Final_Product said:
I think well designated (and air-conditioned!) smoking areas within bars would be a much better idea.
Air-conditioning may have the tendancy to push the cigarette smoke into the non-smoking area.
Teh Grimarse said:
Trust me, I suffer much more without my smokes than non-smokers sitting 40 feet away would were I smoking.
Your withdrawl complaints would be nothing in comparison to me, an asthma sufferer, having an attack induced by second-hand cigarette smoke entering my lungs. You have two legs, if you wish for a cigarette that badly, it doesn't take much effort to step outside for a few minutes to smoke instead.
If I was sitting right next to a non-smoker, then I could understand their complaint. But if you can't deal with somebody at the other end of a diner smoking, you're either too sensitive or too whiny. The second-hand-smoke degree there is comparable to being outside near somebody who is smoking. Almost non-existant.
As Demiurge pointed out, you most likely aren't the only person in the area who is smoking, especially if it's a public foundation such as a restaraunt, bar or club. Smoke does travel, and toxins are within that smoke - not to mention that some people have higher senses to things than others and that isn't by choice, either. Sitting beside a smoker, even when outdoors, can be uncomfortable for me and I try to avoid it whenever I can. The fact is that smoking is an optional choice made by people who want to smoke, not by non-smokers who force others to light one up.
Why should non-smokers have to avoid places that they enjoy frequenting merely because they don't enjoy or benefit (health-wise) from what someone else chooses to do? I didn't choose to smoke, so I shouldn't be expected to leave whenever I have an issue with the residual smoke lingering around in the air near me. Smokers made the decision to smoke, they understand the effects that smoke inhalation can cause directly and indirectly and therefore they should be the one paying the consequences for their actions.
If, for example, you dislike someone stabbing the people around you, should you leave or should you expect the person stabbing to leave and pay for the consequences of their choice? They chose to stab others, not you. Why shouldn't they pay for the decision they deliberately, willingly and consciously made for themselves? It doesn't take all that much effort to walk outside whenever you want a cigarette - I wish that smokers would stop passing the blame to others as being 'whiney' or something else merely because they aren't ready to take responsibility of their own actions.
Not every non-smoker is able to just leave or avoid smokers whenever they have to encounter one, either. The option to not light a cigarette around others is
always an option, though. There are plenty of other examples I could bring to the table that would most likely end with the culprit of the disturbance having to leave as opposed to those who have a problem with the culprit.
evil miscreant said:
this country is full of alot of whiny little crybabies seeings how it is so full of nuclear missiles and other weapons of mass destruction.
Nuclear missiles and other weapons of mass destruction are less likely to affect peoples health on a daily basis than a cigarette. I have encountered more cigarette smoke in my life than I have a nuclear missile or other deadly weapon. People are concerned about cigarette smoke and second-hand inhalation slightly more than these weapons purely because they're a daily encounter, something that is likely to affect people on a much more frequent basis. That and the obvious fact that just about anyone can get their hands on a packet of cigarettes almost instantly - for billions of people worldwide to get their hands on thousands of nuclear missiles or weapons of mass destruction
on a daily basis is impossible.
Neith said:
Because people can't smoke in pubs and clubs, some of them have to close down, and it sucks.
I hardly imagine people go to places just for the opportunity to have a smoke. Bars, clubs and restaraunts do not close down just because people aren't able to smoke inside the facility; these places often shut down due to poor management, not because a handful of smokers decide, 'If I can't smoke inside, then I'm not going at all.'
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