The War On Tobacco

[Darth Servo]

Are you getting dumber as you get older or something?

Then please fucking explain to me how my grandmother, who smokes a fucking PACK of cigarettes a day, doesn't have lung cancer, or any of the
nasties associated with cigarettes, while my friend, who's never smoked in
his life, is now fighting lung cancer!

Smoking does not guarantee lung cancer. It just greatly increases your chances. Not smoking does not guarantee you won't get lung cancer, just greatly decreases those chances.
I'm sick of people who try to use these personal stories that Tobacco is hharmless. For every ONE person like your grandmother, I'll show you 100 who are stuck in the hospital cursing the day they picked up that disgusting habit.

[MKSheppard]

I'm sick of people who try to use these personal stories that Tobacco is hharmless. For every ONE person like your grandmother, I'll show you 100 who are stuck in the hospital cursing the day they picked up that disgusting habit.

I really don't care. We're all going to die eventually, so why not have some
fun while waiting for death to creep up on ourselves?

[Darth Wong]

I really don't care. We're all going to die eventually, so why not have some fun while waiting for death to creep up on ourselves?

So says the guy who's so protective of his safety that he wants to walk around armed like Rambo.

[Darth Servo]

I really don't care.

Then shut the hell up.

We're all going to die eventually, so why not have some fun while waiting for death to creep up on ourselves?

The idea is to delay that time as long as possible. Does your life suck so much that you actually WANT to die? From your posting history I'd say the answer is 'yes'. But DON'T take any of us with you.

And chocking to death on noxious fumes is NOT what most people consider 'fun'. Neither is being a slave to a disgusting and deadly chemical.

[MKSheppard]

And chocking to death on noxious fumes is NOT what most people consider 'fun'. Neither is being a slave to a disgusting and deadly chemical.

Neither is being rendered insane and blind by STDs considered "fun", but
certain people on this board prefer a hedonistic lifestyle...

[Darth Servo]

Neither is being rendered insane and blind by STDs considered "fun", but certain people on this board prefer a hedonistic lifestyle...

People who know the consequences of careless (unprotected) hedonism and do it anyways don't get any more of my sympathy than heavy smokers.
Should we bail out people who are addicted to gambling after they've thrown their life savings down a rat hole? They're "just having fun".

[Slartibartfast]

How about creating a sort of "tobacco apartheid", where smokers and non-smokers aren't treated equally, have to ride on the ceiling of the bus and so. Guards at theathres and other public places would say "show me your teeth" and if they're all yellow from all the nicotine, then you get the "smoker treatment". Also smokers would have to register themselves at the Tobacco Control Agency. Large concentrations of smokers would be dealed with by the ATF, who would try to dissuade them from performing "mass ritual suicide" by shooting them on sight, etc.

[C.S.Strowbridge]

Shep, I can't believe you're using the "anecdotal evidence" method to disprove tobacco hazards. I never thought that you could be that moronic.

This is NOT anecedotal evidence.....The 80 year old woman is
my grandmother, and the 40 year old woman is my mother....
the 50 year old guy is a friend of ours, and it's been bad
with him lately - he's always in the hospital for one reason
or another now.

You're fucking stupid. That is anecedotal evidence.

You know those times I told you to shoot yourself. Well I was wrong.

Shoot your parents first, then yourself. Afterall, they have to be held partially responsible for how you turned out.

[Durandal]

How about creating a sort of "tobacco apartheid", where smokers and non-smokers aren't treated equally, have to ride on the ceiling of the bus and so. Guards at theathres and other public places would say "show me your teeth" and if they're all yellow from all the nicotine, then you get the "smoker treatment". Also smokers would have to register themselves at the Tobacco Control Agency. Large concentrations of smokers would be dealed with by the ATF, who would try to dissuade them from performing "mass ritual suicide" by shooting them on sight, etc.

You're targeting the person rather than the problem. The problem is smoking. It tends to annoy and disgust those who don't smoke. A smoker who isn't smoking disturbs no one, except through maybe his smell, but so does a guy who doesn't shower. So, private establishments can ban smoking indoors if they wish. To a large extent, that's already been done. I see no reason to treat smokers as second-class citizens. I'd be in support of a system where smokers and non-smokers can live happily with each other. Smokers don't smoke indoors when non-smokers are around, and non-smokers don't bitch about smokers smoking in the park.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

How about creating a sort of "tobacco apartheid", where smokers and non-smokers aren't treated equally, have to ride on the ceiling of the bus and so. Guards at theathres and other public places would say "show me your teeth" and if they're all yellow from all the nicotine, then you get the "smoker treatment". Also smokers would have to register themselves at the Tobacco Control Agency. Large concentrations of smokers would be dealed with by the ATF, who would try to dissuade them from performing "mass ritual suicide" by shooting them on sight, etc.

