Smokers, we're getting $crewed again......

[Beehive_Poker]

Originally Posted By: oilyriser
Some smokers simply don't understand what it's like to have fully functional olfactory senses, and cannot believe others can smell them a tenth of a mile away, yet it is true, if one is directly downwind from someone puffing away.



I completely understand. My sense of smell is probably keener than anyone I've ever known. I was actually hoping that smoking for fifteen years would have dulled it by now. I admit that some smokers reek. A lot of times that comes from lack of proper hygiene. If you smoke, you have to take better care of yourself than the average person cleaning wise. You have to choose a strong enough soap to clean your clothes with. Stale smoke clings to fabric and sours, just like milk if you keep it out too long.

You have to choose a good shampoo/ bath soap that will leave you smelling fresh and will clean the nicotine stains off of your fingers. Not all smokers smell like a dirty ashtray. Some think that they can get by doing the basics, but if you want to rid your home of the stank of stale smoke you have to go the extra mile.

I personally smoke in every room of my house. In the winter I smoke primarily in the kitchen where the exhaust fan picks up most of the smoke. In the warmer months I crack a window. Smoke, over time, will stain your walls. I'm very proud of the fact that when a stranger comes over they have no idea that I smoke until I pull one out, and I smoke a pack and a half a day of filterless tar sticks. My white walls are as white as the day I moved in. None of my clothing reeks. My hair doesn't stink. I have an air purifier that picks up most impurities. And it's true that if you walk into a restaurant that has a decent ventilation system you won't smell smoke unless you walk over to the smoking section.

I'd have to say that I myself don't like the smell of fellow smokers that smoke the brands that I consider to stink (Marlboros, Menthol brands, generics, Black and Mild cigars, etc). What I despise worse than that are people that wear Axe bodyspray. I fully believe that more people are allergic to Axe and various other colognes and fragrances than they are cigarette smoke. But there has never been an effort to ban the use of perfumes except in certain office buildings.

But, you know what? As a smoker I'm used to people trying to tell me what I can or can't do with my body. Or what I do offends them. So I'll be the last guy to tell the woman wearing six gallons of Chanel no.5 or the greasy faced kid at Blockbuster who just sprayed on a can of Axe that they need to go away, or that they need to enjoy their fragrance in the privacy of their own home. It's a free country, and I have the right to sit somewhere else.

 

[AcuraTech]

Weak. Just another case of the government trying to ban or tax the living heck out of lifestyle choices. "Sin taxes". Don't even get me started. Pretty soon McD's Big Macs will have extra taxes as well. Same argument.

I'm sorry, but I completely disagree with the government telling me whether or whether not I can smoke, eat trans fats, buy beer on Sunday, etc, etc. That is not the governments job. Having them jack up taxes on cigs yearly is a joke. Eventually when cigarettes approach $10 per pack because of tax everyone will quit. And then WHOOOPS there goes a huge source of gov revenue stream. Desperation is a stinky cologne.

"Government is not the solution to our problems, government IS the problem."

 

[Shannow]

They aren't telling you to not do anything.

They aren't stopping you buying anything.

And they aren't going to suddenly fall into a no ciggies tax hole, as people will still smoke, drink, and use petrol whatever the taxes are.

 

[crinkles]

i am an ex smoker and crave it sometimes, and YES I can smell on the road when someone in front of me is smoking.

 

[Beehive_Poker]

The point of this whole thread is that the current administration is screwing up.

The Schip thing is a joke. It's a poorly conceived tax and spend program that benefits no one. The recipients of the benefits are by a majority upper middle class that can afford private healthcare. If you make 80,000 dollars a year and can't afford private insurance then you probably have no business earning that type of money to begin with.

You Know Who is looking for an easy way to make good on his promise to provide universal healthcare. "For the Children" is a cliche that still speaks to the hearts and minds of people that enjoy basking in the glow of benign ignorant bliss.

To do that, he needs the funds to back it. So in this crippling economy, who better to tax than the smokers, society's favorite scapegoats next to drunk drivers and child molestors. Yes, I have to pay a higher tax to cover something that doesn't benefit me or anyone I know in any way, shape or form. I'm being singled out UNFAIRLY by a government that says since I smoke, I'm a bad person and I need to be penalized for it.

If what I've read on this board is true, then the majority of smokers are poor, earning less than thirty thousand dollars a year. The majority of families that will be getting this tax money earn in excess of eighty thousand dollars a year. So the poor man has to cover the rich man's tab, yet again. How is this administration any different than the one that it claims did this same thing for eight years straight?

