Seems to me the logic on smoking las ought to be pretty dang simple. Smoke what you want where u want so long as it doesn't infringe on anyone else's right to not share what you're smoking.

No, bugger that Lumpy. Give 'em a good blast fair in the face so they understand what they're missing.

Smoke nazis. What next?

Give 'em a good blast fair in the face so they understand what they're missing.

Finger on it right there, Stan. I am a non-smoker from Britain (where sometimes it seems as if smokers are striving to match the atmospheric emissions of a medium-sized coal-fired power station, perhaps in the belief that if they do so they'll get some kind of tax break) who now lives in California (pioneer of smoke-free public buildings laws).

As such, I have had a "good blast fair in the face" many, many times, causing my larynx and lungs to contract to the size of a crumpled crisp packet and cry for their mother. Being now in a place where I am able to go to a bar or restaurant without feeling that I am sitting in the middle of a bush fire, I certainly do understand what I'm missing.

I should possibly point out that I live in the second most-polluted county in the United States. However, having an atmosphere that you can slice and spread on your breakfast toast is one thing; having someone set fire to rolled-up bits of tree and assuming you won't mind when they propel the resulting fumes in your direction is quite another.

I think that's an aspect of good manners which smokers seem to be quite oblivious to, and that's why in my opinion public smoking bans are very reasonable. The activity - or at least its by-product - is anti-social.

However...

Lumpy says: "Smoke what you want where u want, so long as..." etc. I agree entirely. What you put into your own body should be your business, as long as you don't mind taking advice about whether it's a good idea or not. Trying to stop people doing that is expensive and largely pointless. The so-called "drug problem" could be solved at a stroke if everything were legalized. Inject yourself with as much heroin as you want as far as I'm concerned - just don't leave your used needles where I can get my hands poked by them.

Finally, my favorite smoking quote of all time, by King James I of England (and VI of Scotland, if you want to be pedantic):

"A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless."

Attaboy Jamie.

Attaboy Dr. D.

Well said, especially:

What you put into your own body should be your business, as long as you don't mind taking advice about whether it's a good idea or not. Trying to stop people doing that is expensive and largely pointless. The so-called "drug problem" could be solved at a stroke if everything were legalized.

Ufortunately, you're flying in the face of our unseemly haste to create the world's largest nanny state by attempting to control every thing that could be deemed even remotely harmful, regardless of what other benefits might derive therefrom.

Case in point:

The recent attempts, on the part of FDA, to ban and/or demonize two very beneficial drugs with potentially harmful side effects: NSAIDS such as Vioxx and Celebrex, and cancer pain medication OxyContin. I use the former with full knowledge that it amy cause me to have a heart attack one day, but it's a conscious choice on my part (with my physician's participation) to take the risk. I suffer from arthritis to a debilitating point, and, in the words of Jimmy Buffett, "I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead." I believe the FDA should inform the public in a non-judgmental way of the dangers of a given drug, but allow the patient and his/her physician to make an informed choice, rather than ban it altogether.

My wife, a cancer patient among other things, would spend her days in excruciating 24/7 pain were it not for oxycodone, the active and habit-forming ingredient in OxyContin. Yet, the FDA's recent flurry of righteousness about Purdue Pharma's alleged failure to properly advise physicians and patients of its addictive aspect is not only untrue (physicians KNOW oxycodone is addictive, and my wife's told her this from day one), but makes my wife and me fear that it's a prelude to sway public opinion and ban the drug. Millions of cancer patients will suffer if this happens.

Smoking and the currently illegal list of recreational drugs should not be demonized. The public should be (and has been) thoroughly informed of their dangers and then, as Lumpy and you say, allowed to smoke (or whatever) all they want, as long as they're not forcing us to participate by proximity.

Nanny state is right. My wife now has to go to the pharmacy counter to pick up her Claritin D-24 (as I mentioned above, we live in the ultra-polluted San Joaquin Valley of California (aka "Allergy Alley"). To point up the absurdity, she makes a point every time of loudly mentioning that it's impeding her meth lab operations (probably not a good idea in today's climate of paranoia, but still). I wouldn't be at all surprised if it becomes prescription-only before too long.

My best wishes to your wife, by the way. It sounds like she's not been having the greatest of times health-wise lately.

Smoke em if you got em. My Grandfather put pipe tobacco in brown paper bags, rolled it up like a cigar and smoked them for 70 years. He died at 96. You kids, dont try this at home. HAPPY SMOKING YA ALL. sr

My Grandfather put pipe tobacco in brown paper bags, rolled it up like a cigar and smoked them for 70 years.

