Just a little longer and we're back in the medieval era. Maybe one day i'll get burned at the stake for being a smoking witch.

While I strongly support public smoking bans, to chase this issue into peoples homes is pure bullshit. Private homes = private lives = nobody else's buisness.

Anyhow the best way to stop smoking is to throw in jail every director of BAT and others for the deaths that they have caused, not chase the addicts.

I don't smoke (well, every once in a while I indulge in a pipe of *legal* herbal blend) but Budha does. I'd like to see someone come into my house and tell us he can't light up within the confines of these walls.

Shoot, while they're at it, tell us we can't smmoke outside either since someone somewhere is bound to share a whiff of that air.

Nanny state jackasses.

Well, one argument in favour would be that any place that has some sort of public health service has the right to ban anything illegal they want since you will, after all, be using up their resources if you get ill early or whatever.

A counter-argument would be that then smokers/druggies/etc. should just pay more to make up for what they'll cost society, or be allowed to opt out and pay their own bills. Sadly, that doesn't work, because then the rich can do all the drugs they want while the poor can't without having no health care at all.

Another argument might be that it's For The Kids.

However, I think people should be free to smoke within the confines of their own home, still, I do feel some sympathy for any kids trapped in a home with chain-smoking parents. I swear, there was a ■■■■■■■ cloud of cigarette smoke in my home while I was growing up, and it wasn't always fun.

At the same time, of course, I think people shouldn't exaggerate with such things as "medieval ages." It's just smoking. It's just nicotine. It's not like they're banning a political philosophy, books or your freedom of expression, just a drug.

If the government wants to stop paying subsidised health care to smokers, then it needs to stop taxing the hell out of tobacco. Freedom does mean the right to do stupid things, like smoke. I smoke,and it's a stupid thing, and I know it, but one out of every 5 times I light up, I actually enjoy it. So now it should be illegal? It may affect someone else adversely, so it should be illegal. That's the argument on public smoking bans, and personally, I don't have a problem with not smoking in the grocery store, or the mall. It's a non issue to not be allowed to smoke on the bus. Get out of my home. While soon, the government may indeed be paying me to pay my rent, I currently pay it.

Don't waste my tax dollars going after smokers, get the criminals off the streets. If it's environmental pollutants that are a concern, illegalize cars. There are more cars on the road in the US than there are smokers, and they are causing more environmental hazards than smokers ever will, outside.

Here's a thought for all the "let the government tell me when to pee" crowd, don't wait for the government to tell you it's illegal to own a car, take all your internal combustion vehichles to the scrap yard, and get them crushed. One step ahead of the curve then. I say every person that actively lobbies for smoking bans should be imprisoned for life if they drove a vehichle to the convention. Hypocrisy should be every bit as much a crime as smoking.

Yeah well, that drug happens to mean a lot to me, try to take it away, and you'll see just how much. What i do within the comfort of my own walls is my business and mine alone. That's what i meant with medieval, they're on a witch hunt. 10 years ago, nobody complained about cigarettes or passive smoke, and now all of a sudden they almost want to brand me as a criminal.

Looks like I picked a bad week to quit smoking.

It's not almost. If they are looking to arrest people, smokers have become criminals. If it's illegal to smoke in your home, then smoking in your home makes you a criminal. However, since it's not illegal to purchase them, and smoking them is using them as they were intended to be used, I would think that they'd have a hard time gettng convictions, entrapment issues, I'd think.

They'll never make the things illegal because they make too much money from the taxes. And we all know how much these people love our money. The same applies for alcohol.