusable behavior simply because of how common their habit is. We're just all so accustomed to how rude smokers are that we don't even notice anymore. In bars, smokers think nothing of lighting up next to someone else, or smoking right next to a doorway they know everyone has to walk through. People leave butts next to the mailboxes at my condo. I almost never complain about these things. I would seem like a jerk.

I'm a civil libertairian. People should have a right to do what they want to their own bodies. But not to other people. And lets get real: Smoking is not an ok thing to do. Smoking is messed up. Smokers are junkies. It's not a vice on par with alcohol - where it's only dangerous the minority of time when people lose control. Smoking is ALWAYS carcinogenic. It ALWAYS smells awful. It's ALWAYS addictive. There is no redeeming quality to cigarette smoking that should give smokers the special privileges they now enjoy. There's just been so darn many of them for so long.

I absolutely support the right of people to continue to smoke if they can find away to do it without hurting other people, and the purchase cigarettes should never be made illegal. But smokers should not have a special right to invade other people's space with carcinogens and horrible smells. I say, here's a rule of thumb: don't smoke anywhere where it might also be considered rude to leave a vat of raw sewage. If smokers don't see the logic of this, more lawmakers soon will.

...Banning smoking in private residences in condo and apartment complexes may seem logical and justifiable, but it is neither...

Oh yeah? Have you ever owned a condo or apartment adjacent to(especially above) an apartment or condo owned by a heavy smoker? I have. IT SUCKS. It smells like shit, all the time. They didn't care, of course. "It's our home--we can do whatever we want!" they whined. Of course, they were REALLY quick to complain when I put my stereo speakers face down on the bedroom floor at three in the morning and cranked out Ted Nugent's "Motor City Madhouse," or when I dribbled a basketball around. For some reason, they didn't think I should be able to enjoy music in my own apartment, or to practice my dribbling skills, but they were POSITIVE that they should be allowed to fill their apartment with carcinogenic tobacco smoke. There's a term for people like them--it's called "FUCKING ASSHOLES." And the ONLY way to deal with fucking assholes is to be an aggressively bigger asshole back. Which I'm happy to do. Enjoy your cigarettes.

Samtropy:

I won't debate the health issues involved with tobacco smoke, other than to once again point out that barbeque grills are provably far more toxic (as are fireplaces and SUVs). Neither will I dignify the ridiculous "vat of raw sewage" analogy with a reply.

I will point out, yet again, that prohibition will not and can not succeed. All it will accomplish is the creation of yet another criminal economy, millions of new "criminals" who are otherwise law-abiding citizens and billions of dollars more spent on a demonstrably futile expression of society's disapproval. Smokers will continue to smoke. Drug dealers will have a new and extremely lucrative profit-center. What fines the new laws manage to collect will come nowhere close to the lost tax revenues, much less the cost of enforcing the new laws. The problems caused by smoking will not have been solved and we will have a whole host of new problems to add to the mix.

You disapprove of smoking. Well and god. You believe society has a right - even an obligation - to address it. Also well and good. I believe that if society is going to address a problem, it is obligated to do so in a way that actually gets positive results. So far, prohibition, whether of alcohol, drugs or any other substance, has never once produced any positive results - and has consistently created negative results far worse than the original "problems" it was supposed to correct. That may not be a popular fact, but it remains, nonetheless, an indisputable fact.

Graylodge:

We both agree that a blanket prohibition would be stupid. And you're correct that the raw sewage idea is stupid. What I'm saying is that smoking cigarettes is similarly stupid. And there should never be a law banning people from doing stupid things when they don't intrude upon other people. However:

What I'm saying is that smokers underestimate how intrusive cigarette smoke truly is (maybe because you've all lost your sense of smell, i don't know). It goes through walls. It can be smelled easily accross a room. It lingers. It is foul. It is carcinogenic. Moreover it has no benefit that could justify it's privelidged place in our society. The only reason people even do it at all is because it's agressively marketed (because it's a very profitable crop) and because they can't stop when they start. That's no reason to give people a special right to smoke when it infringes on other people's space, comfort, and health.

I'm glad that you compared the harmful effects of second hand smoke to those of SUVs, Grills, and fireplaces - the analogy is quite apt. The essential difference is that those three things each have a legitimate use: transportation, food, and warmth. Sure, they may be more wasteful or intrusive ways to acheive those aims - but they each do serve a legitimate purpose that offsets their costs in terms of society's values. Loud music is another good comparison. Like the smell of cigarettes, it's very annoying. Unlike smoking - it's not potentially life threatening, and when it stops, it's over.

I really don't see this issue ending until they invent a second-hand-smokeless cigarette, or we decide to put smoke-escape-proofing into the building code, or, better yet... Smokers get the help they need to quit, and society's shame really starts drastically reducing the number of smokers. Someday, hopefully, people will look at smokers with the same disgust (and disbelief) that we'd look at someone who keeps raw sewage in his condo.

Samtropy:

The degree to which cigarette smoke "intrudes" is highly debatable, as is the degree to which "second-hand" smoke is harmful. Certainly, I do not approve of smoking indoors in public places (like restaurants). I am a smoker, and even I fiind it offensive in places where I am trying to eat - or, for that matter, in any poorly ventilated area where the smoke gets thick. As I said, I don't even smoke indoors in my own home... or anywhere else, for that matter, where it would be in close proximity to non-smokers. However, if I choose to step out onto the back porch for a smoke, a neighbor 100 feet away bitching that my "second-hand smoke" is "intruding" on his space and "poisoning" him is not apt to get much sympathy - particularly when he routinely cooks on his grill on his own back porch, burns wood in his fireplace, not out of necessity but merely for "atmosphere", and drives a huge gas-guzzling SUV, again not from necessity, but merely because it is a status symbol.

The argument that all of those things he does to pollute my air thousands of times more profoundly than my "second-hand smoke" pollutes his are legitimate because food, warmth and transportation are valid needs is, at best, specious and, except where put forward by the poorly educated, deliberately disingenuous. Not only are less polluting ways to cook, warm the house and transport oneself readily available, they are, in fact, more readily available and far less expensive than the grill, fireplace and SUV. He knows perfectly well that he pollutes my air needlessly and he couldn't care less. It adds an element of pleasure to his life at my expense and that suits him fine. What doesn't suit him fine is having the shoe on the other foot.

As far as tobacco having no legitimate use, I would suggest that this is a culturally insensitive position and only a half-truth even if we could agree that Native American culture and religion should be stomped out once and for all because tobacco is evil - which is something I'll never agree with anyway, since I happen to be Native American. Tobacco, used properly (including the smoke thereof) has several perfectly good medicinal uses, including the treatment of basal cell skin cancers. Look it up...

Again, I am not advocating smoking - and I freely confess that my own addiction to it is abusive. I am, however, saying that there comes a point past which the anti-smoking crusade becomes absurd. If you are going to use the dangers of second-hand smoke as an argument, you'd best be prepared to also give up the needless sources of carcinogenic toxins you yourself are pumping into the air. If you are going to complain about the unpleasant smell, be prepared to give up anything other people would find unpleasant as well - for example, cheddar cheese, the smell of which I personally find nauseating. You certainly do not need any of those things to survive or even to be comfortable and they are, without question, unpleasant to some other people and in some cases far more deadly and carcinogenic than whatever second-hand smoke makes it through solid walls or 100 feet of outdoor space to your back yard from mine.

I wholeheartedly agree that smoking in indoor public places - or even crowded outdoor public places - is rude and could legitimately be banned. But telling me I can't smoke in my own back yard, or inside my own house, crosses the line. There is no way in hell any scientific study will support the contention that whatever minute traces of second-hand smoke reach my neighbors is even a fraction as unhealthy as the air already inside their own homes, much less on a level equal to what their fireplace and barbeque pump out. At this level, the argument for banning smoking is no longer rational from any medical or scientific standpoint, and anyone who has done even the most cursory research knows it. At this level, it is all about what is P.C. and about forcing people to give up their vices because society doesn't approve of them.

Go ahead and pass the bans... but expect them to be fought in court - by people who will make absolutely certain that even if they lose the fight will cost you far more than it was worth. The next step will be blanket bans, and all you need to do is look at our "War on Drugs" to see where that will end up. It is a war that cannot be won. Most smokers are quite willing to settle for a compromise. So, for that matter, are most non-smokers. It is the "anti-smokers" who are unwilling to compromise, and if they have their way there will still be plenty of people smoking. There will just be a new crime wave associated with it and billions of dollars more in totally wasted tax money every year.

Samtropy: If you're statement "Smoking is ALWAYS carcinogenic. It ALWAYS smells awful. It's ALWAYS addictive," were true then we could rely on the fact that

1) Every smoker would die of cancer

and

3) No smoker would be able to quit, and anyone who tried smoking would become addicted to it.

("it AlWAYS smells awful is subjective -- I always thought my father's pipe tobacco smelled pleasant -- which is why I have ignored it in this discussion).

As I know a number of smokers in their 70s and 80s who have not died and have not contracted lung cancer, I know the first statement to not be true.

As for the second statement, I don't smoke, but I do smoke -- I like a good cigar and have fewer than a dozen of them each year. I remain unaddicted. I have no craving for cigars or cigarettes.

Do I think smoking is a healthy thing or a good thing? By no means. My father, whose pipe tobacco's aroma I enjoyed, died of smoking five packs of cigarettes a day for something like 30 years. He died at age 59, of chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder directly related to his smoking. I am accutely aware of the health risks regarding smoking because of what it did to my father.