70 years?!?!? man, that was some slooooow-burning tobacco...

DD:

To point up the absurdity, she makes a point every time of loudly mentioning that it's impeding her meth lab operations

LOL! I like her sense of humor.

Mine's got a good sense of humor, too - even with all her medical problems, she hasn't lost it. She keeps us both sane (or as close as we can get, anyway).

Thanks for the kind words, Doc. I'll pass 'em on.

Hunter S. Thompson would be proud of your stance. I'm sure he's up in Heaven, firing rifles at empty rum bottles with Warren Zevon, (who, ironically, died of lung cancer diagnosed a decade after he quit smoking) cursing, snarling about the pig bastards running the country into the brimstone fires of a so-called televangeslist afterlife.

I hate tobacco smoke. I'm deathly allergic. My boyfriend's father smokes a pipe and once it nearly caused my throat to close (combination smoke, dust and fat cat fuzz = badness). But am I going to tell him not to smoke? No. I'll ask him not to smoke in my house, and in my car, but who the hell am I to walk into his house and demand that he stop smoking? I can pop an allergy pill, I can go in another room, I can avoid the house all together. That's MY choice.

If bars and other such establishments want to allow their clientel to smoke, they should be allowed to. Children don't go in bars, (I do get upset when I see parents smoking around children) and if you don't want to breathe in smoke, don't work there, don't drink there. I hate those TRUTH commericals; when those come on during the one hour a week I watch of TV I want to go out an inhale a whole pack of unfiltered Lucky Strikes for spite.

There is a hookah bar where I live; I never go (whole death-allergy thing) but a lot of my friends do. It's a thriving business in college towns.

On the other hand, cigarette companies have been putting more and more additives in their product. Where once you could be a casual smoker, now you get addicted to brand cigarettes. People who used to smoke every day and lived to be 100 did so because it was pure tobacco, not arsenic and cow poop and all the other crap in modern cigarettes. Roll your own and enjoy. I'll be in the other room until you're done.

There seems to be a belief here personal rights extend privileges as to what you might expect from others. The reverse is actually true "I have a right not to" meaning actions of an individual cannot be forced. The foolish presumption I have a right to not breathe another's smoke is ridiculous in theory and actual rights you enjoy. You have a right to not be here while I enjoy a smoke within my rights in the fulfillment of the contract with the manufacturer and government who I paid for my pleasure, with all parties understanding how I would be using that product. If you feel you are injured by my actions even if I exhale cigarette smoke in your face, you are free to pursue a civil case and prove injury however don't forget to name all parties who profit from the purchase of cigarettes including those who promote the hatred against those who choose to smoke.

The only realistic justification for smoking bans is the inept actions of ignorance among embarrassing public officials who failed to develop regulation suitable to all and instead employed legislation an imposition on the rights of the same all.

If you desire cherry pink lungs buy a respirator bubble. Indoor environments could be much more comfortable for the hypochondriac fans by reversing the smoking room mindset and making it a non smoking room which would filter out other contaminants and create an inclusive atmosphere without kneeling to the extremists, who are focused on the cash paid to promote alternative products above any public health concerns.

Non smokers and smokers are all being duped flushing their rights in process.

For a quote, you should find some understanding of Mussolini's he once said Fascism is an industrial socialism, and what is political correctness if not a doctorate to emphasize that control?

A correction about the cause of Warren Zevon's death -- he died of mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs, whose only known cause is exposure to asbestos. Smoking had nothing to do with it, one way or the other.

Charlene Komar Storey;

There is another correction the press in Canada refuses to acknowledge. Heather Crowe Canada's non-smoker poster girl for anti smoking campaigns died of Lung Cancer. A reported yet unknown term a "smokers Tumor" was used Liberally. This so called smokers tumor was indicative of the most common lung cancers among smokers, which in reality lung cancers most found with smokers are not treated with Chemo-therapy Heather was treated with chemo not surprisingly.

Insignificant increased risk among extreme estimates of exposure to Tobacco smoke, few would actually ever endure has been the proof casual exposure to tobacco smoke is a threat to anyone. Amazing how media groups are applauding actions to duct tape your door and receptacles for fear of the tremendous health hazards.

One born every minute...

There seems to be a belief here personal rights extend privileges as to what you might expect from others. The reverse is actually true "I have a right not to" meaning actions of an individual cannot be forced.

