You don't need to smoke to be able to enjoy a smoke-free establishment, but prior to the ban non-smokers had to endure smoke to try to enjoy a smoking establishment.

For smokers, the laws are as intrusive as the smoke is to non-smokers.

Smokers who complain about the ban because they can no longer smoke in bars are being selfish.

Your decision to smoke is an act of free will that says, fuck everyone else, I want a cigarette.

I can't stand cigarette smoke and can't understand why people deliberately breathe it.

For many non-smokers, cigarette smoke ain't pleasant, it's on a par with vomit or pig shit. I'm not joking.

We all know that smokers are simply drug addicts and we all know that desperate drug addicts will come up with any argument to defend their habit.

Exile the smokers to the fucking North Pole for all I care. Clean air is nice.

If smokers are being forced to stay outside and away from buildings, that's fine by me. Sorry, but my health is more important than smokers disgusting addiction.

Smoking was, at one time, lauded as being something of a health benefit. Then science stepped in and the very real harms of smoking have been discovered, however smoking still seems to be held in esteem as some sort of last bastion of freedom.

To all the self-righteous smokers asking for proof of second hand smokes dangers, the burden of proof should lie on YOU to prove that clouds of airborne known carcinogens are totally harmless. Let me know what you get so I can question your methodologies.


Here are some of the arguements against smoking bans:


I strongly object to governmental intrusion in areas like anti-smoking laws. I would never vote to ban smoking in privately-owned bars and restaurants.

It's really nice to be able to go shopping, eat at a restaurant, go to work, fly on a plane, etc. without having to breath a thick fog of carcinogens. The free market doesn't seem to solve this problem since businesses rarely are willing to cut out a large potential customer base by voluntarily making their business smoke-free. This is not a problem that the "free market," such as it is, can address. Hence the need for government intervention.


My problem with smoking bans isn't about health, it's about limiting freedoms. Smoking is legal, but we have people in power who are hell bent on curbing that freedom. All they have to do is say "it's for our health", and "Think of the children", show some statistics (which are normally pulled out of someone's ass, or exagerated) and the voting sheep fall for it. It's pretty much about control. Controlling one aspect of the population's life, and once that's properly controlled, then it's onto another.

Really. You have the proof that smoking statistics are wrong? From what great font of wisdom do you obtain such data?

Your arguments are just excuses and are really at about a 5th grade level of reasoning.

You are already controlled, by nicotine.


Hundreds if not thousands of innocent people die each year because of the drinkers who do drive after leaving bars!

Despite this absurdum argument, drinking in public doesn't logically lead to drunk driving. Drinking in excess, and then choosing to drive does, and that is already illegal. So this analogy fails.

But hey, run with it if you want to. Maybe in your fantasy we should also make driving illegal. Or wait! How about making people illegal, because people kill people! See? I can be absurd as well!


Everybody wants to jump on the smoking causeses cancer.

Secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 46,000 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year.

Source: American Lung Association. Don't listen though, because lung doctors are fascist!

How do they isolate the causes where they can estimate those numbers?

It is called statistical modeling. Go to school and learn all about it. Doubting it isn't going to make it any less valid.


You get more toxins from sitting in front of a campfire for an hour than you would from a lifetime of particulates inhaled from the random smoker out on a public street.

If I sit in front of a campfire, that is typically my choice, and is done in a place where I would expect there to be campfires and where other people go to enjoy campfires. I don't build a campfire on a public street so that passersby are forced to breath the smoke.

And why bring up campfires? Working in a coal mine is more toxic as well. I'm sure we can find a lot of things in the world more toxic than second-hand smoke. But we're talking about smoking here, not campfires or coal mines. The fact that you even use that argument smacks of desperation.


If someone doesn't like the idea of bartending in a smoky bar, dont' apply to work in that smoky bar. Simple enough. If they apply but don't want to work in the smoke, you tell them to fuck off and hire the next guy.

You think miners or crab fishers aren't aware of the dagners when they sign up?

A business does not have the right to pressure its employees or potential employees into life-threatening behavior and you don't get to tell them to fuck off if they don't like it.

