Quote:
Originally posted by MagiK:
quote:
Originally posted by harleyquinn:
In my mind, there is a BIG difference between offending someone and giving someone else cancer, emphasima (sp?), and other lung diseases.
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Harley you are falling into a huge propaganda battle...Penn and Teller did an excellent expose on the crap that the "Second Hand smoke" crowd is selling as fact. The truth is..no one is dying from second hand smoke. (with a very very few extreme specific cases). When pressed for data they give false numbers, false reports and bad info...in short..in the words of P&T they give you Bullshit! (Edit: Bullshit is the name of their show and it is dedicated to exposing people who go to any length to get their way, including just making things up.) [/QUOTE]Bullshit indeed. If I breathe in smoke from someone else's cigarettes, my throat gets extremely sore, the membranes of my nose and throat get irritated, it hurts to swallow, my eyes water and sometimes I get a cough. This can last for days after I inhalated the smoke. (and yeah I know you have a problem with smoke yourself) No, I won't die from it but it IS extremely annoying, painful and obnoxious. While second hand smoke might not kill, it DOES give a great amount of people, including but not limited to asthmatics, a lot of grief. So this "expose" in fact doesn't help at all, since it makes it seemingly okay to breathe in second hand smoke.
It's fine to try and prove passive smoking doesn't kill you, but not if you try to "expose the second hand smoke crowd" who have very valid concerns whether it kills you or no.
OT, I don't think it should be made impossible for smokers to smoke anywhere in public, and I think it would be good to have both places for smokers and places for non-smokers.
But I do think that where interests clash, the non-smokers should always be put first. Non-smokers don't bother smokers, but vice versa it CAN be a problem.
We have rules that clubs should be accessible to wheelchairs: they should be accessible to asthmatics and other lung patients too. A smoker can go to a club and nip outside if he/she absolutely HAS to smoke, but someone with asthma cannot visit a place where people smoke and nip outside if s/he HAS to get a breath of fresh air. At least with cafes, you can choose to avoid places with certain smoking policies, but with concerts it's a different matter. So I would not mind if concert halls were forced to go smoke-free.
[ 05-10-2003, 01:35 PM: Message edited by: Melusine ]