Dumbass. lol. You know you shouldn't give people ideas...

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

Neither is being rendered insane and blind by STDs considered "fun", but certain people on this board prefer a hedonistic lifestyle...

People who know the consequences of careless (unprotected) hedonism and do it anyways don't get any more of my sympathy than heavy smokers.
Should we bail out people who are addicted to gambling after they've thrown their life savings down a rat hole? They're "just having fun".

No, we shouldn't bail out people who do stupid things; but neither should we participate in the repression of totally legal, if patently stupid, activities. No one is taxing BMX bicycles, bungee cords or parachutes through the roof in an effort to make extreme sports impossible for the average consumer, and I don't think anyone here considers riding a bicycle at high speed off of precipitous drops, jumping off bridges at the end of a glorified rubber-band, or leaping from a perfectly good airpplane to be intelligent recreational activities.

[Darth Wong]

No, we shouldn't bail out people who do stupid things; but neither should we participate in the repression of totally legal, if patently stupid, activities. No one is taxing BMX bicycles, bungee cords or parachutes through the roof in an effort to make extreme sports impossible for the average consumer, and I don't think anyone here considers riding a bicycle at high speed off of precipitous drops, jumping off bridges at the end of a glorified rubber-band, or leaping from a perfectly good airpplane to be intelligent recreational activities.

That would be a good point, except that the costs to the health care system of all those activities combined are utterly insignificant compared to the costs associated with the care of aging smokers.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

No, we shouldn't bail out people who do stupid things; but neither should we participate in the repression of totally legal, if patently stupid, activities. No one is taxing BMX bicycles, bungee cords or parachutes through the roof in an effort to make extreme sports impossible for the average consumer, and I don't think anyone here considers riding a bicycle at high speed off of precipitous drops, jumping off bridges at the end of a glorified rubber-band, or leaping from a perfectly good airpplane to be intelligent recreational activities.

That would be a good point, except that the costs to the health care system of all those activities combined are utterly insignificant compared to the costs associated with the care of aging smokers.

And of course, I can't deny that; however, if you check on the difference in the cost of medical coverage for smokers versus non-smokers, it evens out quite a bit. As a smoker (even though I only smoke a single cigarette a day) I pay nearly twice as much for medical and life insurance as a non-smoker. Trust me, I more than pull my weight.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

As I said before:

You put cyanide in random cigarettes. And have a label on the pack that says "WARNING: ONE OR MORE OF THE CIGARETTES IN THIS PACK MAY CONTAIN CYANIDE!!"

You make the ratio of cyanide cigs/regular cigs high enough so there's an actual threat.

And you make some laws so it's all legal.

How well would something like that work?

Good idea. Explosives might work well too. They'd provide a more visual spectacle.

When I was in the Navy and stuck around a lot of smokers I used to go to a place in Berkley and buy cigarette loads. When people left their cigarette packs lying around the berthing (aka shipboard baracks) I would load up a few. The cigarettes would explode with the sides peeled back just like the exploding cigars in the old Looney Toons cartoons.

Hey, that's great. While we're at it, let's load up some leather jackets with C-4, so when those "rugged individualists" zip them up, bang! And let's not leave out Plastique in the hair gel, nitroglycerin in the gas tank of their motorcycles, or arsenic in their cheeseburgers. Oh yeah, don't forget to piss on their blue suede shoes...

See, the Berkeley thing I actually expected. I'm going to catch a whole shitstorm for saying this, but has anyone besides me noticed that this is more than just a war on people doing stupid things? This is a war on people doing traditional things. It's my prediction that within 20 years, we'll all be electric car driving vegetarian pastel-wearing candyasses who have no fucking clue how to spell or what the word "individual" means. Thus endeth the paranoid rant. lol

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

On the subject of the cost of smoking on the public, via the cost to states, we have a book review (I'll try to find this at my local Borders):

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/h ... /14799.ctl

[Durandal]

Hey, that's great. While we're at it, let's load up some leather jackets with C-4, so when those "rugged individualists" zip them up, bang! And let's not leave out Plastique in the hair gel, nitroglycerin in the gas tank of their motorcycles, or arsenic in their cheeseburgers. Oh yeah, don't forget to piss on their blue suede shoes...

