For those of you who don't live in Ohio, and/or don't know about it, a law passed in the last election -- effective tomorrow -- wherein there is NO SMOKING in ANY workplace or public place. Not only do you hafta step outside to smoke, you can only do it in approved areas.

Even on your own property. Think about that.

The guy I work for owns this building. He owns it. Period. The poor schumck can't even step out into the plant and have a cigarette -- in his own building.

A few thoughts:

*** We have liquor licenses for businesses, why not have smoking licenses?

*** The new Smoke-Free Ohio Law is not a health issue. It's about property ownership and the right to conduct business as an owner sees fit.

*** Maybe the next move should be to forbid unruly children to dine in adult restaurants -- now there's an idea (for those people who want to spend quality time with their kids).

*** Or, perhaps it will soon be illegal for obese people to order fattening foods. After all, some people are disgusted by watching an overweight person eat. Think about what that does to the observer's stress level, watching a fat person scarf down a cheeseburger.....

OH, WAIT. That has already begun. New York City, just yesterday, has banned restaurants from using trans fats. Excuse me, but I thought that people who OWN a business can use whatever ingredients they want -- fully declaring them to their customers -- and then if the customer doesn't want to eat that food they can choose NOT to eat at that establishment.

It's all about choice, folks. And now Ohio business owners no longer have the choice to do what they want within their own walls.

And don't think I'm up on my soapbox because I'm a smoker. I'm an EX-smoker. This has NOTHING to do with smoking. It has EVERYTHING to do with control.

Wow. Now I feel better.

Tired O man-

I understnad what you are saying and saw what you meant in your last post about the job. Many smokers begin around 16-22.. that IS the age of consent and they know that it is addictive that and alcohol abstinece is pushed and pused in school. HOWEVER.. one of my favorite customers quit smoking after 45 yrs. He just deceided and quit. Sure he was cranky a little but he got thru it. If HE can do it any one can. I also find it ironic that he LOOKS like the Marborlo man... very wrinkly like a sharpei. But he is very happy he did it. I am happy too. I think this guy is great and want him around as mucha s possible.

Also once he quit 8 regulars ( they all hang out) decided to quit together. 6 did and havent smoked in 5 months or so. The other 2 gave up. Still these are old smokers who finally wanted to get rid of the habit. I am proud of all of them and hope they can continue to resist.

I am always impressed by those who have given up smoking and I can fully understand why non-smokers demand to have the right to work in a smoke free work place but let us get real here - during that period when smokers ruled folks were not dropping off with smoke-related illnesses in huge numbers due to their exposure to second hand smoke. There is some degree of hysteria here and some of it is deliberately misguided, I think.

It is much easier to blame all our air-borne nasties on second-hand smoke than it is to finger our inefficient power plants and the inefficient transit systems - i.e. the car - that North American society has chosen to continue with.

I live in southern Ontario, in a city that is considered the 6th largest city in North America. As the summers have grown hotter and hotter our region has suffered more and more with heat and smog advisories. These advisories mean that we should stay indoors and refrain from physical activity. What makes our air so toxic is that it is too damn hot and smoggy to go outside and as a result everyone has their A/C running. Some of our power plants are still fired by coal and that ain't a good thing. The other thing that makes our air so toxic is that, even though this big city has a superb mass transit system, many people still choose to drive. Cars spend a lot of time idling and when they are doing this they are pumping a lot of toxins into the air. My city has recently enacted an anti-idling law but how are you going to enorce this?

It is so much easier to blame everything upon the smoker and this certainly does let all the big players off the hook.

Cancer cures smoking.

When someone says, I wish I had as many guys/girls as I wanted, I say be careful what you wish for!

I wish I were a Super Genius.

Call ACME, order a rocket sled and a catapult, and you too can be a supergenius!

I wish I were a Super Genius.

January 1st Texas raised the tax on a pack of cigarettes by $1.00, making them about $4.50 per pack. I wish they would not resort to "sin" taxes. The die-hard smokers will ante up the extra $$$, even if their kids have to go barefoot to do it.

To my knowledge, no one has talked about restricting people's smoking inside their homes. What has been discussed is the restriction of smoking in businesses and in public. If someone chooses to have a business in their home, they are consciously agreeing to abide by laws governing businesses, including smoking laws.

