Yeah, I agree. My best pal in college loved Menthols (which smelled fine to me), but on occasion, he smelled like fucking ASS. Absolutely horrid. My old man smokes regularly as well (Marlboro Light 100s, used to be Camel), and I've never found any sort of smell around him to make me want to gag. I dealt with my buddy's handicap by not getting within five feet of him on the bad days :V

It is a scandal that I cannot smoke my cigars in the casino anymore. That's like taking a shower without water.

The best is when unemployed people tell me that smoking cigars is bad for my health. Yeah, you fucking idiots, guess what, I finance your slovenly life with my tobacco taxes.

I not necessarily for banning cigarettes entirely, but I do think they need to be controlled more. Where people smoke is the big issue - I personally can't stand the smell of cigarettes and have a hard time breathing without coughing like crazy anytime I inhale any secondhand smoke. I usually have to hold my breath walking into a mall if there are smokers around to avoid coughing and hacking. I know that it's your choice to smoke, just be respectful toward those of us who don't handle it so well.

ITT: No one disputes the assertion that all people who smoke weed are stupid. Despite the fact that over 40% of people have smoked weed by the time they graduate high school.

Not everyone who smokes weed wanders around in tie-dye muttering about the true nature of the universe, man.

But please, back to your explanations about how cigarettes should be illegal because they smell bad, smart guy. Sure is good you don't smoke weed, else you'd be a catatonic retard, presumably. Given your unhindered level of intelligence being in the fucking toilet as is.

uhh...

Denicalis, your unrelenting vitriol is difficult to take seriously. I sometimes wonder if you're actually a really nice guy somewhere who comes to GFF solely to experience his perception of life as an ass. Then I remember who I'm thinking about.

I'm not entirely sure what your point is, so I'll contest the one part of your post that seems to be relevant: You appear to be operating under the impression that I think smoking should be banned because it smells bad.

Yes, smoking and smokers tend to smell bad (although someone brought up a good point when they mentioned that that will depend in part on the brand of cigarette), and second-hand smoke should never be something that we have to suffer through in public areas. But I'm mainly against it because of the horrible health repercussions, both on the user and on anyone who is around them often. Like children of parents who smoke, for instance. I'm against smoking in all forms because it is a terrible addiction that causes early death and long-term health issues.

If it was something that only affected the people smoking, I wouldn't care. If they don't value their own health, then why should I value it, after all? But the second-hand smoke effects everyone around them. The money they spend on cigs is money that won't be spent on improving their lives or the lives of their family and children. Sure, some of it will go towards the government and maybe, maybe make it back to the family in some shape or form, but that's hardly a comfort to those whose minimum-wage parents are throwing away their limited funds on the cigs. And then there is the simple fact that even people who don't value their own health are generally loved and valued by someone else, usually family.

My children will likely not know their grand parents well, because they'll die an early death because of their addiction. And if they don't, well... I won't let them spend much time with them anyways, because I can't allow them to look up to a smoker as a role model or authority if I can at all help it. And that is a damn shame.

My god, you're a joke.

You want to ban something because its not good for them? You want to take away personal choice for someone's own good? Well we're at it, let's ban any form of literature that might insight someone to actions against the good of the majority. I mean, sure it might be bad for them to read it, but other people might overhear someone talking about it, thus harming other people as well!

Your Crash impression is adorable, by the way. Paragraphs on paragraphs saying nothing. Unfortunately for you, most of us can read and are able to understand what you're actually saying: If anything could possibly maybe hurt the people around us, we shouldn't do it. (You should do your homework, by the way, the research on second hand smoke damage is largely based on one study, which has been shown to overstate the facts by a very large margin. Reading, it's always better than rhetoric.)

So I guess no one should ever get behind the wheel of a car, because there's a chance that someone might get hurt when they do. No one should dress in a way that makes other people uneasy. Everyone should do only what makes everyone around them comfortable at all times, and we can all live in a nice bubble and be miserably uninteresting. Just like you.

You may think I'm harsh, but I think you're a bloody idiot. And I'll take a smoker over a halfwit any day.

Your children will never know their grandparents because your children don't exist and never will because chicks don't dig whiny assholes that like to tell other people what to do.

Are you going to address the automotive exhaust parallel anytime in the next week, you dodgy cunt?

The one thing that gave bar bans credence was that the concentration of second hand smoke in a closed environment presented health problems for workers.

Banning consumer goods because it's bad for you isn't going to get you anywhere. Anti-smoking activists would be much better served to regulate the smoking industry in order to create products that are less harmful and not as addictive.

What I don't understand is how they can go about banning cigarettes from bars and what not because of the 'implications' of health hazards they produce, and yet at the same time they allow McDonald's to serve the nastiest, most disgusting food that, which based on the eating habits of morbidly obese people, turn out to be just as hazardous to other people's health that smoking supposedly risks.

What I'm trying to say is, why should smoking be banned in bars and yet everyday I see VERY fat people steal motorized carts away from the elderly due to unhealthy eating habits.

It makes more sense when you frame it in the context of labor rights. People who work at McDonald's aren't forced to eat the food, but if you work in a bar you are pretty much forced to inhale all that second hand smoke.

So what you're saying is they should ban fat people?

We already tossed Elixir.

You and I are next on the chopping block. La Terreur de Graisse.

And while I was working at Wal-mart I was at constant risk of huge TV's falling on my head because some jackass thought it'd be cute to put the HEAVIEST electronic equipment up on the highest shelf.

People who work in bars are forced to inhale cigarette smoke, people who work at McDonalds, somewhere along the lines, will get burned from the fry machine or suffer some other type of hazard.

No work place is 100% safe. Even if you work at a bubble wrap factory.

Don't be a dumbass.

Maybe this is a little flip but the solution might be "don't work in a bar" as opposed to "use the force of law to convert all bars into something that suits you better".

Of course solution A comes into play anyway when the original clientele abandons the bar, ha ha

Automated looms have a danger of catching your fingers? Don't work in a textile factory.

But you can improve the safety of the loom without directly impacting the quality of the end product. So, you know, nice analogy there.

ITT: telephone linemen complain about dangerous heights, have all telephone poles reduced to 3' high maximum

Solution: Ban all textiles.

Yeah, it is a nice analogy, because what the loom produces is immaterial to the safety of the worker. Just like what a bar produces (nothing) is immaterial to the safety of the worker.

The primary function of a bar is to serve drinks, not cigarettes. If you were demanding smoking bans in a smoke house you might have a point.

Except that multiple examples of bars suffering massive loss of business due to smoking bans have been posted in this very thread, which would tend to indicate that allowing smoking is in fact a significant part of a bar's business model. Running a successful business is somewhat more complex than just putting your goods in a basket and holding out your palm for the money. A place that merely "serves liquor" isn't necessarily a bar. Sometimes it's just a liquor store. Nobody is saying people should be allowed to smoke in a liquor store, because that would be silly. Hell, I wouldn't even smoke in a smokes shop. There are distinctions here.

It's like saying that the function of a grocery store is to sell food, not to provide carts or cashiering services. This is true! A grocery store with no carts or customer service is still a grocery store. It's just not a very successful one, generally.

What a bar produces is entertainment, you nudnik

Instead of banning smoking, the government should impose an additional tax on bars where smoking is allowed and use those funds to develop health cigs. Problem solved.

Ok, how about this.

Nobody should be forced to earn a living by exposing themselves to an external hazard. I.e. the smoke that customers bring in to a bar.