Another ridiculous smoking ban, another nail in the coffin of civil liberties.

There are times that I'd really like a beer.

But, I haven't been able to drink one legally on almost all of the college campuses around here for years.

Where's the outcry?

What about my rights?

 

Where the hell are you? Bible Belt? If you can't buy a beer legally at the 4-year college campuses down here, you're just not trying.

 

I know of places of work where they only let people smoke in their cars.

 

Thank you. What about my rights not to inhale that toxic crap? It's a public health issue, which makes it appropriate to ban at public universities. You don't like it? It's America, you have the freedom to transfer to another school or drop out of school. Spare me the boo hoos.

 

I know of a newspaper that won't allow you to smoke on the premises.

 

Re: Another ridiculous smoking ban, another nail in the coffin of civil libertie

Do you have any conception of how much emissions from factories have been cleaned up since the 1970s? The smoke coming out of the mouths of smokers is more dangerous than that of your average factory.

 

Grimace and I are in rare agreement. And I will repeat a question I asked about a year ago: knowing all we know about smoking, its effects, what it does to the body, the slow, painful deaths by cancer, the cost, the social stigma, why in the hell would anyone with any amount of intelligence smoke?

 

Do you remember when you could smoke on airplanes?

Then they moved the smokers to the back. Yeah, because that helped.

Does anyone remember being able to smoke pretty much anywhere you wanted--grocery stores, malls, offices, elevators, hospitals, buses, subways and streetcars?

I do.

Every time they passed a law restricting the activity, someone like Zag would go on and on about their "RIGHTS" .

Same town in Nova Scotia where my kids go to school was the first jurisdiction in North America to outlaw smoking in your automobile when there were children passengers.

 

Because it's cool and all their friends are doing it.

This might be the rare instance where Hondo and I agree 100 percent on something.

 

I have never been especially bothered by cigarette smoke, but when they banned it in restaurants, it was pleasant not to have it wafting in your face.

Recently went to a restaurant and ate on the patio. A fellow a couple tables away lit up and it was like they dumped an ashtray on our food. Really ruined the experience. And I'm not a big anti-smoker at all.

I just think that the more used to smoke-free air that people get, the less they are going to tolerate it in places they want to sit, stand or walk.

 

Two different issues.

I think there's about a 1,000 page thread somewhere on lowering the drinking age.