I assume every single Birther, anti-health care reform, anti-bailout conservative yelling in the streets is adamantly opposed to any part of this since it is government interference in our lives. Not to mention restraint of trade on the poor, downtrodden tobacco companies trying to make a few God-given right to earn American dollars!
Hey, you! Stop smoking in my atmosphere!
That’s the message from New York City, where the mayor and health commissioner have just released a policy agenda called “Take Care New York 1012.” Page 10 of the document says the city’s health department “will work with the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation and other entities to expand smoke-free spaces to include city parks and public beaches.” The city council speaker is very interested in the idea, but her help might not be necessary if the parks department can implement the ban as a regulation.
[…]
Then the crusade moved on to apartment buildings, extending the same theory: You can’t smoke in your apartment, because the smoke seeps under your door into hallways and other people’s apartments.Now this rationale has moved outdoors. Way outdoors. David Kessler, the former FDA commissioner who led the anti-smoking fight in the 1990s, says New York City is doing the right thing, because “the majority of the population today doesn’t want to be breathing in tobacco smoke, whether indoors or outdoors.”
[…]
But do I have the right to that standard of purity? If so, doesn’t that justify a ban on smoking absolutely anywhere?
They are gonna loose a lot of NYC tax revenue if they do this.
Hey, Uncle Dave, isn’t New York City the bastion of Democratic thinking?
Just a preview of ObamaCare.
We managed fine for thousands of years before native Americans gave us tobacco. This smoking thing is just a passing fad, there are other ways of getting drugs into your system.
I would care but I stopped smoking tobacco years ago.
Smoking killed my father (lung cancer) and probably shortened my mom’s life (she quit smoking 15 years before she died, but still had trouble with emphysema). Somehow I wish the sale of tobacco could be stopped, but it won’t happen.
Meh,
Smoking in parks where I live is banned. It’s pretty unenforceable, but I think it’s a “good thing”. Parks, for lots of people, are for family/kids time. And butt litter is pretty nasty. Especially if kids start picking them up. BLECH.
Social engineering by the force of Govt. regulations is evil and it should be banned…
Normally, I am all for personal rights and what not, but I have to deviate here.
YES… Cigarettes should be banned all together, they do no one any good, except the state and big tobacco.
Agreed. No smoking outdoors because it releases pollutants into the air. So, obviously, the government will ban driving outdoors as well, right?…….Right?
Or is it OK to pollute while driving but not while smoking because of some twisted logic?
#5, I suppose you also support the ban of beer.
Just ban the damn things altogether.
Seriously (sort of) to make the government option really cheap, put a clause in that your coverage varies depending on how long it’s been since you smoked, with some factor for age. If you’re dumb enough to smoke, you’re gonna die just like it says on the package.
If they don’t spend it on ‘baccy, they’ll what? Save it?
“Hey, Uncle Dave, isn’t New York City the bastion of Democratic thinking?”
New York City is incredibly conservative, actually.
“Just a preview of ObamaCare.”
Yeah. Because your health insurance premiums now don’t go up if you’re a smoker.
Oh wait.
If this happens. People will hide out in the back stair well of my APT building smoking there cigs. At least outside the nasty stuff will get blown away and land on the ground. in my building the stuff will get all over the walls and the smell will permeate.
I am sort of a snob these days. When I walk by people on the street who are smoking cigs, I close my mouth and blow air out of my nostrils in a slow controlled manner hoping it will push away any smoke and poisons that may drift near my nose.
I do not support taxes on tobacco. I dont support taxes on Marijuana. I dont support taxes period. IMO if people had all their money they would spend it in the community, more people would be able to hire house keepers, nannys, butlers, etc. More home improvements could be made. This all ads up to more jobs and a better economy. If a government employee screws up they dont get fired (Janet Reno), if a private employee screws up they get fired.
check out the HempUSA infomercials by clicking my name.
I am sort of a snob these days.
These days?
