THANK you Arainach. Yet another instance where I agree 100% with you. They don't occur often :P but when you're right, you're right.

I am absolutely baffled at the amount of people on these forums that refuse to believe the PROVEN dangers of secondhand smoke.

As far as restaurants, I should have a right to enter any restaurant I want without a danger to myself. Smokers can do the same thing with a smoking ban in restaurants. You do NOT have a right to pose a health hazard to those around you.

And like I said, then you'd need evidence that it's significantly harmful.

Plus you guys make it seem like any given building that has a smoking section is just exploding with massive amounts of smoke lethal smoke. I have been to plenty of restaurants with smoking allowed and this is not the case by any means. Most of the restaurants I've been to have devices installed in the ceiling specifically for the purpose of sucking up smoke so it doesn't even wander to other sections.

They've had evidence for AT LEAST the past 20 years that this is so. Damn.

If you want to just ignore proven facts then I guess nobody can debate this.

I live in New York, and I don't smoke, so I'd have to say I am into smoking bans. I'm not worried about cancer or anything, I just loathe that goddamn smell.

There's nothing proven about it. Why don't you do your own research instead of believing what you hear in commercials.

NO. What I'm saying is that this is a no-brainer. This is so common sense - you do NOT need evidence. When you inhale foreign substances into your lungs it cannot be good for you. I don't care about or need evidence for me to be convinced that smoking is harmful.

You are completely mindboggling. You are trying to tell me that the same thing that contains something like 200 different carcinogens when inhaled - mind you, not after being exhaled by a smoker - isn't going to do me any harm?

Please, go on living in your little fantasy land where the rules of logic no longer apply.

Yes. That makes tons of sense. There's so many cigarette commercials to provide us with the real truth.

There have been countless studies to determine whether cigarette smoking causes cancer. And everyone but the most pigheaded denialists have come to the conclusion that there is a direct link between smoking and cancer. I shouldn't even have to cite specific case studies; by 2006, this is pretty much common knowledge.

The reason there are no pro-cigarette commercials is because they were yanked from the television and radio in the late 70s due to increasing evidence that smoking was indeed hazardous. The manufacturers, even then, were attempting to reach a new, younger audience and it was recognized that this was not something to be encouraged. Hence, the FCC banned tobacco ads.

So given that there are no advertisements on television and radio which support smoking, why would anyone waste money on ad campaigns to discourage smoking unless there was something truly harmful about the habit? What do these organizations have to gain for themselves? What are anti-smoking coalitions selling? About the only products they have to push are Nicorette and the patch, which is a financially suicidal goal since the ultimate aim is to render the need for these products obsolete.

The most logical conclusion, then, is that there is a genuine problem and the anti-smoking message is valid. I concede that the statistics they use may be embellished so as to put the fear of God into smokers, but nevertheless, the higher message - "Stop smoking, you suicidal twit." - isn't something people would say just to spite smokers.

As for the secondhand smoke argument, why don't you light your house on fire and stand in the blaze for a good hour. Breathe deep. Make sure that smoke gets deep down into the base of your lungs. Now, remember as you inhale, that's just basic carbons being burned off around you. Nothing like the complex chemical additives you'll find in the average cigarette. Tell me that the smoke around you is absolutely harmless. Tell me that you're enjoying the burn. Tell me that microscopic particulates in the air actually relax your airways.

The smoke from cigarettes may not be as thick, but you can't possibly insist, with a straight face, that exposure to secondhand smoke isn't tantamount to being inside a small, slow-burning fire that's ever-so-increasingly covering your airways with constricting particles and chemical by-products.

Use fucking common sense instead of trying to justify a habit with flimsy rationalization.

Based on your philosophy, we should just abandon science.

There are lots of things that are bad for you that you use, consume, and live in every day. Cell phones blast microwaves into your head. You'd think that would be bad for you, right? It can't be good, right? I mean, if someone said to you, "hey, I'm going to just fire off these waves into your head for a few minutes, do you mind?", you'd not really be up for it, right?

Yet this never freaks anyone out; people continue to use cell phones. Even if you don't personally own one, those same cell phone microwaves are flying all through space because everyone else is. All those microwaves, can't be good for you.

Should we ban cell phones?

No, how about I burn your house down for this experiment. What the fuck. How am I supposed to demonstrate this at all.

There's going to be a massive difference between suddenly inhaling the black smoke a house burning around you compared to that of even maybe even 100 people in your house, smoking. I don't get how this supports your argument. What you said is like saying, "if you stab yourself in the belly with a sword, it's gotta be as bad for you as pricking yourself in the belly with 100 needles."

Cig smoke has dirty stuff in it. Cool. We know that. Now show me that walking through dissipating cigarette smoke critically increases the risk of getting smoking-related illnesses.

I'm not trying to justify anything. I am an ex-smoker. What I see in you is you regarding smokers as the scum of the Earth because of your lung condition. You complain when they are indoors, and then you complain because they're too close to the entrance when they're outdoors. Nobody exists to accomodate your very specific condition. Get over yourself. Smokers exist, and not for you.

Dear smokers,

Fuck you, and enjoy life outside. lololol.

Your friend, Brent.

Yeah I know, I was going inside of a building this one time and like I had to sprint through gauntlet of maybe 50 smokers just blowing smoke right into my face, trying to give me cancer, it was crazy. All smokers are assholes and I hate them.

Double Post:
Just went to the doctor. Said I have lung cancer from all of that going inside buildings with smokers outside of them.

Eleo, you're being one silly motherfucker. Smoking is bad for you.

http://www.uh.edu/engines/lungs.jpg

No shit.

Oh thanks for showing me a picture of a cancer-ridden lung. Now I know that cancer is deadly and destructive. How informative.

That's not cancer, it's emphysema. Way to read.

Actually, way to edit your post after I reply to it.

But either way, thanks for showing me a diseased lung. I'd like to know what this proves besides "emphysema fucks you up."

The black encasing the diseased lung is tar. This person did not get tar in their lungs by taking handfuls of it and smearing it there himself.

I don't see that described in the picture.

These days I only smoke at the houses of other friends who smoke, and in my own home. If they're gonna try to ban that, then they can take my fucking (I want to call it a fag, but this board is populated with Americans) from my cold, dead hand. Which shouldn't take too long, because I smoke, so no problem, right?

PS: In Britain, the word "fag" really means the same as "cigarette" over here. Nobody would think of the other thing.

I hung out with some gutterpunks in London, England, and I remember being drunk saying "Damnit. One of uze fetch me a pack of fags. I got this real bad craving." When I told my American friends back home, I had some explaining to do.

I personally don't care either way about smoking bans. As long as someone's not purposely blowing their smoke in my face (which I've had happen), I don't care where smoking takes place.

Imagine being an Englishman, as the song goes, in New York. Imagine getting up in the morning, leaving your hotel, and announcing loudly as you leave the hotel that you really want to go and pick up some fags.

Oh yes. I created a silence that lobby will NOT forget.

Could you be anymore reasonable.

I hate going places and being subjected to second hand smoke, so I'm all for smoking bans. The one in Montreal that bans smoking from bars and clubs comes into effect. I can't wait.