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Old 07-26-2009, 06:15 AM
 
Location: Central Texas
20,958 posts, read 45,264,919 times
Reputation: 24738

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There were predictions that once the smokers were wiped out, the next thing to be targeted would be various foods - that being fat would become the new target du jour for those who think that it's their place to control everyone else. (After all, the Carry Nations of the world will always be with us and always need SOMETHING to focus on.)

Anyone paid any attention to the news regarding foods lately? The Center for the Public Interest (I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of these folks were in PETA, as well) is suing Denny's over salt. A few years back, a group of overweight Americans sued several fast food companies because they were obese. More recently, an article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine recommended using the same tactics as those used against the tobacco industry against the food industry.

Schools have been harangued to ban peanuts from school grounds because some children may have peanut allergies - and some parents claim the allergies are so severe that other children shouldn't eat peanut butter sandwiches at home because they might come into contact with their kids at school. (This is not to say that I don't take peanut allergies seriously, but it is an example of someone believing that the world should rearrange itself and others should live their lives as if THEY have peanut allergies because they or their children do. And, for the record, I carry an epipen with me but that doesn't mean that the world should behave as if it shared my allergy.)

What this does is it removes both choice and responsibility from the hands of the consumer. We're being, in essence, protected from ourselves and from having to make choices about our own lives and bodies - we're being treated as children, and some of us demand that others be treated as children and forced to live according to our choices and preferences and needs rather than their own.

It's been a sad, frightening progression that I've watched develop over the past few decades. I keep wondering, where are the adults that take responsibility for their own lives and accord others the right to do likewise?
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Old 07-26-2009, 06:23 AM
 
26,585 posts, read 61,896,107 times
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Substitute cigarette smoke for the smell of curried fish. Would you want that smell seeping into your apartment every day?
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Old 07-26-2009, 06:53 AM
 
Location: Central Texas
20,958 posts, read 45,264,919 times
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Wait, is it the asthma issue or the smell issue that you're concerned about?

In any case, if I live in an apartment situation, I expect aspects of the lives of my fellow tenants, be it reasonable noises or various odors to spill over into mine, and vice versa. That's part of living in multi-family situations (and something that one learns living in a single family, to accommodate the differences one encounters in real life - I believe the current buzzword for that is diversity, though sometimes I think the people who use that word the most don't really understand what it means). I've lived, even in a single family house, where I could smell what my neighbors were cooking (even in one where I could smell their badly-done compost every evening at dinner time, and my solution for that was to let them know and to offer some ingredients for the compost that would help the situation, not suing them tom ake them stop composting).

If you want to control everything that your closest neighbors do because you're irritated by people living their lives and making choices other than you would make, then you need to move somewhere where you're far, far away from any neighbors at all. (And, just so you know, my nearest across-the-street neighbor is about 3/8 of a mile away, and I hear sounds from neighbors even further away, and sometimes smell odors, so you're going to have to get pretty darned isolated.) Choosing to live in an apartment and then objecting in the courts to something that some of them do, that's legal, in their own homes? Not too cool and, frankly, not too American. Plus, the moment you've done that, you've given up your own civil rights and any right to object when (not if, WHEN) someone just like you comes along and doesn't like something legal that you're doing and sues to make you stop doing it because they wouldn't make the same choice.
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Old 07-26-2009, 07:07 AM
 
26,585 posts, read 61,896,107 times
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On the otherhand a lease entitles you to the peaceful enjoyment of the premesis, and public health codes protect us from hazardous conditions. For some people, a hazardous condition could be secondhand smoke.

I live in a single family home, each lot is about half an acre. I NEVER smell anything inside my house that's coming from elsewhere, even when we had nearby brush fires. (Double HEPA filters in the HVAC system take care of that.)

