To hell w/smokers rights. My uncle is dying of emphysema. It's awful. For that matter, to hell with

[zonkers]

the fast food industry too. Because if we really are serous about affordable healthcare in this country we would address these two categories very aggressively. Otherwise, we are just clowning around.

[Teaser]

1. to hell with me

because all the best writers are there.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. I'd rather we just banned tobacco in general than the piecemeal demonization of smokers.

If it's that bad - ban it. I have no problem with that whatsoever. Otherwise, I find it hard to penalize people for doing what is perfectly acceptable under law.

[Warpy]

3. Smokers have the right to set fire to those things outdoors

I don't like it but I'm a big girl and I can cope if it doesn't set off my asthma.

I watched my mother fight for every breath she took for the last 25 years of her life. Lung cancer would have been mercifully short. Emphysema was agonizingly slow. To her credit, she turned down all sorts of heroics because she had no interest in prolonging the agony or gigging the system.

I have always been grateful that I avoided that particular addiction. I've watched friends and coworkers struggle with it and fail again and again.

It's for that reason I'll fight to uphold their right to light up outdoors and away from building entrances. Once they start as stupid teenagers, a lot of people find out they really can't quit.

However, there has to be a special place in hell for tobacco executives who still swear it's not addictive and still try to sneak marketing to kids.

[old mark]

5. My mom died of heart disease in her late 50's - she smoked. My MIL died

of lung cancer at 70 - she smoked. My FIL died of emphysema in his early 70's he smoked. All of them were smart, educated people whl KNEW that it was bad for them, but could not quit.
Warpy, I really agree with you about that special place in hell....


mark

[Toucano]

4. The proletariat must have their Victory cigarettes.

Orwell didn't talk about McDonalds and Mountain Dew, but he could have.

[PVnRT]

8. Things that are enjoyable should be banned

[Toucano]

12. Oh, no, no, no! People must have access to the poisons they enjoy

It keeps them placid.

That's why we have to subsidize corn and tobacco growers and beef ranchers. Keep the prices seemingly low enough for the proles to "choose" them for "enjoyment".

We'll make them pay the TRUE cost later on!

[Cleita]

6. Sorry about your uncle and yes any COPD illness of any description is awful.

However, banning a substance doesn't mean people won't use it anyway. The law has pretty much banned using tobacco in most places and taxed it to make it almost unaffordable for the ordinary person, yet smokers continue to puff away. Laws have been passed to prevent tobacco companies from selling to children to get a new generation hooked on a very addictive substance. Also, your uncle may have gotten the disease anyway considering the lifetime of air pollution that city dwellers will have breathed in for their lifetimes. So it would be an exercise in futility to bring about tobacco prohibition when we know it didn't work when we did it for alcohol.

[valerief]

7. I agree, but don't forget the toxins poured into our water and air by industry. nt

[auditguy]

9. the thing is...

smoking and lots of fast food is a case of free people making bad choices...

I would be against restricting choices for person A because person B disapproves, assuming person B is truly harmed by A's choice...that's not really the case in smoking or fast food...person B may end up paying more for medical stuff because of A's choice, but that's a different issue...it means A is not paying his own way...

[virgogal]

10. Aaah,but A is often paying his own way. Depends on location.

A carton of my non-premium cigarettes costs $70.00 in Massachusetts but $45.00 in N.H..

Do the math.

[auditguy]

11. if A is paying his way...

it seems to me it's none of B's business then

[Toucano]

15. Free choice?

http://farm.ewg.org/farm/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=tobacco

Tobacco Subsidies in United States totaled $530 million from 1995-2006.

http://farm.ewg.org/farm/top_recips.php?fips=00000&progcode=total

Recipients of Total USDA Subsidies from farms in United States totaled $177,589,000,000 in from 1995-2006



Seems like someone's interfering with the "free market" to influence the "bad choices" people freely make.

[auditguy]

18. for starters, I described the people as free

and the choices as bad..

but ... even with the subsidies, smoking is still voluntary at first, and after you get hooked on it, no person is making you smoke..and people can and do quit...

[ElboRuum]

21. I've got news for you... I AM a smoker... And we are NOT free...

Every month, a big black SUV pulls in front of my house and representatives from the tobacco companies pile out. They storm up my steps with a battering ram and bust the door down. Then, without a word, they bind my ankles and wrists with duct tape, push me into my La-Z-Boy, and grin the most unsettling and horrific yellow tobacco-stained grin you've ever had the misfortune to witness. Then, one slowly pulls a pack of Marlboro regulars from one lapel pocket of his suit, and another pulls out a Zippo. First the one with the pack of smokes packs them down, opens the cellophane, rips off the foil, then grabs all twenty at a time and pulls them out of the pack, tossing the empty cardboard onto my floor. He then shoves the whole pack into my gob, furiously duct taping them in place so I can't spit them out. Then, the guy with the Zippo lights them all at once and they laugh as they watch me choke on twenty cigarettes worth of smoke at one time, like some hostage Beldar Conehead. About 10 minutes later, as the last embers go out, they cut me loose, but not before the Zippo guy gets an inch from my face and says "we'll be back in a month, and don't even think of quitting, we WILL find you." They jump back into their SUV and screech the tires as they drive away at breakneck speed.

