quittin' smoking

[Jeremy David]

Hi Dee!

Anyway, the health effects of second hand smoking are obvious. When
people who aren't dulled to tobacco's effects are around it, they
start coughing and become nauseated. You don't need a scientific study
to prove that. It's apparent anywhere people are smoking.

Now, I'm glad you brought up alcohol! We don't need to apply the same
laws to alcohol because similar laws are *already* applied. You can't
walk down the street drinking, and being publicly drunk is against the
law. If you want to serve alcohol at a restaurant or bar, you must
apply for a permit and follow specific rules concerning how you may
serve it. You can only drink at specific places at specific times. I'm
just asking that the same rules are applied to smoking.

P.S. Just to keep everything out in the open and to not give anyone a
false impression of my attitudes towards drugs, the last time I had a
beer, I also smoked two whole cigarettes, but it was in my own porch
at my own house. No one was at risk who didn't already want to be at
that time. I just think it should be fair for anyone, at any time, to
be in the kind of place that they want to be in, especially when it
directly affects their health.


On 3/14/06, Deeann M.M. Mikula <deeann at d33ann.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Mar 2006, Jeremy David wrote:
>
> > cigarettes when we start start to treat cigarettes as what they are, a
> > dangerous addictive drug which is dangerous not only to the user, but
> > anyone in the general vicinity.
>
> You know, I've yet to read a scientific study that I thought was
> reasonable that proved the dangers of second hand smoke in short term,
> infrequent proximity, such that an average person gets when going to a
> club once or twice a week.  I'd especially like to see that contrasted
> with the effects of other air pollutants, such as sitting in traffic 3
> hours a day, or walking around in busy thoroughfare streets such as
> 5th & Forbes in Oakland at rush hour.
>
> Also, any time you start wanting to ban smoking because it's "a
> dangerous addictive drug", I want to see you apply the same argument
> to alcohol, which is not only a dangerous addictive drug, but is
> strongly associated with violence against others (and self,
> actually). You don't see nic-fit driving deaths, nic-fit domestic
> abuse, nic-fit suicides, nic-fit brawls at parties, etc...  If any
> legal drug needs to be restricted for public saftey, it's alchohol,
> NOT nicotine.
>
>
> Deeann M.M Mikula
>
> "Well behaved women rarely make history."
>                  -Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
>
>
>
>