[ArizonaBear]

Nevada seems to have a 'reasonable' approach to indoor smoking-----------it is allowed only where under age 21 people cannot go. Bars, casinos, etc. come to mind.

[Peter B]

Originally Posted by xlabel

I think some of your assertions that anything posted that is in conflict with your perspective is stupid or ignorant shows what you are all made of.

Your response validates my statement.

[WheredoIlive?]

I am a severe asthmatic with COPD, there are simply a lot of places I cannot go because of smoking. Fortunately that is one asset in St. Joe, being a more affluent community they do have delis, ponderosa, and a few restaurants without any smoking. I wish these laws werent necessary. Smokers do not realize, that they can seriously hurt people like me or other people with heart and other problems. There is no FREEDOM in theim filling up the air with smoke, that I have to breathe. That is the problem this isnt something that does not affect other people around them. It does. I have had many events ruined by a restaurant full of smoke where the nonsmoking section was a joke. I have a friend who is healthy mostly but gets severe sinus headaches from smoke.

It doesnt take much smoke for me to be doubling over gasping for breathe either. I have ended up in ER before, when young, one time at a cartoonist club in Chicago, I really did not want to leave but this one guy did not quit smoking, I tried to tough it out, and I had to go to the ER. Even asked that guy to lighten up on the chain smoking politely. Many smokers get pissed off, even if you ask nicely and say, "I have breathing problems" {Ive asked in small town bookstores, etc, not out at the local bar, where I figure people are going to smoke.

Ive ended up having at least 20-30 punishing asthma attacks direcly from cigarrette smoke, even ending up hooked to the heart moniters and in intensive care. I even hvae to be careful in non-smoking restaurant if there is not a wall or door between rooms and no good ventilation system.

I dont go to bars or casinos, but there are a lot of nice restaurants, I simply have never been able to go to, the poster who wrote the smoke drifts over is RIGHT. One thing too I hate is sometimes when going into hospitals or other places where people smoke outside, I was taking college class in Hillsdale and smokers would all congregate around the door, I had to "try" and hold my breathe and pass through the gauntlet of smoke, to get indoors.

[Bluefly]

Why shouldn't non-smokers make a choice? As long as there is a sign indicating whether smoking is allowed or if it's banned, what is the big deal? What are you afraid of? Too many people will choose to join the smokers?

You really don't understand the core of this issue. These smokers are choosing activities that inherently and immediately inflict damage on others - if not other patrons, at least employees. As I said before, the only reason you can say "choose to go somewhere else" is because we have extensive smoking bans already in airports, offices, and other places people gather (yes - privately owned places that serve the public).

This issue is a microcosm of the economic woes afflicting Michigan. If people don't care enough about polluting and killing themselves and others in a single building, how would they ever have the motivation to innovate solutions to build twenty-first century economies that end pollution and toxins that slowly kill on a global scale?

The reason Michigan rose to power was because innovators looking for better solutions gathered here and built new industries. They have all left for the coasts and other countries now.

Michigan is a dying state. I'm in its corner until the end, but so long as there is such a large segment that tries to justify deadly behavior as "freedom", it is a state that will be left behind in the twenty-first century much like places like Alabama and Mississippi were in the 20th century when they held onto outdated racial values.

It really makes people such as myself - educated, creative, capable of creating jobs - question why I should try to work to help a state that won't help itself.

[walls]

Bluefly said...." It really makes people such as myself - educated, creative, capable of creating jobs - question why I should try to work to help a state that won't help itself."

HELP!!!.. whats next???making the trains run on time, or mandatory blond hair.......what's even more incredible is your unapologetic attitude for saying that statement......you don't "understand" "the core of this issue" it is property rights...pure and simple........read your Constitution.......the takings clause......... this is tyranny at it's "core".

[walls]

by the way..."Alabama and Mississippi were in the 20th century when they held onto outdated racial values."
are you implying smokers are akin to racists???????????????????????????????????

[Bluefly]

The role of government is to protect the citizens.

If other people choose actions that inflict damage, then they must be protected.

If those people are another country or terrorist cells, the government must use military and diplomacy to protect its citizens.

If those people are corporations pouring toxins into air or water supplies that cause high concentrations of cancer or asthma, then the government must work on behalf of the people to protect them through regulation and collaborative clean up efforts.

If those people are smokers who release toxins into the air, then the government must protect those who choose not to kill themselves or others.

If you want to live by the word of the Constitution, then make decisions that do not kill or negatively harm other people and government will not need to regulate your life to protect citizens.

If you want to hide behind "property rights", then you would have to say that a corporation can pollute all they want on "their" property, even though its impacts are clearly negative.

[walls]

a lesson not to late for the learning.......

Blowing Smoke Over Private Property Rights [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]

[Bluefly]

Originally Posted by walls

by the way..."Alabama and Mississippi were in the 20th century when they held onto outdated racial values."
are you implying smokers are akin to racists???????????????????????????????????

No. Just saying that we as a society are moving beyond racial division and pesticides in our foods and pollution in our air. We are advancing, and states that try to hold onto the norms of the twentieth century will not attract the business of the twenty-first.

btw - these perspectives are very common in places where people have been living near other people for ages (like the dense northeast). The only place "property rights" arguments have held up are places like the rural west. But as more people have moved in with different values, many have begun to realize the importance of regulation to protect their quality of life because others' choices have negative impacts.

[Bluefly]

Originally Posted by walls

a lesson not to late for the learning.......

Blowing Smoke Over Private Property Rights [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]

that's one opinion. The cosmopolitan cities that have enacted these bans have not seen any negative effects. They are just like regulations to protect patrons of restaurants from dirty kitchens or purchasers of toys from lead toxins.

It's only a matter of time. Either people stop smoking in public and killing others or they get regulated. It's coming...