Kevin, this is not about rights - as I said in my above post, go ahead and smoke/snort/inject anything you like for all I care. This is about consideration for others.

Smoking bans exist because people have a very reasonable wish to be able to go out to a bar or restaurant without being inconvenienced by a public nuisance. They do not restrict your freedom of choice in any way. You are perfectly capable of going to a bar or restaurant and having a good time without lighting up (unless you are a hopeless addict, in which case your quality of life probably isn't that great anyway). But without a smoking ban, it isn't possible for me to go out without being choked by fumes and having my clothes impregnated by the stench of other people's cigarettes.

It's just bad manners, simple as that. Just as you wouldn't jump on a table and start having sex in a crowded restaurant; just as you wouldn't drop trou and take a dump in the middle of a bar. You would expect to face legal sanction because you'd be violating socially acceptable behavior. It doesn't mean your inalienable rights to hump, poop and smoke are being taken away. Just use them at the appropriate time and place, and don't inflict them on everyone else.

Smoking stinks. It really stinks. I am not sure how it is that smokers think that they are only affecting themselves when they are at every entrance (not around the corner somewhere) smoking, making sure we ALL get a whiff of that disgusting smell.

Its fine, they thought lighting a stick and inhaling would make them cool. They were wrong, its fine we understand. The rest of us however did not choose to do that. We wore different colored sox or dressed like Cindy Lopper to earn our cool points. You don't find us mow hocking people or playing Duran Duran loudly as they walk into the grocery store. We shouldn't have to suffer for their really dumb choices.

I am a reformed smoker, and for many years a non-drinker, thanks to a kidney ailment. I love beer and almost everything about it, even though I can no longer drink it. I still go to the pub with my mates, and often when they are going outside for a smoke or into a specially designated smoking section, I'll go too. I love the smell of cigarette smoke but one of the things I really hate when I go into a bar is people breathing the noxious fume of beery breath all over me. However, I didn't realise how disgusting that was until I gave up smoking.

Beery breath IMO is far more offensive than a bit of smoke in the air, and it's a hoot watching people get smashed then act like idiots even after just half a dozen beers. They just don't realise how it looks. These are people who are otherwise quite respectable. And I'll just say this: cigarettes are only mood-altering when you don't have any.

Alcohol is a far more dangerous drug in terms of its immediate impact on society: car accidents, punch-ups, general and domestic violence, etc.

In all my years of dealing with all the above, I never had cause to report on anyone smashing the shit out of another person or killing an innocent family in a car smash after they'd had one too many Benson and Hedges.

My view is, if you are going to allow people to drink vast quantities of piss whilst holding drivers' licenses, and have laws that say it's OK to walk around with a gun in your pocket whilst histrionically carrying on about the dangers of smoking and how offensive the smell is, I say: time to get your bloody priorities right.

Clearly, if these so-called reformers were interested in doing good, the downfall of the Marlboro Man would not be the primary objective. Nevertheless, whether with a fat bowl of burley or a pack of Camels, beer is a damn fine thing. I ride the bus. Keep it burning and keep it real.

Oh, not disagreeing that beer is not just good, but marvellous. It's an absolute travesty that I can't drink the stuff any more, as beer and me were deigned to be put together. Hopefully, too, non-participation won't always be the case but for now it's a risk I can't afford to ignore.

I'm just using this as a case in point. Also interesting that many rabid anti-smokers in places like Manhattan, Los Angeles, or downtown Sydney, for instance, don't see that gulping in diesel fumes is far worse than any pollution you are going to get from a cigarette, but they still catch the bus and eat food delivered to town by diesel-guzzling trucks.

Granted, new emission controls are coming into place around the world, but still ...

I used to love it when I stood 5m downwind of an antismoker (as opposed to a non-smoker), outside, and they'd still start coughing histrionically and giving me the evil eye when I lit up. If they ever said anything, and some did, I'd often suggest they move another 5m upwind of me so I couldn't smell their BO. However, I do agree that people shouldn't smoke in restaurants. Simple to go outside in that scenario - but even having done that, you can still cop a serve from a rabid anti-smoker.

Some of these rabid anti-smokers may well find cigarette smoke causes them genuine problems. Fair enough, in their case. But in my experience, many others are just wankers who need to toughen the fu.k up :)

Alcohol is a far more dangerous drug in terms of its immediate impact on society

Right with you there. I lived with an alcoholic who also smoked. Let me tell you that I would happily have let her puff 200 a day if it would have avoided the emotional and physiological misery that she put herself and me through with the drink.