And for the record, I don't wear perfume, it affects the ability to discover the subtle aromatics in a good bottle of wine.
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Old 07-26-2009, 09:03 AM
'M'
 
Location: Glendale Country Club
1,954 posts, read 3,184,290 times
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Even though these people filed a lawsuit against their neighbor, it doesn't mean that they're going to win. In fact, I suspect that they may not win. Just my opinion.
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Old 07-26-2009, 11:36 AM
 
Location: Central Texas
20,958 posts, read 45,264,919 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by annerk View Post
On the otherhand a lease entitles you to the peaceful enjoyment of the premesis, and public health codes protect us from hazardous conditions. For some people, a hazardous condition could be secondhand smoke.
In which case they should be taking it up, legally or otherwise, with the landlord about the smoke (or other odors) that is getting into their apartments because of insufficient separation of the properties, not suing the smoking tenant who is ALSO entitled by the lease to the peaceful enjoyment of the premises, correct? And for them, smoking in their own home may be an essential part of that, whether you happen to like smoking or not.

By the way, I don't smoke - tried it once 40 years ago, found out it doesn't agree with me physically. However, I AM addicted to civil rights, mine and those of others, thus my dog in this fight.

Did you know that alcoholic beverages have been found to be a common trigger for asthma, by the way? Red and white wines, in particular.
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Old 07-26-2009, 11:41 AM
 
26,585 posts, read 61,896,107 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady View Post
In which case they should be taking it up, legally or otherwise, with the landlord about the smoke (or other odors) that is getting into their apartments because of insufficient separation of the properties, not suing the smoking tenant who is ALSO entitled by the lease to the peaceful enjoyment of the premises, correct? And for them, smoking in their own home may be an essential part of that, whether you happen to like smoking or not.

By the way, I don't smoke - tried it once 40 years ago, found out it doesn't agree with me physically. However, I AM addicted to civil rights, mine and those of others, thus my dog in this fight.

Did you know that alcoholic beverages have been found to be a common trigger for asthma, by the way? Red and white wines, in particular.
Not all asthmatics have the same triggers. Wine doesn't trigger my asthma. Soda does though.

And I agree, the plaintiff should have taken it up with the andlord as well.
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Old 07-26-2009, 11:55 AM
 
Location: Central Texas
20,958 posts, read 45,264,919 times
Reputation: 24738
I saw that the plaintiff should have taken up with the landlord, period. NOT with the other tenants who are peacefully enjoying their own homes.

Not if the end goal was solving the problem, rather than imposing one's will on others and requiring them to make the same choices one would make if one were them.
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Old 07-31-2009, 02:30 AM
 
8,411 posts, read 39,198,510 times
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The stink of fish does not cause cancer. The ciggy smoke does. Its pretty inconsiderate that smokers do not buy air filters to care about being in a community instead of looking out for themselves. I think people just do not want to accept change be it food, smoke or cars. These things are bad for you, the people around you and obviously by this thread education is not reaching people. Second hand smoke kills.
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Old 07-31-2009, 09:55 AM
 
Location: Central Texas
20,958 posts, read 45,264,919 times
Reputation: 24738
Actually, recent studies (on why 80% of smokers do NOT get lung cancer - interesting statistic that isn't mentioned much) have discovered that there is a gene that impacts how one's body processes nicotine, and the people with that gene are the ones who get lung cancer. And their possibility of getting lung cancer is increased whether or not they smoke. (This helps explain why my mother in law chain smoked for at least 50 years (we only know about the 50 years) and lived to a ripe old age, as it helps explain the many people who live to 100 and credit smoking as helping them get there.)

There may or may not be other health problems created by cigarette smoke - since this study, I'm finding myself looking with a somewhat jaundiced eye at the other claims because they could just as easily be based on a post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning seasoned with a touch of political correctness and control issues - at this point, I just don't know and I'd love to see similar studies done as regards them to either confirm or turn up something similar to the gene discovered above (it took looking at the research from a slightly different perspective, seeing the question that wasn't answered because looking at the existence of that question didn't fit into the current politically correct atmosphere, in order to find that gene).
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