Bottom line, I'm a smoker. I'm not a bad person. I should not be penalized with higher taxes because the current administration looks down on my choice of recreation. Substitute me and my smokes for you and your tennis shoes or yacht or whatever, and you would feel the exact same way. I didn't elect this man, but I'm glad that the people that did are starting to vomit up the kool-aid they've been sucking on for the last six months. Well, at least the ones that own guns and smoke cigarettes.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: Beehive_Poker
No, it would be your problem because last I checked, coming into someones personal office and defecating on their desk is illegal. Smoking is not.

But please do keep the childish analogies coming. As a smoker, I've heard them all.

If I had been drinking something when I read this, it would have ended up all over my desk. You just said that something is wrong BECAUSE it's illegal, and the person to whom you're responding is childish for not seeing that.

I think this argument is over.

 

[jsharp]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
They aren't telling you to not do anything.

They aren't stopping you buying anything.

And they aren't going to suddenly fall into a no ciggies tax hole, as people will still smoke, drink, and use petrol whatever the taxes are.


Seriously, you think this is a valid argument? "We won't ban it but we can sure make it so expensive no one will do it."

If we make the tax on a pack of cigarettes or on a gallon of gas $100 the government isn't stopping you from buying them? How about $1000? $10,000?

Literally you are correct, in all cases above they aren't stopping the purchase since they didn't ban it outright. How about in practice?

What passes for intellectual honesty these days is frightening...

 

[Gary Allan]

It's all in the realm of altering behaviors. As js points out ..how would your opinions change if the behavior being altered would be ......hmmmm...driving ..and they did just as he said, added $1/gallon/year ..until you learned your lesson?

Chips? Cream? Whole milk? Let's add a fat tax to curb unfavorable behaviors.

Smokers are just in an indefensible position ..but the template can be applied to anything.

This is the stuff that Dr. Raymond Cocteau constructed in New Los Angeles in Demolition Man

Salt has been deemed ungood and therefore bad for your health ..therefore unhealthy ..therefore illegal.

 

[cven]

The year 1900: Cancer caused only 3 out 100 deaths in the
US. Breast cancer was basically unheard of.

- Food manufacturers began developing "better living
through chemistry" products like artificial sweeteners
(saccharin), taste additives (MSG), partially hydrogenated
vegetable shortening and margarine.

- Refined white sugar (acid and fat on a spoon) replaced
molasses as the leading sweetener in the American diet.

1911: A grain-milling process was discovered that strips
away the germ and outer layers of wheat grain (where the
nutrients are). The result: Nutrient-poor, acid-creating
white bread and refined white flour.

1921: General Mills invented a character named Betty
Crocker to convince Americans to eat more processed foods
(and increase the company's stock value).

1935: Only one case of cancer had been reported in the
last 50 years by the Inuit (Eskimo) people of Alaska and
Canada. After they began eating processed foods, their
cancer rate exploded until it equaled that of the US by the
1970's.

1938: From now until 1990, the avera ge male sperm count
will drop by nearly half, and testicular cancer will triple.

1949: After being unheard of 49 years ago, the breast
cancer rate is now 58 out of every 100,000 women.

1950: From now to the year 2000, the overall cancer rate
will go up 55%. (Lung cancer due to smoking is only 1/4 of
that.) Breast and colon cancer will go up 60%, brain
cancer 80% and childhood cancer will increase 20%.

1970: Americans spend $6 billion on fast food. By 2001,
that will skyrocket to $110 billion.

1971: The US Congress declares its "War on Cancer" which
has done virtually nothing to stop the growing rates of
cancer in the US in the next 30+ years.

- The US Department of Agriculture wrote "An Evaluation of
Research in the US on Human Nutrition; Report No. 2,
Benefits From Nutrition Research" which blamed the lack of
nutrients in the American diet for most major health
problems. That report was banned from public view for 21
years, reportedly at the insistence of the processed food
industry.

1973: From now to 1991, prostate cancer will go up 126%.

1982: Teenage boys drink twice as much milk as soda. By
2002, they will be drinking twice as much soda as milk.

1990: From now to 2005, over 120,000 new processed foods
will be developed to join the 320,000 processed foods
already on the store shelves.

2000: Cancer is now the cause of 20 out of 100 of all
deaths in the US, compared to just 3 out of 100 in 1900.

2001: Americans spend $110 billion a year on fast food.
Every single day, 1 out of 4 Americans eats at least one
meal in a fast food restaurant.

