Smoking - should it be banned?

[TheMightyPump]

Smoking reduces the effects of alchohol considerably.

[gilligus]

Then it's all the better for those of us who don't drink. I'd be grateful to a smoker if a drunk driver sobered up from some smoke just enough to notice my kid playing kickball in the road. Wouldn't you?

[Ketoprofen]

Smoking in open air-spaces is hardly disturbing nor is it if done in certain sections of the pubs. Here in Sweden, closeted rooms have been set up in pubs by decision of our legislature for smokers to consume beverages and food in, but the employees do not have to enter this room so in short, you have to bring in your own food and bring it out as well. I think that's a good compromise

[EuroSoviets]

I really don't. I think it even further damages the health of those who smoke and ultimately they're people too.

[gilligus]

It doesn't damage their health nearly as much as the habit itself. If they were concerned about their health, they would quit.

Which brings me to another point. I think that governments should subsidize quit-assisting products, like gum or the patch, and make them available with the money taken from taxing cigarettes. That way, the tax people pay for stogies is like an insurance policy: they're putting money towards quitting with each pack they buy

[Ketoprofen]

Much as people enjoy a good bottle of wine with friends, they should be allowed to smoke as long as they don't damage the healths of others.

[EuroSoviets]

Subsidize quit assisting products? And pour more NHS money into the black hole which is the pharmaceutical companies? Don't make me fucking choke.

Make cigarettes prohibitively expensive and use the money to continue funding the anti-smoking campaigns and the solutions to all forms of cancer, bronchitis and other diseases arising from smoking. Better still, nationalize the smoking industry and remove all forms of advertisement. Produce a quota-number of cigarettes and shoot anyone importing them illegally.

[TheMightyPump]

Since the government has made fags more expensive people are smoking them more deeply - down to the filter - which is extremely damaging to their lungs and is much more unhealthy, so that really hasn't worked but it has generated a hell of a lot of money.

[D.S. of Soviet Sexy Girls]

Since the package of cigarettes had risen to 5€, the number of smokers have decreased by 10% in France irrc.

[gilligus]

First off, I don't believe that violence is the solution to any problem. There's always a better way.

You do have a point about the pharmaceutical companies. They don't need any more money. Maybe crank up the production tax of pharmaceutical products and freeze the prices. Then they can be subsidized without losing much money, as well as without making any CEO fuckers richer.

[EuroSoviets]

When I say shoot people, most people here generally know I'm taking the piss. That said violence is often necessary - that is for another discussion.

You fail to appreciate the nature of the government. If the government taxes pharmaceutical companies more, the pharmaceutical companies will simply up the price of the materials going to the NHS. If the government freezes prices, pharmaceutical companies will find new markets and possibly even restrict supply. If that happens, who's going to care more about public protest; the government with elections to win and media to gain the support of, or the pharmaceutical companies who can relocate to another country - where most of their CEO's are already based anyway.

[gilligus]

A pharmaceutical corporation certainly wouldn't restrict supplies to the US. Who else buys more useless, expensive medicine than the US? And why would they restrict supplies in the first place? They only stand to lose by limiting what they sell. The nature of a corporation is to sell as much as possible.

Besides, it's not like a modern capitalist government would either subsidize quitting products, or freeze a corporation's prices in the first place. It was a theoretical solution, perhaps one better suited to a more liberal, semi-socialist society.

[canteria]

I believe that it should be banned in public places, but not altogether. They have a right to ruin thier ownm lives, but not anyone else's with secondhand smoke.

[Koona]

I have nothing protection of those who don't smoke but if somewhere they bann smoking, and I'm talking public places like the Univesity and doorms, than make a suitable place for smokers.

Not like we have here, because it's law here that if an institution bans smoking that they have to make available special places for those who smoke. Yeah, special place, they make the balcony a special place to smoke. That is not an adequete (sp?) place.

If there're 9 people smoking and one not, why makes that 1 more special?

[EuroSoviets]

Because he's the smart one who chose not to fuck up his lungs.