There is proof that second-hand smoke can give you cancer. It may take a lot of it, or it may not. I am certain that some people are more susceptible to cancer caused by smoke. Now, if someone wants to kill themselves, they can go right ahead. But things are different if they are doing something that can cause other people to become ill or die.

Let me put it this way: As long as you are at least 21, you can legally drink as much alcohol as you want. Heck, you can kill yourself with it if you want, and no one can stop you. But if you sit behind the wheel of a car or do something else while intoxicated that puts other people at risk, it becomes illegal. Again, I couldn't care less if someone wants to kill themselves with cigarrettes. But if they risk my health or the heath of the people around me, you better believe that I will lobby to have their smoking rights restricted.

I'm with you Bullwinkle. It's about control. There is NO proof whatsoever that standing in a park outside where someone is smoking 50ft away will give you cancer. Ugh... Whatever.

You are correct, BUT

How do you stop someone from walking up next to you in a park and blowing smoke in your face? Do you pass a 3 foot law or 5 feet or 10 feet? How do you enforce that? Require every non-smoker to carry a tape measure?

I remember when they passed a law about no smoking in office buildings and other businesses. To enter a building you had to run through a gambit of smokers and a cloud of smoke.

There is no smoking on NYC buses. So smokers used to stand on the bus stop and wait for the driver to threaten to close the door before boarding. The smoker would take in one huge drag just before he boarding the bus and exhale it after he sat down. If 5 smokers got on the bus at a stop, the bus reeked of tobacco smoke.

It is actions like that which caused the further crackdowns which you see as unreasonable. If smokers hadn't abused the laws, the laws would not have needed to be strengthened.

Years ago, when I still smoked, my husband, my son and I were at the hospital awaiting the birth of my first grandchild. There was a "non-smoking" waiting room for those who preferred not to inhale our noxious fumes. My DIL's father (himself an ex-smoker), came over to where we were - the SMOKING WAITING ROOM - and started complaining about the smoke! When I pointed out the obvious to him (that there was a waiting area reserved for non-smokers), he said, "But it's full of little kids running all over the place."

Moral of this story.....some people are never happy, no matter what.

As a smoker myself, I hate that I smoke and I'm not strong enough to quit the nasty habit for good! It's not like you can just quit because someone tells you you need to. It's not that easy, for me at least. I've quit several times and am attempting to quit now, but I struggle with it everyday of my life. I know it's unhealthy for me, hell, I'm a nurse! And, I totally understand that it's offensive to lots of people, but I think our government has to much control over what we do already without passing laws like this 1. Here in Texas, it's on a city by city basis. Some cities you can smoke in resturants and others you can't. However, no matter how offensive it is to you, the smoker is also an American citizen with rights just like nonsmokers have. I'm not saying smokers should be able to smoke when and where ever they want to, but there should be some kind of limits on what the government is and isn't able to tell us what to do and how to do it. It's sort of like Nazi Germany here now. Not just about smoking either, but I won't go into other issues on this thread. What's going to be next though? Think about it people. Are they going to pass a law that fat people can't be in certain places? What about being descriminated against about your weight for jobs. What about companies not covering you on insurance because you are obese? Even worse, what about not being able to get insurance because you have been found to have genetic defects for diabetes, hemophilia, etc. These are huge issues everyone needs to think about when they choose 1 issue to be so strong willed about. This is America and we are supposed to be THE LAND OF THE FREE! So which of the freedoms you as a nonsmoker willing to give up because someone doesn't like what you do? How about fast food, or eating in resturants at all. Maybe eating certain foods like beef being outlawed? Just some food for thought. No pun intended!

