Let smokers smoke.

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We all remember how Coca-Cola got its name.

T'wasn't the sugar content.

Well, look, for example, at these guys

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKHgVN7Bjww&feature=related[/youtube]

Back then, their body types would have been regarded as perfectly normal. Paul might have even been considered a tad chubby.

Looking at this performance now, 43 years later, the Beatles seem emaciated.

We're now so accustomed to seeing fatties that a normal body type from 40+ years ago now seems so thin as possibly to be unhealthy.

By the way, George Harrison knew that his cancer resulted from his stupid smoking

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ancer.html

Bhutan does sound great!

Bhutan introduced democracy in 2008--it isn't an "authoritarian dictatorship."

The sale and smuggling of tobacco became illegal in 2010.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/ ... 74,00.html

Now that Inuyasha has introduced me to the work of Edward Bernays, I am beginning to understand that populations are manipulated into doing things that are personally unhealthy.

His book "Propaganda" has just arrived--and I am about to start reading it.

(by the way, I'm sure that you are aware of the American meaning of the word "fag", and the humorous misunderstandings that can result?)

So now we're banning sodapop .
If the BS about obesity won’t fly for long because it is BS, of course. I drank it like water when I was a kid and so did a lot of others but it didn’t make us fat.
Failing the obesity argument I’m sure there will be some junk science about the bubbles in sodapop damaging the ozone or whatever and a campaign will launched off of that.
This thread is supposed to be about smoking, anyway.

It's always a pleasure to suck on the butts of fags.

I am WOUNDED.

Just for your sake I embedded "fag" in my post [fully aware of four common mreanings for the word - or words, we could discuss that] and you throw this at Tequila.

Of course, I had to have Londoners explain to me the American meaning of at least two words.

How familiar are you with cigar smokers vs cigarette smokers? The difference is similar to that between the guy that drinks bud light for the intoxicating effect vs a wine or spirit connoisseur who isn't so much interested in the alcohol content of their beverage as the flavor. Cigars are a very different animal from cigarettes, the tobacco is processed differently, the smoking technique is not the same, and even the ph value of the resulting smoke is reversed (which is why even cigarette smokers get sick if they try to inhale from a cigar). I know a lot of cigar smokers, and not one of them smokes for the nicotine, it's all about flavor and a relaxing pastime. I smoke when I feel like it, not out of some need for nicotine; if they made a denicotized cigar that still tasted good I'd have no problem at all with smoking it. That's the other ceiling on cigar smoking for most people, the average cigar packs enough nicotine to give you a strong buzz, and unless you're desensitized you don't really want to smoke them in huge quantities, aside from that being at odds with the very nature of most cigar smoking.

As to my insurance company, I used their data precisely because they have a reason to lie... A motive that says they should exaggerate the health risks so they can jack up my premium, not the other way around. That they're NOT doing that should tell you a lot about what the science actually says about the risks of cigar smoking. Extrapolating further, if it takes two full cigars daily to trigger any noticeable ill effect in me the smoker, just how much second hand smoke must it take to cause legitimate health concerns for a passerby who happens to get a whiff?





No, all the rhetoric around second hand smoke focuses on the claimed health effects, and for a reason; most people are not in favor of legislating politeness into the law. Smoking was ubiquitous for years, but it's only been in recent years that we've seen these real crusades against smoking and smokers, and they're always spearheaded by health claims. Without the health claims, smoking bans would be dead in the water and the people backing them know this. Laws banning screaming and smelly children in public wouldn't fly, nor would b.o. bans or public farting legislation (except in some parts of Africa apparantly), because even though people hate all of those things they can't claim some sort of health effect in order to justify a law. Never mind that the second hand smoke exposure has to be consistent and heavy for a prolonged period to really have an effect, it gave people who just plain don't like smoking and smokers the fig leaf they needed to ram their personal preferences down society's collective throat.

It's pure tyranny of the majority, and that's been my position since long before I touched a cigar.

I agree with the titles topic. let smokers smoke! the smoking laws are getting rediclous.

almost as ridiculous as drug laws.

ruveyn

some people will still call for the laws no matter how well (or not) they are justified.

Except for the specific dealers involved, what difference is there?

Cigarette smokers pay taxes on their filth, generally are not imprisoned for smoking cigarettes (although probably the majority of people in prison are smokers), and, because their filth is legal, are generally more brazen than illegal drug users.

And likewise for the dealers and users of C2H5OH, C8H10N4O2, C9H11NO where that is legal, and other intriguing compounds. But I was not referring to the different treatment by the government, predictable from to (Xa - Yb) Zc, where X = number of users, a = socioeconomic class of users, Y = number of citizens negatively impacted, b = socioeconomic class of the negatively impacted, Z = number of dealers and c = contribution to the party of the dealers.

I was referring rather to the similarity of principle, in that a person who habitually uses a drug will inevitably impact himself and others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_smoking

Of course, the tobacco industry, which wants to destroy as many lives as possible in the name of profits, is doing its best to persuade the public otherwise.

They DO NOT want to destroy lives. Dead people do not buy anything. The objective of the tobacco companies is to make a profit, not to destroy lives. You are letting your moral judgments blind you to simple facts. People who sell stuff to others want them to live on and keep on buying.

ruveyn