Employers don't get to say "yeah mines are dangerous you know" and then neglect safety requirements.

There are inherent risks in certain jobs. The minimization of risk is the issue here.

As for the argument that other work also has inherent dangers, crab fishing is dangerous because of the elements and the ocean. Can we legislate away nature?

Mining is dangerous because of the nature of mining. Can we legislate away the toxicity of coal particulates?

You think there isn't major legislative effort being undertaken at both state and federal levels right now because of unsafe mine conditions and insufficient safety regulation?

Smoking is not an inherent danger that workers cannot in any way avoid, comparing it to work which will likely always be dangerous is disingenuous.


If you choose to work at a place that allows smoking, that's your problem.

The courts disagree with you.

Creating a business does not give you the right to put your employees at unreasonable risk. It does not allow you to pressure them into performing unreasonably risky acts.

That is the law. It is a good law.


Why doesn't the venerable "if you don't like it, don't look at it/go to it" apply in this case?

But see, you're seeing one freedom and not seeing the other. I want to have the freedom not to inhale tobacco smoke, among other things. When I'm forced to sit or stand next to someone who is smoking, that choice is taken away from me. I can choose to move, stop breathing, or ask the smoker to please stop which no matter how politely phrased typically draws a hysterical stream of abuse.

So it comes down to a battle between two freedoms: my freedom to choose not to smoke, which causes no damage to your health; your freedom to smoke in public, which causes damage to my health.


How come there isn't as much ire raised when the topic of not being able to drink alcohol outdoors (a ban on where you can ingest a drug) as compared to the topic of limiting where smokers can ingest their drug?

Once again it's not because they think it's bad for YOU. It's bad for others. Why should you be allowed to harm others?

Your freedoms stop once they begin to harm me.

You don't even understand the reason. Me drinking a cup of coffee doesn't hurt others. Smoking does.

That is what makes it different.


I hate the ban, only because I dont think the gubmint should tell anyone if they can or cant smoke. A business owner should be able to make that decision, if they deem it good for business.

This is the most sound argument against the ban, however a business should not have the right to permit its patrons to harm its workers either. Second hand smoke is indeed harmful so the "gubmint" stepped in to protect workers.

But if it means that much to you get the laws changed. Put in the effort, we did. Might be hard work.

Of course, I am speaking to a group that finds it too hard to step outside for a minute or two.

I am sure the deep pockets of R.J. Reynolds and the rest of the tobacco companies can be counted on in that cause.


So the property owner doesn't have the freedom to regulate what goes on on his/her property?

It depends. If a property owner is doing something which constitutes a public health hazard, then no. If the owner wanted to make drinks with wood alcohol, or use tainted meat in his food, I'm sure the government would infringe on his freedoms there as well. "Hey, I allow my patrons to randomly beat up other patrons. If you don't like it, stay the fuck out!"


The more I see the posts from smokers in threads on the Internet, the more I am convinced that smoking causes irreversible brain damage.

Actually it does! Maybe not irreversible...

It causes heavy dehydration and a loss of collagen. The brain functions poorly under dehydration and the loss of collagen in the blood vessels of the brain promote arterial disease!

Look smokers just want to be able to get their fix. They will argue like other junkies in ways that would claim night is day to get their fix.


Nothing says, "I hold myself and others in such low esteem that I stand here and intentionally contribute to my own demise with no regard for the consequences to myself and others" than having a cigarette in your hand.

I am tired of the argument. There is no logical argument for the positive merit of smoking. All it does is waste money, time, and health, period. It doesn't reduce stress, it actually increases it because it is a stimulant and raises the stress baseline over time.

No other drug impacts our nation as much as nicotine and smoking.

Actually it is about health care economics. Smokers increase the cost of healthcare more than any other group, because smoking increases the incidents of high cost, long term care at an alarming rate.

If it was truly only affecting the smoker, I wouldn't care, but that is just not the case. The only logical conclusion is that smokers are incredibly selfish people with nothing else to really live for in their lives.