I really, really hate smokers

[C0ckney]

i've smoked weed for years (although over here you put baccy in joints), but i've always firmly believed that smoking ciggies is a mug's game. i know some people who don't smoke normally but will when they have a drink, some others will reserve smoking for when they're on pills or coke. i've tried a few times when in an altered state and don't really see what it adds to the experience.

[Elok]

Starting that way might be fine, but switching would be more difficult. The addiction to nicotine gets people to really love the feeling of smoke in their lungs. Somehow.

"Excuse me, Senator, but taking a dump on my neighbor's front doorstep has become a sort of daily ritual to me. I need to do it to be happy. This law is a slap in the face to me, and to millions of Americans like me."

[Lorizael]

Oh, you won't get any argument from me. I've had more than enough people in my family die of lung cancer.

[Boris Godunov]

Given the mess I had to sort out, yes it is. It wouldn't be stocked with considerable discussion, but I suppose you know my job better then I do.

I thought you didn't have a job. Have you been a pharmacist?

I don't think you understand what the word "policy" actually means...

Yes, I believe she acted in the way she ought to have, and we'd be better off if more pharmacists did the same. I don't believe Eckhard should have fired her, even if he was justified in doing so. Just because you are legally able to do something doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do.

The argument was not about right and wrong, it was about legal vs. illegal. You said that Eckerd (can you get the spelling right? That's the name of the pharmacy chain, not a person) shouldn't have been able to fire the pharmacist.

Still, I find this a hypocritical statement. The pharmacist took the job at Eckerd knowing full well they dispensed birth control. Given all your worship of contracts, to say it is somehow morally right for her to break her contract (i.e. lie) and refuse to do what she agreed is absurd. She lied when she agreed to sell Eckerd's products, and exposed her employer to a potential lawsuit.

She wasn't refusing the emergency contraception to some teenage girl who decided to hump her boyfriend and screwed up, it was a rape victim.

Wrong. The job of a pharmacist isn't to just rubberstamp a prescription. If it were, we'd have Mickey D clerks filling them out. I really don't understand why people don't respect the training that a pharmacist must do in order to do their job. If a prescription would provoke drug conflicts that the physician was unaware, then it's their duty not to fill out the prescription.

I didn't say that. Of course, pharmacists are expected to prevent things like overdosing and act as a safety net. That does NOT give them the right, however, to refuse to dispense a medication as a whole, if the pharmacy itself sells them. That is a completely different situation. A comparable situation would be a bartender. They have every right (and are legally required, in most cases) to refuse to serve a drink to someone if they are too drunk. They do NOT have the right to refuse to serve a product of the bar entirely, and could rightfully be sacked for it.

Then you need to spell that out in the contract. Otherwise, the employee's conscience rights trump the employers' desire. Default is, unless the employer takes steps to protect himself, that the employee's conscience takes precedent.

As I said, pharmacists contract will state they will dispense whatever medications the pharmacy carries. A blanket statement like that covers birth control.

If the employee signs the contract saying that she will prescribe contraception, then she's legally obligated. Otherwise, no.

Yes, she is. And signing a contract that says "You will dispense whatever medications we carry" meets this criteria. Ergo: obligation.

I find it baffling that you'd support an employer willing to run roughshod over employee conscience rights when it's about contraception, but would bend over backwards when it has to do with smoking.

Run roughshod? You yourself said that if an employee has signed a contract with an employer, the contract should be valid no matter what the government thinks. So an employee would have no rights beyond what is contractually ordained.

I have been consistent: The rights of an employer stop at the point where the health of a worker can be unneccessarily jeapordized, the rights of the employee stop at a point where they cause an undue burden on the employer to conduct its business.

So my position is to protect employee rights AND health, yours is not. You're only interested in protecting the consciences of a few folks who happen to share your right wing ideology. You said that you don't care about the health of a worker so long as they've signed a contract declaring their health disposable. Positively callous.

My position is consistant across both. If the employer makes it very clear that the employee will be required to do something and specifies that in the contract, and the employee signs it, then they are obligated to do so.

Which of course you don't actually believe, because you accept that contracts can be signed even between two willing parties that cannot be legally obligated, such as selling one's self into slavery. Or being a prostitute. Yeah, not so consistent.

I see dealing with smokers a core part of a job as a waitress or bartender.

Bull****. Nothing about working in a restaurant or bar NECESSITATES an exposure to smoke. The core function of a server is to serve the items that the establishment sells. It's no more a core function of the job than it would be for them to have to be threatened by exposed, faulty wiring in the restaurant or asbestos in the walls.

Contraception on the other hand is just one of tens of thousands of pharmaceuticals, and you are saying it's a core part of their job. You must see bartenders as skilled positions and pharmacists as unskilled.

Utterly absurd. The issue is that dispensing any and all medications is a core part of their job. You cannot logically isolate any particular medication from that, no more than you can isolate a particular drink from the serving duties of a bartender. If a pharmacist refused to dispense cancer medications in toto, how could you say they were NOT refusing to do the core function of their job?

If you are a john and solicit a police officer, that's your problem.

A dodge, and a nonsensical one at that. You have given a very good justification for decriminalizing prostitution, which is simply a contract for an exchange of services. Since you think that so long as two people making a contract shouldn't have any government interference, you naturally must agree therefore that prostitution should not be illegal. Yes?

And why did your signature change? The bet was until the inauguration. Put it back, please.

[Boris Godunov]

After we got the new smoking law a few years back, we've had a large growth of "snus"(dunno the english term), wet tobacco which you place under your upper lip. Especially after the bag version came on the market.

See, there's a good solution. So long as the users of chewing tobacco make sure to spit the residue or whatever its called into appropriate recepticles, they are containing the problem to themselves. Get mouth cancer, sure, but at least they don't make everyone else join them.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I was going to post about pole smoking until I saw Ming's post

JM

Damn right. Poland's been through a lot. Cut its citizens some slack would you?

[Dinner]

The only results of the smoking ban I've seen locally is a lot of restaurants set up out door seating or built patios in what used to be part of the car park while others rebranded themselves as smoke shops which served food because there is a loop hole in the state law where if the place sells tobacco products then smoking is allowed.

[Tuberski]

I remember a lot of places already having outside seating.

ACK!

[Dinner]

There is now more.

[Naked Gents Rut]

Yeah, there's a ton of outside seating here in NYC. It's really great at this time of year.

[Dinner]

You live in the wrong place.

[Naked Gents Rut]

No. New York is a thousand times more fun and happening than San Diego. Not that that's saying much. Pretty much every North American city is more exciting than San Diego.

[-Jrabbit]

Is that because of the city itself, or the fact that Oerdin lives there?

[Naked Gents Rut]

Most likely a combination of both. I'm not sure which is the bigger factor.

[Dinner]

Meh, San Diego itself is quite happening and fun but on the rare occassion I want something that isn't here then LA is just 1.75 hours away and it has EVERYTHING NYC has. It's very easy to catch a concert at LA Live in the new part of downtown or to go clubbing on Sunset Blvd. Plus I can easily smoke in Jan without freezing my balls off.

Drake is just jealous. He comes from a sucky place so now he's trying to live it up in NYC even though he used to claim NYC sucked. Sure, he's flip flopping but at least he's finally moving closer to the real world.