Dad was, however, an adult and entitled to kill himself if he desired. The original poster is correct that any direct prohibition of smoking will only create a new black market for tobacco (which, somewhat like marijuana, is a robust plant that can grow wild on something like 50 percent of the North American continent), and create several new classes of criminals at the both the using and dealing levels.

There are all kinds of health, both individual and social. Whether it is healthy for a society to make health decisions for its individual members is subject to debate. For Americans, it is certainly traditional that what they do inside their own homes is pretty much sacrosanct, except for a very few areas which society has deemed anathema. Some of these -- sodomy for example, have gone out of date. Others, the use of drugs, are still in place.

It seems to me that having the government involved in the use of a legal substance inside one's own home is probably a step too far in regulating individual behavior.

Whether the health Nazis acknowledge it or not, the crusade against tobacco is, at bottom, a deeply repressive and authoritarian one, no different from the impulses that inspire Sharia law ... the desire, in short, to make everyone the same: think the same, feel the same, behave the same, dress the same, believe the same, worship the same, be the same, whether in the name of "Allah" or the name of "health," which latter has become, of course, a mass religion in itself.

The justice of a society may be directly measured by the justice of its laws. The better the society, the less law there will be.... In heaven, there will be no law; the lion will lie down with the lamb. In hell, there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed....." Grant Gilmore, The Ages of American Law

hanktheyank:

As much as I am loathe to encourage posts that expand the original topic to a point that threatens to take the discussion entirely off-topic (the aged BBS sysop/moderator in me coming out, I suppose), I think you are, in essence, right. There is a powerful urge in "the masses" to legislate compliance with the mores and norms of the majority - and to hell with individual liberty. And it all too frequently hijacks both Science and Jurisprudence to do its bidding. This is nowhere more evident than in issues of "public health".

For one very well researched and documented - yet, strangely, entirely ignored - example, the vast hue and cry against the eating of meat and saturated animal fats in general (see <link> ). This article makes much of statistics derived from African idigenous populations and utterly overlooks the indigenous populations of the Western Hemisphere, but even for the washichun it should be fairly easy to spend three or four minutes researching the results on health a switch from largely animal-based diet to largely starch-based diet had on the Native American population.

Given my age and my background, it should probably not still amaze me how the "dominent culture" in this country so often ignores even its own science in an attempt to cater to popular culture (whilst simultaneously rubbing out whatever may be left of indigenous culture) - even when doing so clearly endangers the health and safety of its own children. Hence the modern, suburban Americans' penchant for needlessly burning wood in their fireplaces (in homes heated by electricity, gas or oil), cooking their meals on charcoal grills (in homes with gas or electric stoves) and driving humongous SUVs and 4X4s (that will never see a single day of offroad traffic), endlessly complaining about the "secondhand smoke" of neighbors' cigarettes that, all-told, generate only a minute fraction of one percent of the carcinogens their own toys and creature-comforts do.

Pay heed to these responses folks, here's where the truth comes out. Smoking bans aren't about public health at all; they're about aesthetics. It's worse than a "nanny state" mentality, it's public policy by yuck factor.

It's just a happy convenience for anti-smoking folks that there's a (possibly very flawed) public health argument in favor of their particular olfactory preference.

HunterWagner and Samtropy simply don't like smoke, so they want to ban it. I don't like smoke either, but I try take responsibility for myself and attempt to stay away from it.

When they came for the pot smokers, I remained silent. I was not a pot smoker. When they demonized veal and banned pate, I remained silent. I didn't eat that stuff. When they came for the smokers... What's next?

&gt;

But I DON'T want to ban it! Are you just stupid? What don't you get? You can smoke 100 cigarettes at a time if you want--I couldn't care less. Just don't let one molecule of smoke get into my lungs. It's really simple. I ABSOLUTELY DON'T WANT TO BAN CIGARETTES, AND I ABSOLUTELY WANT TO LEGALIZE POT. You people are just too stupid to figure out that your right to use your personal space for whatever you want ENDS when it touches my personal space. How could this concept possibly be complicated for you???

HunterWagner74:

> But I DON'T want to ban it! Are you just stupid? What don't you get? You can smoke 100 cigarettes at a time if you want--I couldn't care less. Just don't let one molecule of smoke get into my lungs. It's really simple. I ABSOLUTELY DON'T WANT TO BAN CIGARETTES, AND I ABSOLUTELY WANT TO LEGALIZE POT. You people are just too stupid to figure out that your right to use your personal space for whatever you want ENDS when it touches my personal space. How could this concept possibly be complicated for you???

You have no personal space, moron. The air you exhale enters the lungs of everyone around you and the air they exhale enters yours. Your car's exhaust, fireplace smoke and barbeque fumes poison my air just like my cigarette smoke poisons yours. When you make sure that not one molecule of the poisons you produce gets into anybody else's lungs - and ONLY then - you will have earned the right to make the same demand of them. Until then, blow it out your ass.