So last year my city council narrowly passed a smoking ban. Since Jan. 1 this year everything has been smoke free, including restaurants and bars. And it has been wonderful. I can now go to a bar with friends without having to hold my breath when somone walks by (in case they are a smoker) or if I need to go use the bathroom or something. You see, I have asthma. Normally, its well controlled, but smoke is one of those triggers that can really aggravate it. It can start me up coughing or wheezing or worse. Plus, I just hate the smell of smoke. I don't wear strong perfumes or scents or anything-- I try to be considerate too. So the ban was passed. And it has been nice. Also if DH goes out with friends after work he no longer smells when he comes home!

We recently had city council elections. The Mayo, a piper smoker, is planning to call for a vote to immediately repeal the smoking ban. Unfortunately it will probably get repealed.

I think this is very silly for a couple of reasons. No. 1: My state is waiting on a signature from the govenor to pass a Statewide smoking ban starting in Jan. The Gov said he will probably most likely sign. No. 2: If the buisinesses and everyone had six months to prepare for going smoke free, shouldn't they have six months to prepare to go back to smoking? And since it has been five months, aren't they used to it by now. They claim it is hurting buisiness, that smokers are going elsewhere. Maybe a few people-- I don't see that when I go out. Places look just as crowded to me as they always did. Besides, we only have small towns immediately around my city (pop about 180,000) There aren't many other places for people to go unless they are willing to travel.

So what are they going to do, repeal a ban so they can smoke for six more months? How bad is their nicotine craving? This just seems crazy to me.

Any thoughts?

Actually, I was referring to the smoke smell. You know, not the smell you get when you are right next to a smoker, but the stench that you can smell across the room. I don't know if they are just particularly heavy smokers or if they just don't bother to bathe and wash their clothes, but it is stomach-turning to me. Those people literally make me sick. I get nauseated, my throat hurts, and I get headaches, along with my asthma acting up.

Oh, yah, I know what you are talking about. I have two smoker friends, both male, both single, and both living below the poverty line who can really reek of stale smoke and some other odor which I choose not to define other than to say that this is what men smell like when undiluted by soap and water! Come to think of it, I have another friend who occasionally smells like that but without the overlay of stale smoke.:phanvan None of these guys live in a houses with ready access to their own personal washers and dryers.:cry They all have to leave home in order to do their laundry!

And you are still wrong, IMO. There isn't any comparison between obesity and smoking. You can't just choose not to eat. Like Kat said, you can't choose to smoke healthily.

Lauren, that does NOT make it ANY less of an addiction! Food is our addiction, smoking is an addiction for some of us. Just because one may have easier aspects to it than another does not mean it isn't an addiction.

An addiction is an addiction, period.

I think there should be a fat tax. If you are above a 25BMI then you pay $1.00 per calorie and an additional $0.50 per fat gram for restaurant food. Fat people cost the medical system a buttload of money, it's time we fatties started paying up! Just like smokers. You don't NEED restaurant food to survive. Eat twigs, eat leaves, but you don't need restaurant food to survive.

Maybe we should apply the same fat tax to grocery store foods. You don't NEED white rice, flour, fried chicken, donuts, crackers, etc. etc. etc. to survive. I think $1.00 per calorie and $0.50 per fat gram should start paying for the costs to society for we fatties.

This is the only post I am ever going to make to this thread. I'm not going to debate the issue or give any opinion either way. I only have one statement to make. On November 17, 2004 my mother (who smoked for 50+ years but had quit ten years earlier) died of complications of lung cancer. She will never see my children grow up.

Sorry to hear that. My Dad died 4/26/05 of colon cancer that was very likely related to excess fat and crap in his diet.

As for my own personal level of addiction, I am kinda stuck. I am on Zyban under its other name, Wellbutrin. It is one of the antidepressants which I am on. Unfortunately it ain't doing too much with respect to trimming back my nicotine habit, dammit!

Are you taking the 150mg extended release version twice daily?