As a smoker myself, I hate that I smoke and I'm not strong enough to quit the nasty habit for good! It's not like you can just quit because someone tells you you need to. It's not that easy, for me at least. I've quit several times and am attempting to quit now, but I struggle with it everyday of my life. I know it's unhealthy for me, hell, I'm a nurse! And, I totally understand that it's offensive to lots of people, but I think our government has to much control over what we do already without passing laws like this 1. Here in Texas, it's on a city by city basis. Some cities you can smoke in resturants and others you can't. However, no matter how offensive it is to you, the smoker is also an American citizen with rights just like nonsmokers have. I'm not saying smokers should be able to smoke when and where ever they want to, but there should be some kind of limits on what the government is and isn't able to tell us what to do and how to do it. It's sort of like Nazi Germany here now. Not just about smoking either, but I won't go into other issues on this thread. What's going to be next though? Think about it people. Are they going to pass a law that fat people can't be in certain places? What about being descriminated against about your weight for jobs. What about companies not covering you on insurance because you are obese? Even worse, what about not being able to get insurance because you have been found to have genetic defects for diabetes, hemophilia, etc. These are huge issues everyone needs to think about when they choose 1 issue to be so strong willed about. This is America and we are supposed to be THE LAND OF THE FREE! So which of the freedoms you as a nonsmoker willing to give up because someone doesn't like what you do? How about fast food, or eating in resturants at all. Maybe eating certain foods like beef being outlawed? Just some food for thought. No pun intended!

I like to shoot my 350 magnum. I am an America too so I just shoot it off where and when I want. I am a free man.

The difference between abuse of foods and shooting off a gun or smoking a cigarette is that abusing food only hurts the abuser. Shooting a gun only hurts the people around the shooter, but cigarettes hurt both the user and the people around him.

It is a much more valid analogy to compare smoking in a crowd and shooting a gun in a crowd, than to compare smoking with poor eating habits.

The thing is, all those things you wrote don't hurt other people. Smoking does. There will probably never be a law passed that denies people the right to smoke. If a law was passed that said that people could no longer buy cigarrettes or denied them the right to smoke in their own homes, I would probably not support it. Where someone can smoke is another matter. Personally, I don't think I have been around that many smokers who truly cared about the people around them when they smoked. The vast majority didn't care that they were blowing their smoke into the wind so that it blew back in other people's faces. They didn't care that they made people walk through a haze of smoke to get into a building.

This is the way I think about it: If a large group of people have a habit that is harmful to other people, and the majority refuse to consider other people's well-being, then the government has every right to make them consider it. Consider my analogy to alcohol laws. I don't drink much alcohol. I don't care if other people drink alcohol, it's their bodies. I can't stop them legally and I don't want to stop them. On the other hand, it is illegal for them to drink and do something that can potentially harm others. I view smoking laws the same way. I don't care if the average Joe smokes, he has that right. But when his smoke has the potential to affect my health, I expect the law to protect me by limiting where he can smoke.

I also find it stupid for people who hate smoke to deliberately expose themselves to it and then complain about it, when they had a reasonable smoke-free alternative. For example, as a non-smoker, I never eat in the smoking section of a restaurant. I will always choose the non-smoking section, even if there is a much longer wait. I avoid restaurants that do not have a non-smoking section. I don't want to smell the smoke or wind up with the stench of it on me for the rest of the day. I don't go to bars or clubs, because the vast majority in my area allow smoking.

I like to shoot my 350 magnum. I am an America too so I just shoot it off where and when I want. I am a free man.

The difference between abuse of foods and shooting off a gun or smoking a cigarette is that abusing food only hurts the abuser. Shooting a gun only hurts the people around the shooter, but cigarettes hurt both the user and the people around him.

It is a much more valid analogy to compare smoking in a crowd and shooting a gun in a crowd, than to compare smoking with poor eating habits.

Oh Tired_Old_Man,

You are sooooooo wrong on that 1. Your and I have to add mine as well, over eating causes every American taxpayer money everyday! The co-morbities obese people have cause insurance to cost more, therefore, healthcare in general costs more. So, the abuse of foods does hurt other people. As a nurse, I can tell you that over eating is the 2nd leading cause of death in this country, right behind tobacco abuse. So, the analogy is right on. And, you didn't have anything to say about the genetic profiling we are facing in the near future. Is Uncle Sam going to make people with genetic defects like diabetes stop having children? I can assure you, that once the government gets involved in ANY area of our personal lives, everything else is up for grabs! That also includes your ability to own that 350 magnum you like to shoot. Now gun control is a hot topic!

Wow. Really? You buy his cigarettes -- contributing to his addiction -- but you won't take care of him if (and when) he gets sick?

Wow. That's just cold.

W0W Bullwindle,

I totally agree with you! How could someone be that cold to their spouse. Makes you wonder....:omg: