quittin' smoking

[Jeremy David]

Yes. Bars. I think I've heard of those once.

My point is that at a bar, you can drink all you want and it doesn't
hurt the guy next to you. But if you smoke all you want, it *does*
hurt the guy next to you. One of the basic ideas of living in a free
society is that you're not allowed to hurt other people without their
consent.

Smoking is like boxing. Boxing is dangerous, but some people just love
doing it, so they should be allowed to, and they *are* allowed to, but
only in certain places. Why can't smoking be the same way?

There are some people who don't mind breathing in any noxious
substance that might be in the air. If that's your idea of a good
time, then you're entitled! However, there are also some people whose
idea of a good time is not having to worry about breathing in any
noxious substance that is in the air, and if that your idea of a good
time, then you're also entitled!

We need both kinds of places. Not one designated kind of Good Time
Place where if you want to have one kind of a good time, you also have
to deal with other kinds of things that you consider to constitute a
*bad* time. The Invisible Hand of unfettered capitalism seems unable
to solve this problem. A main job of local governments is to define
what is allowed where. Pragmatically, local governments seem to be the
best option. Why can't cities hand out a certain amount of licences to
establishments making some of them places where you can smoke, and
some of them places where you can't?

On 3/14/06, Christopher tm <xopher.tm at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/14/06, Jeremy David <epistemology at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Perhaps the ideal would be something like the "Coffee Shop" culture in
> > some European cities (primarily in the Netherlands and Germany), where
> > certain "Coffee Shops" are granted licences to sell not only coffee,
> > but marijuana, shrooms, tobacco, etc. and to allow people to use them
> > on the premises. This keeps it balanced. The people who want to go out
> > to do drugs can do so, but the people who don't want to do drugs still
> > have plenty of great places to go. Generally how it works out is that
> > the coffee shops attract people who want to do drugs, and the clubs
> > etc. attract people who don't want to.
>
> Holy smokes! We used to have these things called "bars"... People
> would go there to drink alcohol and smoke tobacco and engage in
> alcohol-related misjudgements. The playing of billiard sport and the
> listening to of dangerously loud "rocking and rolling" music was also
> part of the experience as I remember.
>
> Sometimes we woke up the next day beside total strangers.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Christopher tm
>
> Nunc est bibendum; nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus.
> _______________________________________________
> pgh-goth-list mailing list
> pgh-goth-list at listless.org
> http://www.listless.org/mailman/listinfo/pgh-goth-list
>