In 1998, the London Telegraph reported that the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted one of the largest studies ever done on passive smoking and then tried to suppress the study because it concluded: http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/Editorials/Vol-1/e1-4.htm

Well, I used to smoke when I was in my teens and early 20's, then I quit when I was 22. 14 years later and after my surgery, I picked it back up again, but not every day and only 1-5 cigs on the days when I do smoke.

Since I've had this sinus infection for the last three weeks, I have not one the entire time, because it really increases my coughing. So I'm thinking that if I've gone three weeks without one, I can just keep going.

However, I really love smoking. I really do. It's sooooo relaxing to end the day with a smoke and a glass of wine on my steps. I really look forward to that great time in the evening and relaxing with a smoke.

I don't believe that 1-5 cigs a few times a week significantly increases my risk of lung cancer, even though a recent study said it increases it five times that of a non-smoker. I think heavy smokers have something like a 15 times increased risk. I don't think it's any worse for my lungs than inhaling all the pollution here in Philly.

Now with regard to the smoking ban, we do have the ban here in Philly, and I am not in favor of it, even though I'm planning on quitting. I think that it is more than sufficient to have non-smoking sections in restaurants and bars. Quite frankly it feels really really odd to me to go into a little neighborhood corner dive bar nowadays and there's no one smoking. It really ruins the character of a place.

There should be smoking and non-smoking sections, and maybe even I would go so far as to say smoking and non-smoking establishments. That way, if someone wants to go hang out and smoke at a local pub, they can, while if they want to enjoy dinner in a totally smoke-free environment, they can do that also.

I generally tend to not like laws that limit anyone's freedom of choice.

Are you taking the 150mg extended release version twice daily?

I am currently on Wellbutrin XL 300mg which I take with my morning coffee.

I am currently on Wellbutrin XL 300mg which I take with my morning coffee.

This won't likely work since you've been on the drug for a while but for smoking you have to take it 150mg extended release twice daily.

This makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE because the 300 once daily should do exactly the same thing. But for smokers, it just doesn't. It works for depression but not smoking unless it is 150mg version twice daily.

Addiction is addiction, whether it be to alcohol, crack, heroin, nicotine, or whatever........ Addiction is not a question moral failure as much as it is a medical problem with physiological and psychological dimensions.

It often seems to me that this business of the smoker has become in the way of a witch hunt over the past 25 years. It is easy to squeal that that nasty smoker who is smoking outside but near the entrance of your building is gonna kill you but scientifically this is not so. Toxins are scrutinized in parts per million and outdoors second-hand smoke is negligible. It is much easier to blame the smoker for polluting your air than to blame those who drive cars, especially those who drive the guzzlers such as SUVs, and it is much easier to blame smokers than to turn off your air conditioner or to hang your laundry outside to dry. Or, for that matter, to skip the disposable diapers. A child will go through approximately 10,000 diapers before he is continent.

I live in an area where summer has become a nightmare. Everytime we have a heatwave we suffer from toxic air. Yep, we have smog advisories and these are caused by industrial and vehicular pollution. But it has become easy to villify the smoker. This is a sign of careless thinking, I think.

As for the argument that the smoker is a charge on the medical system, well, let us examine this. Both the smoker and the morbidly obese will suffer from an array of medical problems from which your skinny non-smoker will likely be free. Big people and smokers will have a greater liability to suffer from heart disease and strokes. Smokers are subject to cancers and emphysema. Big people are subject to diabetes, problems when having dental work done (due to diabetes), possible blindness (due to diabetes), joint problems, possible amputations (due to diabetes), life in a wheelchair. Both smokers and big folk have problems with blood pressure and they say that ain't good. I am speaking here as an amateur, of course; I am sure that Was a BB can fill you in much better than I can on all the medical facts.

Of course smoking is not good for you. Everyone knows that. Even/especially the smoker. I am, however, amazed at the inordinate rage which so many people feel now towards the smoker.

