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Ah, back safely from the smoker stoning?
I have more 'stuff' ready. Let me know when is convenient.
Hi Bob. Yes, the stoning was great fun. I rescued the victim's cat and she is purring contentedly in my lap as we speak. Later on we rounded up a bunch of zombie smokers forming a tunnel of fire and brimstone outside the entrance to the subway, forced then to drag their own crosses and crucified them at the gates to the city. We lit fires fueled by cigarette butts collected by city street sweepers. and burned the most horrid ones at the stake. Sounds cruel but we did it in retaliation for the recent ritualistic live removal of a pink lung from a very unfortunate barmaid by the Aztec priest, Shogun.
I have to do some other stuff but shoot away with your twenty questions. I'll be around later. Why not post them all at once? Or is this some sort of debate game play where you try to maneuver me into saying something you that will sound like I actually think smokers should smoke anywhere they please?
Sigh. Do you really imagine that's what I'm doing or are you making a joke? I'm just setting out what I do and do not believe to see how far you agree and where you start to disagree. So far you've agreed with me. Perhaps this is worrying you. I guess in view of your earlier post to me...
Cigarette smoke is linked to cancer, emphysema, heart disease, allergies, etc. The fact that most people are so offended by it to the point of wanting laws passed so they won't have to put up with it anymore ought to show that it's a serious problem.
I beginning to think you people who keep dancing around the fact that just about every medical association in the world has condemned cigarette smoke as a major health hazard must have been taking lessons from Holocaust deniers on how to twist things around so you can deny second hand smoke causes harm.
the fact that I agree with you in the vast majority of areas may surprise you. Or not.
Either way, I spent a while last night setting out my thoughts.
To recap, you've agreed with points 1, 2 and 3 (I think you agreed with 3 - you added some additional points which I didn't think contradicted what I'd said so far - feel free to correct me)....
1. Primary smoking (i.e. someone lighting a cigarette, drawing on it, inhaling it and exhaling), if done repeatedly over a number of years, is highly likely to cause the smoker serious health defects including but not limited to several kinds of cancer, bronchitis, heart disease, stroke and emphysema.
2. While not offensive to all non smokers, the smell of tobacco smoke to the majority of non smokers varies between simply unpleasant to practically unbearable. The smell of tobacco gets into clothes, hair and furniture.
3. Non smokers have a right to be able to choose and enjoy a smoke free atmosphere in public. This right overrides the 'perceived right' of smokers to be able to smoke anywhere they want.
Here's my belief number 4...
4. The tobacco industry has tried to dispute claims about the toxicity of Secondary Tobacco Smoke (STS). Like any entity with a vested interest, their representations should be viewed with suspicion.
Hi Bob. Yes, the stoning was great fun. I rescued the victim's cat and she is purring contentedly in my lap as we speak. Later on we rounded up a bunch of zombie smokers forming a tunnel of fire and brimstone outside the entrance to the subway, forced then to drag their own crosses and crucified them at the gates to the city. We lit fires fueled by cigarette butts collected by city street sweepers. and burned the most horrid ones at the stake. Sounds cruel but we did it in retaliation for the recent ritualistic live removal of a pink lung from a very unfortunate barmaid by the Aztec priest, Shogun.
I have to do some other stuff but shoot away with your twenty questions. I'll be around later. Why not post them all at once? Or is this some sort of debate game play where you try to maneuver me into saying something you that will sound like I actually think smokers should smoke anywhere they please?
Sigh. Do you really imagine that's what I'm doing or are you making a joke? I'm just setting out what I do and do not believe to see how far you agree and where you start to disagree. So far you've agreed with me. Perhaps this is worrying you. I guess in view of your earlier post to me...
Cigarette smoke is linked to cancer, emphysema, heart disease, allergies, etc. The fact that most people are so offended by it to the point of wanting laws passed so they won't have to put up with it anymore ought to show that it's a serious problem.
I beginning to think you people who keep dancing around the fact that just about every medical association in the world has condemned cigarette smoke as a major health hazard must have been taking lessons from Holocaust deniers on how to twist things around so you can deny second hand smoke causes harm.
the fact that I agree with you in the vast majority of areas may surprise you. Or not.
Either way, I spent a while last night setting out my thoughts.
To recap, you've agreed with points 1, 2 and 3 (I think you agreed with 3 - you added some additional points which I didn't think contradicted what I'd said so far - feel free to correct me)....
1. Primary smoking (i.e. someone lighting a cigarette, drawing on it, inhaling it and exhaling), if done repeatedly over a number of years, is highly likely to cause the smoker serious health defects including but not limited to several kinds of cancer, bronchitis, heart disease, stroke and emphysema.
2. While not offensive to all non smokers, the smell of tobacco smoke to the majority of non smokers varies between simply unpleasant to practically unbearable. The smell of tobacco gets into clothes, hair and furniture.
3. Non smokers have a right to be able to choose and enjoy a smoke free atmosphere in public. This right overrides the 'perceived right' of smokers to be able to smoke anywhere they want.
Here's my belief number 4...
4. The tobacco industry has tried to dispute claims about the toxicity of Secondary Tobacco Smoke (STS). Like any entity with a vested interest, their representations should be viewed with suspicion.
Bob, I'm not suspicious of you. I like you and having read many of your post on other subjects, I don't think really think you are trying to waste my time or even looking for reasons to neg rep me as a notorious neg repper is doing in a very silly attempt to shut me up.
So keep asking and I'll keep answering and maybe we'll find we have more common ground than not.
And yes, I agree with you so far, your last included.
You can get over an addiction if you have $127 a month for a prescription to help you quit, that your insurance company won't cover any portion of the cost of.
Amazingly enough, it really DOES get rid of those evil cravings, and you simply need to find something else to do with your hands...
I paid $0.00 for my prescription of good old fashioned will power when I quit. I didn't whine to anyone about insurance either, though I do think insurance should pay the difference between what people where paying for cigs and the cost of medication if they are too weak to quit on their own. How much was your habit costing you?
This from the little candy-ass that smoked for a whopping 5 years, and has since spent more time whining about the world not catering to what she views and right/wrong? You didn't smoke long enough TO develop an actual addiction.
Puleeze.
Cool. And by the way, I don't ever neg rep. If I disagree, I say so on the board.
Belief #5: The government, the media and science almost without exception express agreement with the claim that STS in harmful.
Do you really think tobacco companies are content to service the already existing smoking population (which is dying off) are are not interested in attracting new customers?Not to mention that now the tobacco companies (and even before they were 'forced' to) do not claim their product is safe, they even admit it's addictive (something coffee companies still deny). Most of the anti-smoking campaigns and programs are funded by tobacco companies, above what they are required to do as well. They know their product is addictive and they know us who are addicted will not likely stop any time soon, so they will make a profit and are comfortable with that. Those of us who smoke made the choice, we weren't forced into it, no one put a cigarette in our hands and MADE us take the first breath, we chose to smoke so the companies are not to blame for that.
Not to mention that now the tobacco companies (and even before they were 'forced' to) do not claim their product is safe, they even admit it's addictive (something coffee companies still deny). Most of the anti-smoking campaigns and programs are funded by tobacco companies, above what they are required to do as well. They know their product is addictive and they know us who are addicted will not likely stop any time soon, so they will make a profit and are comfortable with that. Those of us who smoke made the choice, we weren't forced into it, no one put a cigarette in our hands and MADE us take the first breath, we chose to smoke so the companies are not to blame for that.
That's probably true. Other cigarettes have less of that stuff that makes them burn faster. One thing I noticed is that Drum, the rol your own stuff my Dutch friends used to smoke is milder and slightly less offensive. Still gave me asthma and stunk up my clothes just as much though. Thank dog they all quit. Except one. Her longtime boyfriend quit and found he couldn't live with her smoke anymore and moved out. They broke up even if they are still friends, it's sad.Actually ... American brand smokes are filled with more chemicals ...
I'm under the impression that the big tobaccos do not say that tobacco is addictive. They define addiction as a condition in which ever increasing amounts of a product are required to satisfy a craving that increases over time. A cigarette smoker can stay on a pack a day for years, ergo not addictive in the terms they define it.
Semantics I know, but I believe that's the position.
Cool. And by the way, I don't ever neg rep. If I disagree, I say so on the board.
Belief #5: The government, the media and science almost without exception express agreement with the claim that STS in harmful.
I normally don't neg rep either. I say so on the board. (Another way we are in agreement!) I recently started neg repping back because of a certain person who goes out of their way to neg rep me because they actually think I or anyone else here is intimidated by neg rep.
I agree with belief #5. concerning SMS.
Just curious, Bob, are these questions your own or are you getting them from somewhere?
It wouldn't matter to me if it wasn't in your job description. If you were needed to do a legal job, you'd do it or find a different employer. Especially if you were harassing the customers.I read your story again and the way you wrote it, smoking was still legal. So yes, I would have fired you for not doing your job. Of course if the owner didn't mind putting up with a crackpot employee that refused to do her job, that is his or her choice. I'd personally fire anyone that wouldn't do what they were hired to do.My first asthma attack happened when I was a kid in the car with my dad who was smoking I only had one as a child. My father smoked but I was not around him as much as I was the smokers at my later jobs. I had another attack about a month before I quit smoking but the attacks continued. I was working at a new place but smoking was allowed there also. After taking medication for awhile and becoming a bartender in an environment that started out being not a very smoky one the attack stopped. They came back when, as I told you above, my exposure to smoke increased. No cats around in either workplace. The doctors in every instance told me it was the cigarette smoke that was making me ill. I suppose you're going to try to say it was something other than cigarette smoke that caused my asthma? Good luck. You're not a doctor or a respected medical organization either. I'll go with what my doctors told me, what I know from my own experience and what medical organizations all tell us. Secondhand smoke is a health hazard.
