Damn anti smoking fanatics! Bars can't serve food and allow smoking? WTF!

[Asher]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
If non-smoking bars are popular, more of them would be created. That's how the market works...

And that's precisely what happened.

Non-smoking bars are so popular, by popular vote all bars are now non-smoking!

[Asher]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Isn't that a shame that the non-smoker has to be inconvenienced a little, so that the business owner can conduct business?

Isn't it a shame that the waitress who never smoked once in her life dies of lung cancer because she had to make a living for her daughter in a place where inconsiderate patrons smoked?

I guarantee you, the inconvenience of getting treated for cancer trumps the inconvenience of smokers smoking outside...

[Drake Tungsten]

It's fine for Canada to **** all over the market-system with smoking bans; you guys are already communist. I just don't like seeing America turn its back on freedom...

[Dis]

Originally posted by Asher

Isn't it a shame that the waitress who never smoked once in her life dies of lung cancer because she had to make a living for her daughter in a place where inconsiderate patrons smoked?

I guarantee you, the inconvenience of getting treated for cancer trumps the inconvenience of smokers smoking outside...

there are other jobs out there. Like prostitution.

[Wezil]

Glad we agree on the opting out. I would have done so ages ago.

Why isn't it feasible? Lots of activities cause harm to the participant (why bring 3rd parties in to the issue if we are talking healthcare strain?) but are not banned.

[Dis]

you can't opt out, the system couldn't pay for itself if people did that.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Dis
you can't opt out, the system couldn't pay for itself if people did that.

But I cause the system money? Surely the system would be better off w/o me?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Wezil
Glad we agree on the opting out. I would have done so ages ago.

Why isn't it feasible? Lots of activities cause harm to the participant (why bring 3rd parties in to the issue if we are talking healthcare strain?) but are not banned.

The problem is it harms non-participants as well. That's why this is being banned all over the world.

It's fine if you want to smoke in your own house, or outside where there's fresh air, but if you smoke indoors in a public place you're using your choice to harm yourself and at the same time harming everybody around you.

[SlowwHand]

I'm supposed to cry over a "maybe" for the waitress? She can trot her ass out to a drive-in hamburger stand if she's so torn up over the possibility.

[Asher]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
I'm supposed to cry over a "maybe" for the waitress? She can trot her ass out to a drive-in hamburger stand if she's so torn up over the possibility.

And you can trot your ass out the front door to smoke if you're so torn up over the possibility.

And it's not a "maybe", FWIW, it's happened to many people. There was recently a "stop-smoking" campaign in Alberta featuring a woman dying of lung cancer who worked as a waitress for 20 years and died from second hand smoke. She'd never smoked and she worked long shifts in the smokey restaurant to support her kids as a single mother.

She died from the lung cancer shortly after the commercials began airing.

[SlowwHand]

Probably the same waitress that jogs down the street behind a bus.

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
I'm supposed to cry over a "maybe" for the waitress? She can trot her ass out to a drive-in hamburger stand if she's so torn up over the possibility.

Your rights do not extend to harming others because you have a death wish. Sorry.

[Asher]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Probably the same waitress that jogs down the street behind a bus.

Tasteless.

When you're an uneducated single mother, you do what you can to survive.

It's awful that you're tossing aside the noble effort by a single mother who died so you don't have to bear the inconvenience of smoking outside.

[SlowwHand]

What are you speaking for? You can't even breathe with no smoke around you. Go. Get out of here.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Asher

The problem is it harms non-participants as well. That's why this is being banned all over the world.

It's fine if you want to smoke in your own house, or outside where there's fresh air, but if you smoke indoors in a public place you're using your choice to harm yourself and at the same time harming everybody around you.

I was responding to this:

If you wanna smoke, go outside. Better yet, grow a pair and stop doing something you know is stupid.

Your statement implied I was alone or at least with other smokers ("go outside"). No harm to anyone else.

I'm not arguing against smoking bans (it's a tired debate), just don't offer up BS economic reasons rather than much more sound public health issues.