The end of cigarettes?

[Cloud No.9]

"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.

[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.

[Cloud No.9]

then you create a smoking apartheid.

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

[Teek]

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

[Cloud No.9]

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

[Teek]

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?

[Cloud No.9]

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

[Shadow Nexus]

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.

[Cloud No.9]

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.

[Teek]

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

[Dudius]

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.

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

[Rengori]

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.

[nik0tine]

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

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

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

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

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.

Ridiculous.

[Shadow Nexus]

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

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!!!*

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.

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.

[Teek]

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

UH NO THX MOM