Sorry to hear you can no longer drink beer, mate - total bummer. I think you should fire your kidneys. Life for the beer drinker in both Britain and Australia gets more exciting by the day. I've just discovered that there is actually a beer on the Australian market called Piss - can't think how I managed to miss that on both my previous visits!

it's a hoot watching people get smashed then act like idiots even after just half a dozen beers

As a Brit in an American college town, it's even more amusing watching 300-pound football players down one Bud Light and start lurching around as if they're completely hammered.

Doc said: "There is actually a beer on the Australian market called Piss".

Lol. I love being an Aussie. This is a place where even an insult is usually a form of compliment, or at least a sign of acceptance. If you're not being insulted, no one likes you. Many years ago, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Sydney, Indian PM Desai revealed that he drank a pint of his own urine every day (and had also brought his own cow, like we don't have enough here). Aussie PM Gough Whitlam, when asked whether it was a success, said in a TV interview that it was (apart from the bombing outside the Hilton Hotel) but that you had to watch out for the Indians, especially when they got on the piss.

One day Doc I must send you an email that I passed on to Clavos, showing a video of the three-quarter time motivation speech at an Aussie Rules football game (or find it yourself by typing you tube and aussie motivation into google). Very funny. Yes, mate, the old kidneys have played up deluxe but there's no problem as long I'm careful. Alas, drinking beer just doesn't fit into the careful category, unfortunately. I can have one, two at the outside, every now and again but I find that is absolute torture.

I digress, though - there's also a beer here called cat's piss. It's the beer formerly known as Budweiser, which I rate in the same league as Foster's, that bloody home-grown abomination.

If you ordered cat's piss at the bar in an Aussie pub, there's a fair chance you'd get one of those two.

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM)

CHOGM. If you say it fast, it sounds like "chug 'em". Very appropriate.

Cat's Piss is indeed almost indistinguishable from Budweiser and Foster's, which are foul stains on the generally wonderful world of beer! *Shudders*

I've always loved the smell of cigar & pipe smoke - Grampy smelled of it, & it has a fragrance unlike the acrid stench of cigarettes - probably for exactly the reasons Retro Chick (#9) stated: cigarettes are increasingly being deliberately impregnated with addictive toxins - which of course the tobacco companies are reflexively lying about even now, but that's another issue.

I have no problem with cigar or pipe smokers, because they differentiate themselves substantially from cigarette smokers not only in their choice of poison, but their behavior: I have never seen a cigar/pipe smoker pitch the remains of their smoke onto the ground, out a window, onto the floor, or into nearby mulch/woods/etc. as I do cigarette smokers every hour of every day, 24/7. I've never had one exhale in my face. I've never seen or heard of one sneaking one in the airplane john against all safety rules & regs. I've never seen one light up & just drop the (frequently still-burning) match on the ground/floor/etc. I've never seen one grind their finished smoke out on the ground/floor/etc. They don't stink, nor do their clothes/hair/surroundings stink, nor does it seem to impregnate everywhere they've been, as it does with cigarette smoke.

Cigarette smokers would probably be less vilified if they weren't (mostly) such a pack of selfish, self-centered, lazy, destructive, rude SLOBS. At the entrance to many a doorway, I can find heaps of cigarette stubs, empty cigarette packs, matches, etc. - all dumped there by cigarette smoking pigs; I do NOT - in fact, I've NEVER - seen similar piles of pipe dottles or cigar stumps, matches, tobacco pouches, et al. If that weren't enough, Ccigarette smokers are documented by insurance industry stats as probably the #1 cause of forest fires, brush fires, barn fires, & household fires in bedrooms. I volunteer for a fire dept., & I can tell you, those stats are absolutely spot-on: I myself have seen innumerable mulch & roadside brush fires started by some cigarette-smoking ass who blithely pitches his/her cigarette butt onto the ground, even when surrounded by bone-dry grasses, hay, woods & leaves, brush, etc. - even when there are containers RIGHT THERE to put them into. I've never heard of pipe or cigar smokers lighting up in violation of safety laws in the presence of volatile substances (like at gas stations), or while working under hazmat conditions, like that idiot who lit a cigarette at a hydrogen tank where anything that could strike sparks from shoes or anything else was prohibited. I daily see cigarette smokers standing next to a huge ciggie butt receptacle - and they drop their butts all around it, but not in it! They don't even have to bend over, & they STILL prefer to just pitch the filthy things all over the ground!