You know what the most horrifying and demeaning thing about this whole experience is? I smoke MENTHOLS, not regulars.
























<rimshot>PA DUM, PSSH!!!</rimshot> :crazy:

[Toucano]

22. What you have here is an illusion of freedom.

Or at least the freedom to choose has been given a bit of a nudge.

Had we never paid subsidies, the bad choices might be prohibitively expensive. Some crops might not even be produced if the farmers could make more raising other crops.

Regarding tobacco subsidies, what do you think the point ever was? To promote the general welfare of the people?

The politicians wouldn't have passed the subsidies if the tobacco companies hadn't dumped cash in their coffers. The tobacco companies wouldn't have parted with their cash if the didn't think the subsidies would help them sell more cigarettes and provide an incentive for farmers to continue raising tobacco.


But you are right. Individuals have a choice. A choice that is highly influenced by the powers that be.

[ElboRuum]

23. "Had we never paid subsidies, the bad choices might be prohibitively expensive"

This is just exactly what you're saying as to the illusion of freedom, only in the other direction. Influence based upon difficult availability rather than freer availability. Either way, the realities of the situation influence the choice.

Choices ALWAYS exist in the presence of influence, and it is up to the individual as to how relevant that influence is to them. Contrary to what might be thought, people are not mindless automatons and can make decisions in the presence of influence which rejects that influence. If this were the case, you'd have to reject the idea that advertising is in some way degrading freedom by posing influence. Granted, some people are easily taken in by it, but most people don't go around buying things they don't already want or have need for, at that point it's just a question of what's available and how much or little can they get it for.

Now, there's the view that, once addicted, do you really have a choice? Well, for that, I look to all the people who have successfully quit and all of the assistance, both pharmaceutical and therapeutic, which is available to people who wish to quit and say, well, there are choices there too. Moreover, many have quit through personal discipline, and some have done so cold turkey. So yes, you do. Couple that with all of the influence society brings to bear on encouraging cessation, from family, from friends, from the simple realities of expense, and even from the media, and you see that there is plenty of influence from the other direction.

So what are you left with? It's a choice. Plain and simple.

If smoking is indeed a bad choice, and we are free to choose, does that mean that we should not be free to choose, as the OP suggests?

The right to choose is like any other right. It doesn't exist to protect the making of good decisions, because that doesn't need protection. It's there to protect the making of bad ones.

Now some could argue that there is no explicit right to smoke, and they'd be correct. But we do have a right to make choices to do things that are legal, even if they are unpopular or unhealthy. Where, when, and how we may do these things may be open to restriction, but the basic right is not. Implicit in that right, at this moment, is the right to smoke. If people want to make the growing, possession, and consumption of tobacco illegal, they certainly may mobilize to do precisely that, but our own history has taught us that prohibition is not the answer.

[bluethruandthru]

13. I hope you're not suggesting that health insurance coverage

should somehow be linked to people's lifestyles. I hope we never go down this slippery slope of penalizing or excluding people based on their activities.

I hope one day that we achieve universal, single payer coverage and I firmly believe that the only way a system like this will work is "everybody in...nobody out".

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

14. How Bout We Take Away Your Rights First.

Only then would you have any standing whatsoever to call for the removal of rights from others.

[zonkers]

17. Fine. But it is ludacrous to talk public healthcare w/out confronting the billions sick smokers

cost us in terms of care.

http://ijahsp.nova.edu/articles/Vol2num1/tom_parish_pac_mph.htm

[ElboRuum]

16. IBTL?

Dunno, pretty inflammatory OP there, talking about to hell with people's rights and all. Time will tell. Oh, I brought popcorn... want some? I blew cigarette smoke all over the kernels.

:popcorn:

[ItNerd4life]

20. lol. Some reason I laughed at the cigarette smoke on the kernels.

I prefer butter on my popcorn but I guess to each his own. :toast:

[Lorien]

19. My grandparents died of it also, and only one of them was a smoker

it's a good thing that my grandfather went before my grandmother. He never could have endured the knowledge that his habit killed her in the horrible way that it did. :-(

[chrisa]

24. Oh well, It's their choice.

If people want to drink all day, smoke weed or cigarettes all day, or even do other drugs all day, I say let them. They know the consequences.

The government has no responsibility to stop people in a sound mind from doing things harmful to themselves.