This won't likely work since you've been on the drug for a while but for smoking you have to take it 150mg extended release twice daily.

This makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE because the 300 once daily should do exactly the same thing. But for smokers, it just doesn't. It works for depression but not smoking unless it is 150mg version twice daily.

Thanks for the info, grrl. I can easily get my regimen changed.

I think there should be a fat tax. If you are above a 25BMI then you pay $1.00 per calorie and an additional $0.50 per fat gram for restaurant food. Fat people cost the medical system a buttload of money, it's time we fatties started paying up! Just like smokers. You don't NEED restaurant food to survive. Eat twigs, eat leaves, but you don't need restaurant food to survive.

Maybe we should apply the same fat tax to grocery store foods. You don't NEED white rice, flour, fried chicken, donuts, crackers, etc. etc. etc. to survive. I think $1.00 per calorie and $0.50 per fat gram should start paying for the costs to society for we fatties.

This is probably going to come out a little more harsh than I mean it because I'm all stressed out but are you serious?! There are so many people who are above a 25 BMI but aren't overweight, even if that tells them they are. By the BMI standard anyone who body builds is overweight, should they have to pay this tax too? What about the people with actual health reasons (like Vinesqueen) for their weight gain or lack of weight loss? Or the people that just naturally bottom out above that BMI level, etc. I'll actually agree that the cigarette tax has gotten out of hand, but damn..

If you were being sarcastic, I'll take it all back, but I don't get the feeling you are.

I was making a point.

I am in favour of smoking bans, I like Green, live in Canada and we have a smoking ban in all public places. As well I did not smoke in my house or in my vehicle because of the kids. What this meant for me was that I was unable to enjoy any cigarete that I smoked for the last few years I smoked. I quit four years ago and because I no longer was able to sit and relax and enjoy a smoke I only had to overcome the physical addiction not the phsycological addiction.

I would never lecture anyone on smoking simply because I know they know all about the evils of smoking and I also know that for the most part smokers would prefer not to smoke. They don't quit because it is very difficult. Smoking bans, in my opinion make it easier for smokers to quit and for that reason I am all for them.

I think a tax on say, foods with trans fats in them, would be quite reasonable looking at all the stuff on them that indicates how bad they are for people's health. So it would make sense that people who eat trans fats are going to develope more cardiac problems than people who don't. And that is certainly going it be expensive. Of course someone who buys more trans fats is going to pay more. Just like someone who buys more cigarets is going to pay more. But right now we don't have people pay taxes on the state of their lungs or things like that-- they get taxed on what they buy.

I also think pollution is bad. I recycle- we have our paper bin, our cans, our plastics, our cardboard, things like that. I try to be environmentally friendly-- I don't buy antibacterial soap or flush tampons or excess pills, for example.

As mystifying as those sorts of things can be, or even easy to ignore, I think that air quality can be one of those things thats impossible to ignore. When I was a kid my home town had this HUGE debate about leaf burning. It sort of reminds me of the smoking ban issue only I can understand both sides of the issue with the smoking ban in general. What I never understood back then was how so many people would get so passionate, angry even, about their right to burn leaves in their yeards. Nobody would have cared if the smoke stayed in the yards too, but of course it doesn't. So it would become hazy. And then there were people like me who didn't understand why leaf burning didn't become illegal years ago because it certainly seemed like we should be able to breath-- and unlike choosing to enter or not enter an establishment, this was smoke that was everywhere. There was no choice for those of us with asthma. This is different (though people who smoke in doorways of campus buildings and the like really do need to stop doing that. I don't care if they wan't to go light up in their apartments or whever. I'm not telling them not to smoke. I'm just saying, don't get smoke in the air I have to breath). There is common curtesy (which is one of the reasons I don't run after tanned people handing out samples of sunscreen even though I watched my father die of Melanoma and I think they would like to avoid it), but a lot of people aren't curteous. And people do have addictions and problems and other issues. So we legistlate things. I'm not sure that we should. But we do.