You wouldn't have been able to fire me, Ravi. The GM was behind me all the way. He even thanked me for letting the owner know I would call the health dept if he lit up another cigar in my presence. The GM then told him we were losing customers because he was defying the law and all fines levied against the establishment would have to be paid out of the owner's own wallet. In case you're wondering, the co owners agreed with the GM on this. No one smoked again on the property and business and tips went up.
Your memory and reading comprehension continues to fail you. probably due to nicotine deprivation as you desperately grasp at straws.
It was not my job to tend bar in the lounge, I did it as a favor to the manager of that dept who was having trouble because his employees, especially the smoking ones, were constantly out sick with bronchitis.After a particular nasty smoker brought me very close to spraying his face with soda water, I told the manager I would only be able to help him when the bar was empty of smokers. That was the deal. He had no problem with that because I was up front and within my rights to refuse to do anything outside my job description. I experienced no retaliation for making a stand against having to put up smoke. Not even from the owner when I stated I intended to call the health dept if I smelled his smoke again. He knew I was right. Plus I held the secret recipe to his favorite toddy and his cigar problem wasn't worth the chance I's stop making it.
Jeesh, doctors. Five doctors told me my father had inoperable cancer and were about to start chemo and radiation treatments when one doctor with a bit of common sense figured out that he didn't have cancer. But whether the smoke gave you asthma attacks is beside the point (though I have to point out that your previous smoking could have taken a while to wear off and it had nothing to do with second hand smoke).
Funny, the doctor's didn't think so. Also, I did not smoke yet when I was in the car with my smoking father as a child. I knew you'd try to find a way to say SMS didn't cause me any harm.
Why all the trouble to try and deny SMS causes serious problems to so many people?
Please remove the mention of where I live. I've never revealed that on this board. You can PM me if you want about your question.
#6: If STS is proved to be harmful (i.e. if smokers are harming non smokers around them), then legislation is warranted to protect non smokers from exposure, and the proven affects of such exposure, to STS.
I'm under the impression that the big tobaccos do not say that tobacco is addictive. They define addiction as a condition in which ever increasing amounts of a product are required to satisfy a craving that increases over time. A cigarette smoker can stay on a pack a day for years, ergo not addictive in the terms they define it.
Semantics I know, but I believe that's the position.
I don't know about what the tobacco companies say but when I smoked my cravings did increase because the amount I was smoking no longer gave me the kick I used to get from a lessor amount of cigarettes a day. The problem was simply that there is only so much time in the day and you can't spend all of it with a cigarette in your mouth. I still smoked long after I was getting anything good out of it other than to delay and appease somewhat the acute cravings. It wasn't in the least satisfying after awhile. Didn't even taste good. Yet I still lit up ...
#6: If STS is proved to be harmful (i.e. if smokers are harming non smokers around them), then legislation is warranted to protect non smokers from exposure, and the proven affects of such exposure, to STS.
To my satisfaction, SMS has been proven harmful, both medically speaking and as a serious public nuisance,therefore I support legislation which protects non smokers AND smokers from exposure to SMS.
Having lived it, I know what SMS can do to harm people.
#6: If STS is proved to be harmful (i.e. if smokers are harming non smokers around them), then legislation is warranted to protect non smokers from exposure, and the proven affects of such exposure, to STS.
To my satisfaction, SMS has been proven harmful, both medically speaking and as a serious public nuisance,therefore I support legislation which protects non smokers AND smokers from exposure to SMS.
Having lived it, I know what SMS can do to harm people.
It wouldn't matter to me if it wasn't in your job description. If you were needed to do a legal job, you'd do it or find a different employer. Especially if you were harassing the customers.
I've no idea if the second hand smoke hurt you or not. And neither do you. But since you want to believe it, it doesn't really matter. It could very well be a hysterical reaction to smoke on your part that triggered an attack.
When did your state or county ban smoking in restaurants and bars?
So you believe your allergic reaction to cigarette smoke trumps someone in a condo's freedom to smoke in their own home. Is that correct?
#6: If STS is proved to be harmful (i.e. if smokers are harming non smokers around them), then legislation is warranted to protect non smokers from exposure, and the proven affects of such exposure, to STS.
To my satisfaction, SMS has been proven harmful, both medically speaking and as a serious public nuisance,therefore I support legislation which protects non smokers AND smokers from exposure to SMS.
Having lived it, I know what SMS can do to harm people.
"proven"
find a source that doesn't hinge on the words "projected" and "estimated"
you don't have to enter a smokey location. End of story. Now, go sell someone some alcohol so we can see actual tangible evidence of the hazards of pubic consumption.