No fucking shit. I can understand not liking cigarettes, thinking they're disgusting and all that, but where the Hell did this overt hostility toward smokers come from? How hard is it to simply leave smokers the fuck alone? Christ, everyone is acting like smokers make an effort to blow smoke in their faces at every conceivable opportunity.

Speaking of, has anyone seen the Family Guy episode where Peter becomes an executive of a tobacco company? Excellent satire on the ridiculously inflated hostility toward cigarette companies.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

Hey, that's great. While we're at it, let's load up some leather jackets with C-4, so when those "rugged individualists" zip them up, bang! And let's not leave out Plastique in the hair gel, nitroglycerin in the gas tank of their motorcycles, or arsenic in their cheeseburgers. Oh yeah, don't forget to piss on their blue suede shoes...

No fucking shit. I can understand not liking cigarettes, thinking they're disgusting and all that, but where the Hell did this overt hostility for smokers come from? How hard is it to simply leave smokers the fuck alone? Christ, everyone is acting like smokers make an effort to blow smoke in their faces at every conceivable opportunity.

Speaking of, has anyone seen the Family Guy episode where Peter becomes an executive of a tobacco company? Excellent satire on the ridiculously inflated hostility toward cigarette companies.

Here I go again... it's simple, man. It's also a war on image, or ideology, whatever you want to call it. When I say the names, "Humphrey Bogart," "John Wayne," or "James Dean" what do you see? You see a tough guy who doesn't take shit from anybody, but what's the first visual cue they all have in common? Well, they can't attack the attitude, but they can attack one of the symbols of the attitude. I guess that won't make sense to anyone but me.

[Lord_Xerxes]

It makes plenty of sense to me, Raoul, and that's why I threw my lot in with you. There is an overt hostility. Even we the smokers in this thread acknowledged the points of the non-smokers. And even when some of us, such as you and myself, pointed out that we don't exactly fall into the average typical smoker that most of the other have problems with.

[meNNis]

all i have to say is.... legalize marijuana

[Darth Servo]

Here I go again... it's simple, man. It's also a war on image, or ideology, whatever you want to call it. When I say the names, "Humphrey Bogart," "John Wayne," or "James Dean" what do you see? You see a tough guy who doesn't take shit from anybody, but what's the first visual cue they all have in common? Well, they can't attack the attitude, but they can attack one of the symbols of the attitude. I guess that won't make sense to anyone but me.

I have no problem with "take no shit" attitude." I DO have HUGE issues with breathing all the shit from you smokers. Your little "fun" CAUSES HARM TO EVERYONE AROUND YOU. Unless you want to live in a plastic bubble...

[Darth Servo]

No, we shouldn't bail out people who do stupid things; but neither should we participate in the repression of totally legal, if patently stupid, activities. No one is taxing BMX bicycles, bungee cords or parachutes through the roof in an effort to make extreme sports impossible for the average consumer, and I don't think anyone here considers riding a bicycle at high speed off of precipitous drops, jumping off bridges at the end of a glorified rubber-band, or leaping from a perfectly good airpplane to be intelligent recreational activities.

Will you stop it with the exaggerations. I NEVER advocated making tobacco so extremely expensive that it would be impossible to buy it. I think that extreme sports SHOULD be discouraged in some form. And don't try to distort my position to say that I've advocated making them impossible/illegal.

[Durandal]

Here I go again... it's simple, man. It's also a war on image, or ideology, whatever you want to call it. When I say the names, "Humphrey Bogart," "John Wayne," or "James Dean" what do you see? You see a tough guy who doesn't take shit from anybody, but what's the first visual cue they all have in common? Well, they can't attack the attitude, but they can attack one of the symbols of the attitude. I guess that won't make sense to anyone but me.

I have no problem with "take no shit" attitude." I DO have HUGE issues with breathing all the shit from you smokers. Your little "fun" CAUSES HARM TO EVERYONE AROUND YOU. Unless you want to live in a plastic bubble...

Get over it. What causes more harm to the air? Burning tobacco or internal combustion engines?

[Mr Bean]

Get over it. What causes more harm to the air? Burning tobacco or internal combustion engines?

Fallaciy
Which is acutal Nessary?

[meNNis]

neither Mr Bean

[Mr Bean]

neither Mr Bean

*Cough cough lmao


Ok if all the Cars/Trucks/Tanks/Battleships/Crusiers/Planes/Carriers/Tractors tommrow dissapered what would happen? Oh and some kinds of power plants

However on the other hand if all Tobbacco disappered tommrow what would happen?


Give you a hint, one puts lots of people out of work the other drops us back to the 1500s