2005: Breast cancer, which was extremely rare back in
1900 and only affected 58 out of 100,000 women in 1949, now
strikes 1 in 3 women in the US. That means that in just 55
short years, it has gone up 568 times what it was. Scary.
Must be a virus, huh? Or our DNA has changed a lot, huh?
Momma Mia...


History speaks for itself. If you want to be alive into
your golden years and stay pain and disease-free, stay the
[censored] away from processed foods of any kind. That includes
boxed, bagged, canned or jarred foods, fast food, soda and
bottled sweetened drinks.

Jack La Lanne (who is 93, but looks about 70) has an easy
rule. Here it is: "If man made it, don't eat it."




Methane gas kills when the body absorbs the methane into the blood stream when inhaled during normal breathing. It displaces the oxygen and the body becomes disoriented and unable to make rational decisions. It makes the person lethargic and they want to go to sleep and eventually die of oxygen deprivation.

Hey I think we should tax all you taco eaters who are killing us with your disgusting foul smelling NON needed habit. It's for the kids and my right to be in a Methane free restaurant ect... How dare you think you have the right to expose me to your evil gas!!

Now I'm off to have a diet coke and chili with extra beans. Long live the hypocrite!!!

 

[Beehive_Poker]

Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Originally Posted By: Beehive_Poker
No, it would be your problem because last I checked, coming into someones personal office and defecating on their desk is illegal. Smoking is not.

But please do keep the childish analogies coming. As a smoker, I've heard them all.

If I had been drinking something when I read this, it would have ended up all over my desk. You just said that something is wrong BECAUSE it's illegal, and the person to whom you're responding is childish for not seeing that.

I think this argument is over.


The analogy is childish and pointless. Don't twist my words, spin doctor. I never said that he was childish for what he believed, but the analogy was quite dumb.

You breath air. I hate people that breath oxygen. So does that give me the right to come to your house and touch your wifes earrings?

Do you see how pointless and non-sensical that was? Instead of just saying you don't like smoke and/or smokers, why do you have to come up with something unrelated and then ask me if you have the right to do that? Like it or not, at one time the majority of Americans smoked. That number has dwindled over the years, but a LOT of people still smoke. We're not going away because you don't like it.

This argument is NOT over until the thread gets locked. I have an answer for every non-smoker that criticizes my habit. But what I haven't heard is any evidence that this new tax is fair or defensible. That silence speaks volumes.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: Beehive_Poker
We're not going away because you don't like it.

You're absolutely right. It's not because we don't like it. It's because you're breathing carcinogens into our air for no reason other than to feed an addiction. Don't let the door hit ya.

 

[Win]

Originally Posted By: moribundman
Behind_poker, you've never lived in a multi-unit apartment building, have you?


I've owned them.

Excepting the complaints about potheads holding bong-a-thons, I never had anyone complain about second hand smoke generated from another unit. That may be about the only thing I never fielded a complaint about. I did have tenants complain about cooking odors, loud kids, loud cars, arguments from next door, stereos, people sitting on steps and blocking others - pretty much any thing one person could do that could conceivably annoy someone else, someone would get annoyed and righteously complain.

I did have cigarette smokers burn up units; of course careless cooks burned up a few, as did neglectful parents who let their kids play with lighters or matches.

I sold my last complex about four years ago. The government has a lot of ideas about how housing should be run, many of which are poor business practice, and I got tired of being forced to implement someone else's idea of how the world should be, administer those policies, and exposing myself to being sued when somebody thinks its not being done right.

For all of you who are so certain that your way is the right way (and I am not pointing a finger at anyone in particular), and that this way should be imposed on everyone else at no apparent cost to yourself through some third party (although all business cost is passed on to the customer), be aware that the people who actually build, own, rent, etc, the establishments you want to incrementally micro manage to suit your own personal agenda will, at some point, get fed up with it, and go on to something else. It may be sooner, it may be later, but it will surely occur.

Then, if you want to be in a smoke free (or insert whatever practice annoys you here) world, you may actually have to rely on yourself to provide that. With enough people around telling you what to do, it won't be as easy as you think.

 

[Julian]

I tend to think more like Gary on these kinds of issues. I just have one question for you really: if you were smoking in a restaurant and it was noticeably bothering someone else who wasn't trying to be a pain in the [censored] about it (regardless of area designations), would you put it out or keep smoking? Might even be another smoker.

 

[Beehive_Poker]

Originally Posted By: Julian
I tend to think more like Gary on these kinds of issues. I just have one question for you really: if you were smoking in a restaurant and it was noticeably bothering someone else who wasn't trying to be a pain in the [censored] about it (regardless of area designations), would you put it out or keep smoking? Might even be another smoker.


