Smoking in France a thing of the past?

[Stan4dSteph]

Originally Posted by Alex

I agree with iSm to some extent. We've goen about it completely bass ackwards in this country. The case for prohibiting smoking in public spaces is much stronger than for doing so in private spaces.

Of course, I consider private businesses to be private spaces so I don't support restaurant and bar bans. Instead of shoving them all out in the street outside the bar, keep them in the bar and I'll decide if I want to join them.

I agree somewhat, but it also has to do with the health of the people who work there, not just patrons. They don't have the option of not going in unless they go find another job. Not always a realistic prospect.

[Alex]

I feel bad for them. But so long as they know there is smoking in the establishment when they take the job, then I don't consider it a concern sufficient to allow the state to set mandates. Any more than severe airborne peanut allergies (much smaller population but much more severe, immediately, and clearly connected consequences) are reason enough for the state to put Thai restaurants out of business.

[scaeagles]

Tempe AZ passed a law banning smoking in bars and restaurants. Where did the smoking patrons go? To establishments in other cities. Many business owners had significant losses in business and were forced to lay off employees. So there are unemployed people looking for jobs whether they quit to work in a place with no smoking or lose their job because of being laid off.

As a patron, I much prefer NOT being near smoking and would certainly go somewhere that doesn't allow it. But make that the choice of the business owner. The only possible argument against it is the employment argument, and alex sums it up well above.

However, I realize I am on the losing side. There is a side of me, though, that does like it from a standpoint of how much I hate being behind car when the driver is smoking with his windows open, or how angry I get watching people throw their butts on the streets and in parking lots.

[innerSpaceman]

Nope. Can't agree. I don't see how allowing a public health threat to exist anywhere the public may go, whether they choose to go there or not, can be allowed by law.

It's already been demonstrated that too many people are too stupid to consider their own smoking dangerous enough to quit or never start. It's a little too much, imo, to expect people casually out for a drink or bite to eat to adequately consider the health risks of the establishment they patronize.


"Private" businesses are not private. People go there, people work there. It's really unrealistically naive to say customers and employees should take into account the dangers of second-hand smoke when doing something either as serious as deciding where to make the money they need to survive, or as casual as deciding where to have breakfast.


Pulease.



And I don't buy the bullsh!t about the demise of French Culture either. What a crock.

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Nope. Can't agree. I don't see how allowing a public health threat to exist anywhere the public may go, whether they choose to go there or not, can be allowed by law.

It makes me wonder. How long will it be before you can get fined for going out in public with a cold or the flu.

[scaeagles]

Then lets ban it all together. I don't have a choice about sitting behind someone smoking in their car. Parents harm their children. Someone smoking in their back yard can be affecting their neighbors. Really, is there anywhere someone can go to smoke that there isn't the risk of affecting someone else?

Edited to add - exactly Moonliner. Similarly, why not make everyone with an STD wear an ID bracelet or require a release form prior to any sexual contact with anyone?

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Private businesses had decades to declare themselves smoke free. Instead they decided to make "smoking sections" that didn't stop everyone from breathing smoke. I don't think there was such a thing as a smoke free establishment (except hospitals??) before the laws came in.

When i was in high school I included smoking bans in a speech I gave about government controlling our lives. I was very against these bans. But in my travels to places that do not have the bans, I realize how things used to be. It is severely gross to be in that haze the entire time one is indoors at airports and restaurants, to smell the ancient stink permeating the curtains and furniture.

I realize that businesses will not do it themselves, and that non-smokers won't make a big enough deal out of it to push businesses into it. I don't say "will" meaning I'm guessing - like I said, places that don't have the law don't end up with non-smoking establishments. Making a law is the only way to stop this nastiness from happening, because people and businesses are too stupid to do it themselves. The laws, IMHO, are an improvement on the entire situation, including forces smokers to be more polite about their habit.

I'm mostly a libertarian, but this is one arena that I have changed my mind on. We're too dumb to take care of ourselves, sometimes.

[Kevy Baby]

I am an ardent non-smoker. I believe we have gone too far with smoking laws. I have no scientific data to back this up. It is just a thought I have.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

We're too dumb to take care of ourselves, sometimes.

What you say makes sense, and like I said, i realize I'm on the losing side of this argument. But this last line scares me. There are so many unhealthy things people do that this philosophy will continue to permeate every area of our lives. In the nanny state we live in, particularly if we move toward a government health care system, every unhealthful thing will be taxed out of existance because every time someone gets clogged arteries it costs the tax payers money. Why not have mandatory exercise programs and shut down McDonalds (or put enough taxes on a Big Mac to make it $7)?

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I don't think when warning labels went on cigarettes and domestic flights were made non smoking that anyone was imagining banning smoking in bars.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

But this last line scares me.

Scares me too, hence the speech at 18. I also included seat belt and helmet laws in there. Thing is, since then, my feelings have changed.

It gets messy when you talk about something as serious as helmets. I've seen numerous studies about how when the helmet laws are put in place, deaths go drastically down, and when you take them off, they go drastically up.

Here's one I just found in a Google search.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conducted the first study, and it found that in the three years following Florida’s decision to repeal its mandatory helmet law in 2000 that there were 933 motorcyclists killed. The number of Florida motorcycle deaths increased 81 percent, an increase from the 515 bikers killed from 1997 to 1999.

So that's basically 400 extra people dead in 3 years. An ugly, serious fact. Flip the law switch one way, they live, flip it the other, they die. You can say that they're Darwinesque casualties, but they're still human beings with families, parents, children. They just made one bad decision one fateful day.

Yes, these laws can be brought to extremes, with all of us being forcefed prozac and kept in rubber rooms, but there's gray area in between.

As this refers to smoking, though, there's less of a case because of the less direct dangers of smoking. The stupid part to me is that this is classified under health threats, while in my personal subjective opinion, I'm more annoyed about the stink and needing to cough.