The end of cigarettes?

I've been thinking about this for quite a while now, and if possible, I would like to know the opinions of others on what they would do if cigarettes were taken right out of the market? As in they no longer made them anymore in the entire world. Suddenly one day, the cigarettes are no longer there to be smoked as if they just vanished.

I am not a smoker so I wouldn't know what cigarette smokers would do, and that is why I ask you this question. What will your reaction be towards this state?

( I don't think any thread was made like this, and I haven't found one yet, but if anyone does find anything similar then I apologize in advance.)

Smokers would cry, die, then the world would be 1 problem less?

>>> I dont smoke so its the same for me..
Anyways, If cigarettes were banished from the market people would start smoking with pipes or rolling their own cigarettes, simple as that.

Oops, I read it as "What if cigarettes were to stop existing all together?". To answer your question, it'd just become the new pot.

The US's economy would crash. That's the only reason why cigarette companies still exist.

PANDAMONIUM!!!

Do you mean that cigarettes would be forcibly removed, or as if they never had existed?

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Originally Posted by Dudius

The US's economy would crash. That's the only reason why cigarette companies still exist.

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Because people buy them?

My, how enlightening.

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Originally Posted by Hachifusa

Do you mean that cigarettes would be forcibly removed, or as if they never had existed?

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Yes, I meant if they were forcibly removed.

I'd be protesting this hardcore for one of the most explicitly anti-freedom acts that was committed in this country.

isnt it against the freedom of others to have to inhale second hand smoke?

Not really, unless I am smoking right next to you and you ask me to stop breathing on you - and I breathe on you harder.

Besides, what does this have to do with outlawing cigarettes?

Forcibly removing smoking would cause more problems then problems we have from leaving cigarettes alone. (which is none.)

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Originally Posted by Hachifusa

Not really, unless I am smoking right next to you and you ask me to stop breathing on you - and I breathe on you harder.

Besides, what does this have to do with outlawing cigarettes?

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You don't need to be blowing directly in their face for other people to inhale second-hand smoke, you know.

I would like it.

I wouldn't have to grimace every time my mother kissed me good night, or have to remember to close the door to her smoking room, and my clothes wouldn't smell like smoke, because that's also teh laundry room.

My friend's grandmother wouldn't be living off of an oxygen tank right now, and my mom wouldn't have constant coughing and bouts of bronchitis. Oh, and we'd have an extra $1500 to spend from the last year alone.

Assuming my mother doesn't go for her black market tobacco.

It sounds like a rather good deal to me, though, actually.

yeah, it might even get to a point where you have to buy them from a condom inside a southern americans gut.

Oh, and you know you will.

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Originally Posted by Takara

You don't need to be blowing directly in their face for other people to inhale second-hand smoke, you know.

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No, but the second-hand smoke thing is highly glorified. In situations like that, I'm all for a restaurant having a smoking/non-smoking area, but again that's the restaurant's choice.

If I'm in a small room where you're allowed to smoke, and I was on the opposite side, it might bother me. But I'm against the idea that if someone is smoking in a mile radius that you are dying from it. I also dislike legislation against smoking, or rather, limiting the rights of owners of say, restaurants and forcing them to not allow their clientele to smoke.

The problem there is unless the place is huge.. or has different rooms for smokers and non-smokers.. well the smoking and non-smoking sections are jokes. Recall osmosis. the smoke travels to the non smoking area. so it ruins the whole idea.

and whilst the whole there will be a non-smoking place deall.. well may work in big cities.. but not in little places. This debate has already happened though.. So I guess I should stop. :rolleyes2



However, forcibly removing them would be wrong. I don't care if it is regulated(I prefer it actually) but taking it away I don't aggree with. If they want to poison themselves they can.. as long as it is only themselves.

Ever heard of Prohibition? Yeah, that's about what would happen.

I am not a smoker. I am against smoking. I am against smoking in public places. I don't like it when people smoke around me. I think smoking is stupid and there exists no rational reason for people to smoke. However, I would be against the prohibition of cigarettes.

It doesnt even really matter anyway. The Goverment's never gonna get rid of it, because they get so much money off of the tobacco industry.

Or because it'd be wrong.

it's only wrong in the same way outlawing crack and heroine is wrong. and not selling alcohol to 9 year olds.

it would create a black maket and the government would collect les taxes. but less taxes would be used up on smokers with cancer. and that could be spent making life harder for the folk running the black market.

people would be better off.

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it's only wrong in the same way outlawing crack and heroine is wrong. and not selling alcohol to 9 year olds.

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For once, you're absolutely right. None of those should be illegal, either.

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people would be better off.

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People would be better off if soda and fast food were outlawed, too.

i meant the folk that smoked them.

and yeah raistlin lets make crack available for all the kids. that would be a cool society.

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Originally Posted by Cloud No.9

i meant the folk that smoked them.

and yeah raistlin lets make crack available for all the kids. that would be a cool society.

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See, we're of the opinion that the individual is more important than society. Their choice to be a crackhead supercedes society's right to prevent them from it.

I thought liberals were for the legalization of recreational drugs? I guess Cloud's out of the socialist loop.

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Originally Posted by Raistlin

I thought liberals were for the legalization of recreational drugs? I guess Cloud's out of the socialist loop.

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Naw, Liberals in Europe are for whatever suits their nanny-statist agenda best.

Smoking should be forbiden, its a soft drug, but a drug notheless.

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Originally Posted by GLR

Smoking should be forbiden, its a soft drug, but a drug notheless.

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Why should any drugs be banned? After all, we let people motivate two tons of metal at speeds of seventy miles per hour (And we don't crack down on lawbreakers until they reach like 100mph); are you telling me these people are capable of that, but incapable of deciding for themselves what they put into their bodies?

Like Raistlin said, I can only envisage a set of affairs similar to the Prohibition era. Although if I was a smoker and that happened, I'd probably call it a day and give up. Bit pointless wasting all that effort trying to get black market cigarettes unless you really do need them that badly.

"I guess Cloud's out of the socialist loop." i'm not in a socialist loop nor do i have any set agenda. i have my own mind and my thoughts are base upon a variety of things.

drugs and smoking are costly to not only the rest of us tax payers but to others around them. the people who junkies mug, the men hookers proposition, the housing estates they ruin, the air they pollute, the cancer they cause, the smell they produce and that sticks to clothes and discolors rooms.

it affects more than just the smoker or drug user and so cannot purely be their choice.

This would be horrible. Not only would it be an infringement on freedom and a moral attrocity, it would carry alot of negative side effects. Cigarettes would become like any other drug. Crime would increase because gangs would have a new outlet to make money. More and more people would be murdered due to gangs.


And just for the record, your "freedom to not inhale smoke" does not exist. At least, not from a legal standpoint. Don't like the smell of smoke? Then go somewhere else.

then you create a smoking apartheid.

you have the smoking minority ruling over the places where the non smoking majority can go.

No, we don't. No one is telling the "non-smokers" to leave.

"Don't like the smell of smoke? Then go somewhere else." did.

No one is forcing you to leave. So, no, wrong. If you don't like the smell of smoke, you can leave. Or you can stay. What does it matter?

because it's an oppression. noone complains about clean air. smokers pollute it and then expect the non smokers to be the ones moving.

Good idea! Let's ban pleasure as a whole too, while we are at it. No more sex for anything except for reproduction, let's have anti-sexual drive drugs forced too, cause you know, this would stop all the rapers in the world.

Seriously, the idea just sounds ridiculous to me. First, you would start a mafia that would smuggle tobacco, and a lot more crime. Second, yes, it is moralistic, repressive and paternalist. And I already have parents, thank you, and they already have acted as such in my life. I do not need a Papa Goverment to punish me for smoking a damn cigarrette. A cigarrette, for God's sake! And third, ending the tobacco industry would leave thousands without jobs, and even screw up the economy in many countries. Do you know how much of the Cuban economy depends on cigars?

Plus, the idea of banning a plant is just plain stupid, I think. Yes, that goes for marihuana too.

yeah but the us refuses to buy cuban tobacco so it would do nothing there with the trade embargoes.

and cigarettes with their effect is not limited to the user (this applies to most drugs in fact). and so you would be protecting a majority from a minority.

How is it not limited to the user? I don't smoke.

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Originally Posted by nik0tine

This would be horrible. Not only would it be an infringement on freedom and a moral attrocity, it would carry alot of negative side effects. Cigarettes would become like any other drug. Crime would increase because gangs would have a new outlet to make money. More and more people would be murdered due to gangs.


And just for the record, your "freedom to not inhale smoke" does not exist. At least, not from a legal standpoint. Don't like the smell of smoke? Then go somewhere else.

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maybe more do to gangs, but that wouldn't even compare to the people the amount of deaths actually caused by smoking.

I don't smoke (I'm 12, I would certainly hope not), I hate the smell that all the cigarrettes produce, and I definatly don't want to be diagnosed with lung cancer at an early age. Banish them to hell for all I care. They'd do the world a favor. It's not the smokers I'm mad at, more the cigarrettes themselves.

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maybe more do to gangs, but that wouldn't even compare to the people the amount of deaths actually caused by smoking.

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The difference here is the lack of malice, and the lack of brutality. Cigarettes kill, gangs murder.

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because it's an oppression. noone complains about clean air. smokers pollute it and then expect the non smokers to be the ones moving.

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hahahaha. It's kind of hard for people with no legal authority to do any 'opressing'.

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and cigarettes with their effect is not limited to the user (this applies to most drugs in fact). and so you would be protecting a majority from a minority.

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Ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Cloud No.9

yeah but the us refuses to buy cuban tobacco so it would do nothing there with the trade embargoes.

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I think this was refered to "banning cigarrettes worldwide". Spain buys Cuban cigars, and I must say it is quite a pleasure to smoke them. For all I care, the US could ban smoking as a whole, I'd just point and laugh, and then go to some random topic in this forum and turn it into a "USA good VS USA bad" topic, just because WE NEVER GET ENOUGH OF THEM!!!*

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and cigarettes with their effect is not limited to the user (this applies to most drugs in fact). and so you would be protecting a majority from a minority.

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The more you dramatize it, the funnier. If I had to do the same, I'd have to complain for not being allowed to smoke in hospitals. Why not, is someone going to die? OK, maybe, but why can't I be allowed to smoke into the face of a guy in a comma? WHY IS THIS COUNTRY SO PATERNALISTIC, WHY CAN'T THEY TRUST MY RESPONSABILITY AS A GROWN UP GENTLEMAN??? Do they think I am not responsible enough to smoke to the face of a dying man??? This is opression, opression I tell you!!! SOON THIS WILL BE LIKE NAZI GERMANY, BUT WITHOUT SMOKE!!! OH MY GOD, NOOOO!!! **


*I'd like to point out that Bush is a bastard cause blah, blah, blah

** No, I am not attempting to make you feel insulted, I just don't feel like replying in a serious manner.

I think the real oppression would come from the government playing the parent again and telling me not to smoke.

UH NO THX MOM

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Originally Posted by Hachifusa

I think the real oppression would come from the government playing the parent again and telling me not to smoke.

UH NO THX MOM

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Actually, that's a great point. The more limits you set, the harder they'll rebel.

A lot of people drank on principle during the Prohibition, so the logic is there.

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Originally Posted by Rengori

Actually, that's a great point. The more limits you set, the harder they'll rebel.

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Are you sure? Cause frankly, I think it does the inverse effect in most cases. Specially with the case of tobacco, I mean, setting limits to things like cocaine is different, most people know cocaine is more risky, it can kill you in less time, and completly screw you up, and it's adulterated or you are not in a good condition, it can even kill you instantly. Cigarrettes are different, truth is they can kill you, but being a smoker dosen't mean you have to end up with cancer, it just means you have more probabilities. Well, your probabilities are probably 90% if you smoke two packs of 20 cigarrettes a day, but those are extreme cases.

Something is always more fun when its banned. Like cheating in big sports matches and not getting caught. The breaking of the rules is the enticement, its jus not as fun when your allowed to do it.

It's important to remember that while a lot of people might smoke more cigarettes if they are banned (and they feel that that is unjust), that is not the reason to make cigs legal - it's that the government doesn't have the right to tell me that I can't smoke.

I think that if you're old enough to take a fully informed decision (16? 18? 21? whatever is used usually in your country), then if you want to smoke, fine. Same goes with drinking and non addictive drugs (marijuana), or driving, or having sex.
As for the places, I'm for keeping closed public places smoke free (eg: libraries, museums, town hall...), for open public places (parks, streets...), as long as you don't blow the smoke right in my face and throw the cig butt in a trashcan/sewer gutters but not on the grass/pavement, it doesn't matter to me. Private places, it's up to the owner (though I like restaurants that have both sections).

"How is it not limited to the user? I don't smoke." passive smoking, smell, dry air and eyes (hate that in the staf room), asthma sufferers etc.

"hahahaha. It's kind of hard for people with no legal authority to do any 'opressing'." you can oppress without legal authority. you restrict were the majority who don't want lung cancer or to smell when they go home can go and enjoy themselves.

I'd be happy. Let the damn smokers go through their withdrawl. I wouldn't have to go through that delimma of whether I care more about my health or hanging out with family. I like to breathe without some nasty stench entering my nasal passage. Wreaking havoc on my allergies. Doing god knows what to my lungs. I've known too many people that contract lung cancer without being a smoker. I've often sworn allowed if I'm ever one of them, whether or not it was directly caused by smoke or not, I'm gonna make sure they're aware that I blame them. I will hunt down as many people as I can that smoked around me and point that guilty finger at them. I'm glad restraunts aren't allowed to allow smokers in a lot of areas. There is no "non-smoking" section.

well i'm off to uni in afew weeks time (the 10th of september) and smoking is banned in all buildings on campus. even in the union and residences. yeah!!!