That implies that there was a time when you weren’t a snob, which seems very unlikely.
Judging by the article and the serious anti-smoking comments here (ignoring the sarcastic one), the US has gone friggin’ nuts.
“…blow air out of my nostrils in a slow controlled manner hoping it will push away any smoke and poisons that may drift near my nose.”
Wow.
I agree, but i want it expanded to include perfume. And don’t get me started on smelly people. Oh and crying baby’s. Oh and dumb asses talking on cell phones.
Uncle Dave, once again from far left-field supposes “I assume every single Birther, anti-health care reform, anti-bailout conservative yelling in the streets is adamantly opposed to any part of this…”
Don’t forget the libs who will be screaming bloody hell when the government says the cigarette tax stream has dried up and Joe Citizen will have to make up for the tax shorfall.
No. Prohibition, and the current war on pot, should have taught us that making something illegal simple creates a black market, which fosters organized crime.
I would like to hear from a smoker… if I am walking down the street and pass you wile you are smoking, is it ok if I am leaving a plume of asbestos dust behind me for you (and anyone else) to walk through?
If I can’t walk down the street swigging whisky then why should all you garbage-breathed smokers be permitted to smoke in public?
@#15.
I’m just a snob in the fact that I used to google to educate myself and see that the cheap foods are poison (MSG, HFCS, Partialy Hydrogenated fats, GMO, Soy is estrogen and in everything etc.) It takes a fortune to eat healthy and I inherited a small one a few years ago. So I have been snobbing it up at whole foods, and not eating any garbage at all.
I spend triple on local organic weed, so I can avoid the DYNCORP sprayed US Tax Payer funded Mexican Weed.
Yep been a snob for a few years now. I invested in metals when the financial adviser at the bank told me to buy stocks. funny I don’t see that guy working at the bank any more.
After the radicals ban smoking they can start on vehicle exhaust. They already did a fine job on fireplace smoke.
Banning cigarettes will be as effective as banning alcohol was in the 1920’s. All it did was create a huge black market and enriched the criminal element. Same as the “War on Drugs” ™. Tax ’em, but keep ’em legal. And allow them to be smoked out-of-doors.
For those who want to clean up outdoor pollution – your gas-powered lawn mower, leaf-blower and trimmer are WAY more of an issue. Heck, they pollute worse than cars! Switch to electric and you’ll have far more effect than trying to ban something people want.
For those who are worried about deleterious health effects, and want the government to control them for ‘the public good’ are we going to next ban Krispy Kremes? Hershey Bars? Potato Chips? Soft Drinks? Those are all dangerous in their own ways, albeit, not as dangerous as tobacco or alcohol. But if you get rid of the ‘worst’ there is always a ‘next worse’ which becomes the ‘worst’ and the cycle repeats itself.
If people have unhealthy lifestyles, charge them more for insurance but leave the rest of us alone! We don’t need a nanny or a mom. I have one mom and that”s more than enough. Never had nor needed a nanny.
I can’t see why they don’t just ban it outright..Oh yeah, right, all the sin tax income states and the federal government make from it.
#24, stogie, they’re already working on vehicle exhaust and have been for decades. Most people have awakened to the fact that we poison our air and water with indiscretion. There is no stone being unturned, so smoking shouldn’t be an exception.
If they banned tobacco tomorrow I wouldn’t care, except for the part where I put up with my wife going without.
#7, dusan,
This is not social engineering. It is the majority not wanting to accept the uncaring, discourteous attitude of smokers any longer.
I will make you a deal. You don’t smoke in my face and I won’t piss on your car seat.
#25, Penguintopia, re: “are we going to next ban Krispy Kremes? Hershey Bars? Potato Chips?”
When you eat a Krispy Kreme, I don’t have to eat it too. That the difference.
Then they need to ban eating fast food in public as well. Obesity is a much bigger problem in the U.S along with its associated diseases.
Banning smoking causes global warming…
Hey, it’s no crazier than the cow fart theory…