Probably put it out.

Of course this doesn't come down to being a smoker, it comes down to how nice of a person you are. If someone in the car next to me with their windows rolled up, going down the highway, started frowning at me as if my smoke was bothering them, I would probably flip them off. If somebody two feet away who could actually smell and breath the smoke I was exhaling was looking kind of like they hated it, I would feel obligated to extinguish it. There's a difference between someone who hates smoking and someone who is actually bothered by it.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: jsharp
Originally Posted By: Shannow
They aren't telling you to not do anything.

They aren't stopping you buying anything.

And they aren't going to suddenly fall into a no ciggies tax hole, as people will still smoke, drink, and use petrol whatever the taxes are.


Seriously, you think this is a valid argument? "We won't ban it but we can sure make it so expensive no one will do it."

If we make the tax on a pack of cigarettes or on a gallon of gas $100 the government isn't stopping you from buying them? How about $1000? $10,000?

Literally you are correct, in all cases above they aren't stopping the purchase since they didn't ban it outright. How about in practice?

What passes for intellectual honesty these days is frightening...


Look, ciggies are $15 a pack down here, and young women are taking them up in droves...Beer $35 a carton, and sales sky high...petrol $1.20 a litre. and I can't cross the street on Friday Night and Sunday afternoon with all of the weekend tourists.

I never said this taxation was a good thing (as you seem to have interpreted me somehow stating and justifying a rant)

I was replying firstly to the post that one day people will just stop...which they won't. Secondly to people believing that they are being prevented from doing something ...which they aren't.

 

[oldmaninsc]

Originally Posted By: Beehive_Poker
Quote:
I know this is going to burst your bubble, but there is no hidden agenda - I just don't like the smell of cigarette smoke.


There, you finally came out and admitted it. You just don't like smoke, therefore I need to go out of my way to accommodate you.

I'm glad some of your best friends are smokers. Some of my best friends are black!

You sure enjoy twisting around what people say.
I didn't say "some of my best friends are smokers". I said "My best friend" (who happened to be my college roommate - which was several decades ago.) Please note - friend is singular - one person. I said some of my family members smoke. That doesn't make them "best friends". I think the smoke has clouded your brain!
As for the rest of your statement about black friends I wouldn't even comment on an ignorant statement like that.

I never said either that you " . . . need to go out of my way to accommodate you" Just don't smoke where I have NO choice but to smell it. If you smoke in your car, keep the windows up. What do I care if it bothers you? You obviously don't have any respect or care for what bothers me and others in the world!

I've wasted enough keystrokes on this. The original topic was taxes. Well guess what - practically everything in the world gets taxed one way or another. Gasoline, automobiles, property, drinks, furniture, appliances - you name it.
The Eagles came out with a song a while back! It so reminds me of you!

"Get over it"

 

[Amkeer]

This is what I see:

First off I do not smoke. Anyone that I know that has smoked, most have quit. Those that have not I push them to do so.

Secondly, my observation of smoking is the addiction is tremendous and normally coincides with people that drink too. We consider cigarette smokers flawed in their character, just like we do alcoholics. However, most people can be changed, or shown the way to change. Some will not regardless.

Third, I dislike smoking, and the way most act based on personal observations. We are grateful rules have changed for those that choose not to be intruded by ones habit. Some points:

1. Cigarette smokers flicking lit cigarettes out the window of a car. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out the multitude of damage caused by the simple act of total incompetence. Lit cigarette butts account for many out of control wildfires that burn damaging valuable property, and destroying peoples lives. Yet the smoker simply does not care, and looks at the flicking as a creative art form.

2. I can't tell you how many pristine areas I have been in and around where cigarette butts were stomped, or just laying on the ground. We have been at beautiful areas, parks, and I look down in total disgust at humans total disregard for others enjoyment, or the environment. Here is a clue, put the cigarette out and place it in the trash.

3. People emptying their ashtrays from the car on public roadways or parking lots.

4. Parents smoking in the car with a small child or infant in the vehicle. With what we know today, what is with that? I see people driving, smoking, and the windows are barely open. If that is not a form of child abuse I would be surprised.

We could go on and on.

Grandfather died of lung cancer, and never smoked in his life. He was a bartender. So whether you think it is solely your choice, or not, we are effected by whatever decision YOU make.

 

[hr1940]

This subbject is being locked. The subject has been dealt with and each of us has our own opinion concering cigarettes and the taxes being put on them.