Finally, cigarette smokers DO impinge on non-smokers, even when not physically present, because when these stupid jerks give themselves cancer, asthma, or other related diseases (& some very surprising medical conditions are now being traced back to cigarette carcinogens), it costs ME, personally, because I have to cough up the extra money in taxes to treat these assholes & try to save their worthless, sloppy, selfish lives. Would that it DID kill them quickly, like heroin. At least it would save money, perhaps. I won't even start to go into the side effects of cigarette smoking on the families of those who indulge ... their children, wives, etc. There isn't enough room here. Again, stats prove that while ALL smoking is hazardous, cigarette smoking is especially so, & cigarette smokers are gratuitously & monumentally rude about their habit in a way pipe/cigar smokers are not.

Finally, pipe & cigar smokers don't endless suck on chains of the things, one after another. Who has ever heard of a 'box-a-day' cigar smoker, or someone who goes thru an entire pouch of Prince Albert in one day? I never have. I doubt I ever will.

So don't whine to me about losing your 'rights', because as far as I'm concerned, your 'rights' do not include destroying others' health, or the common surroundings. The day I see cigarette smokers avoid setting fires, littering, & stinking up every area they walk into, I'll shut up. I don't think it will be any time soon.

Geez, Nancy, is there anything you do like about cigarette smokers?

Rowwrr, fiesty! At least somebody can differentiate some smokers from the rest. Do you find pipes sexy?

You have to walk into a bar to get a whiff of beery breath. You only have to decide to cross the entrance of any building to get accosted by that horrid smell.

You shower, lotion, shimmer and powder and perfume then walk past one of these jerks and its all over in a split second.

Another pet peeve is how often these people go out for breaks at work, like its their constitutional right to stop working so that they smoke while you toil at your desk.

#24: No, Mate.

It's almost like two different species as far as habits & attitudes are concerned. Pipe & cigar people are just ... different from cigarette smokers, as are what they smoke. I really do think Retro Chick put her finger on it: cigarette tobacco is so adulterated by christ knows what by the damned tobacco companies, I think it really does influence how the smokers behave - & not to the good.

Right on, right on! This is the kind of smoky, fire-breathing rant we need if we're to halt the marching cattle of political correctness against our right to light up!

If I might make one suggestion? I would recommend putting this in a letter and/or fax to your representatives in congress. Don't give them the opportunity to say they never saw it.

(Shameless plug: Check out my relevant, related post Tobacco, The New Pornography)

Dr Dreadful#7. Indeed sir that was some slooooow-burning tobacco. Great comment. Im still laughing. Would you believe it's still lit and Im smoking on it at this moment. By the way can anyone tell me if a women is pregant, smokes and drinks under current law would that be illegal even if she plans on having an abortion?

Shameless Brian's tobacco article is worth a read for fans of cigars and/or plain common sense.

It's hilarious the amount of melodrama and whining cigarette smokers kick up when you make them do what they should be doing anyway out of simple good manners, which is walking two metres outside to smoke their filthy cigarettes in the open air instead of breathing them all over other people who have *no* desire to *choose* to put that crap into *our own bodies*.

Oh my god! What, walk two metres? Me? No no! This is the beginning of the end! This is Naziism! This is Communism! This is worse than the death camps! What kind of hideous society are we turning into when I am cruelly forced to walk two metres and am not allowed to blow cigarette smoke over the pregnant woman at the next table? O Tempora, O Mores!!! I shall shoot myself! Goodbye cruel world!!!

I think these fuckers should just shoot themselves already or get over it, whichever way stops the whining quicker.

Very interesting article Joe. To make an addendum to it, a person in a public place with a cold or flu creates more health havoc on the general public than any smoker in a bar. Oh well, big brother will burn that bridge when he comes to it.

Marco

But air born viruses are not contracted by choice and they don't stink!

Steve: I think it's hilarious how much whining rabid and histrionic non-smokers carry on with when smokers do what non-smokers have wanted for years - go outside. Then when they do, they still have to put up with idiots coughing histrionically and giving the evil eye half a block away, up-wind (usually whilst walking behind a diesel-belching bus). What a joke.

Put simply, smoking is a sublime and life-enhancing activity to some, myself jolly well included. People who don't get this incontrovertible fact are free to get on with their smoke-free lives. But interfere with me and I will twat you (English colloquialism) and that definitely includes Steve (actually, I won't actually twat you, but I will wish you bad luck...is that PC enough?). Best wishes to smoking friends, and the writer of this eloquently written blog