150,000 die yearly because of lung cancer

[Beiruty]

150,000 die yearly because of lung cancer.
That is at least 10X more than death by firearm for any reason.

Why Piers Morgan and liberals and gun-grabber do not call for the ban of smoking any kind of tobacco?
Why no one is calling for safer cigarets?

I am really at loss to find the words to express my

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas ... ?cmpid=htx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Oldgringo]

On 1 October 2009, the state of Montana banned smoking in ALL public buildings.

It's kind of odd/sad to see people standing outside saloons, VFW, American Legion, Elks, casinos, etc. smoking while their are sitting inside on the bar.

[JALLEN]

Because it is popular.

I have been a long time counsel for amateur radio operators trying to put up antennas on their residences, prohibited or severely limited by either zoning or deed restrictions which are almost ubiquitous these days. Why do they get away with it, when these devices hurt virtually no one, while home swimming pools are allowed without question other than usual building permit stuff?

Home swimming pools are popular. An elected official that proposed banning pools, and closing existing ones, would be out of office by the end of the month his ill conceived proposal saw the light of day. Ham radio isn't very popular limited to a relatively small bunch of enthusiasts, a few per cent of the population. It is easy and safe to make these limitations, especially since the cable TV crowd wanted to ban over the air receiving anyway. So onerous and impractical restrictions in deed restrictions, in perpetuity!

The same considerations drive (pardon me!) drivers licenses. The only people who blabber about driving being a privilege are state DMV heads. Everyone else considers driving a right and best not mess with it too much or you will be seeking other employment.

Another example is DUI. From time to time, proposals are enacted to stiffen penalties for drunk driving. What happens is that defendants stop taking plea deals and demand jury trials rather than accept mandatory stiff penalties, jail time etc. That backs up the court system pretty quickly, and often juries will walk someone rather than convict knowing it means a stiff sentence, big fines etc. in all but the most egregious cases. Idiotic but that has repeated itself in places all over the country.

Eventually, unauthorized withdrawals will become popular and the laws criminalizing bank robbery will be quietly done away with. Since banks have now been nationalized in all but name, it's a mere informal premature tax refund, I suppose.

[The Annoyed Man]

I quit smoking in 1981, and other than a very rare cigar (haven't smoked one in a year or more), I've never looked back. But, I will say this about banning smoking. . . . . .I'm against it. I am against ANY legislation which limits individual liberty, even if there are risks associated the item being considered for banning.

Here is what I do think is the proper response:

1. I agree with barring smoking from public places, including bars. I am in favor because I believe that one's right to blow smoke out of one's lungs ends where it intrudes on my right to breathe clean air. Since the smoker is the offender (not his/her cigarettes), he/she must smoke elsewhere, as my right to clean air exceeds his/her right to pollute the air. I think this approach is entirely consistent with laws that forbid the frivolous discharge of firearms within city limits, unless it is necessary to the protection of person or property. It's not the object, it's the object's user that is at fault. Cigarettes are objects.
2. In terms of the costs to society, I think that all cost of coverage for a smoker's medical problems resulting from being a smoker should be handled between the smoker and his/her insurance company. I don't believe the taxpayer should be on the hook for any of it. Individual liberty means that people have the right to engage in a self-destructive behavior, so long as they do not involve anyone else in the consequences of that behavior, because there can be NO individual liberty without risk. . . . .and the risk ought properly be upon the shoulders of the person engaging in the behavior. Even though it is an addiction, it is also a choice. There is literally nobody today who is ignorant of the risks of smoking. Since the choice to begin to engage in that risk is voluntary, so are the consequences sure to arise if one smokes for long enough. It is unfair and unjust to expect that others will be required to bail that person out when their habit blows up in their face. By the way, I feel the same way about those addicted to alcohol, methamphetamines, cocaine, heroin, or any other destructive addictive drug. I am not opposed to the state helping poor people with medical needs. . . . .so long as those needs were not the result of choices to engage in dangerous addictive behaviors. Nobody forces anyone to smoke that first cigarette, take that first hit off a crack pipe, or mainline that first hit of meth or heroin.

I think this kind of approach balances the libertarian ideal of individual liberty against the public's need to not be taken advantage of by inconsiderate or stupid people. Furthermore, I think these principles are the best way to balance the individual 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms against the public's need to have a generally safe and responsible environment in which to carry out their lives.

When progressives concentrate on guns instead of cigarettes, it's because they like to sit around smoking while dreaming up ways to torture law-abiding Americans with additional loss of freedom. . . . .which is their right, just as it is mine to require them to go do it outside.

[JALLEN]

I wish it was that simple, TAM, as I agree in the principles.

Last night I sat in the Wursthalle, by the bandstand, not far from the door. I have a lung disease, had my O2 tank and cannula with me, watching the old time band I played tuba in some 50 years ago, swathed in the stench of tobacco smoke blowing in from the outdoors. I quit smoking about the time you did, 1981, have never smoked since, at all. I don't need to be squandering my remaining lung function in secondary smoke.

My point is that even individual choices of these behaviors have impacts on others in our society, smoking impacts others, drinking impacts others, illegal drugs impact others, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, sometimes maybe unintendedly. No one can say in a particular case whether the patient's lung cancer came from smoking, secondary smoke, or some other cause, even in the case of a heavy smoker. Smoking does cause cancer, but lung cancers are found in some who never smoked and had no particular exposure to tobacco smoke. Similar with alcohol and even now illegal drugs.

I think most of what's on TV is immoral garbage, but I can just turn it off or change the channel. What I can't do is avoid the conduct of the immoral twerps who DO watch it and are influenced in their choices and motivated ti destructive behaviors by what they see.

There must be a happy medium where society can allow individual liberty while discouraging conduct which has little but harmful or destructive aspects. Maybe it is a function of the increased population. The Founders had lots of experience when nobody else was around. They often had to seek out company. We are surrounded by it whether we like it or not.

[puma guy]

The economics of tobacco go back to the original formation of trade companies based on tobacco during early explorations. The economics are still there and the greed remains as long as their are willing participants. I smoked for many many years and used chewable tobacco as well. I knew at age 12 when I inhaled my first drag and coughed for 5 minutes that it was not good for me. When you have the government subsidizing a commodity such as tobacco there's no chance they'll eliminate it. It's a complex agro-capital-governmental (sic) far to big to be put under due to a "few" deaths. I agrre with TAM that individuals should be accountable for their actions and behaviors with few limitations unless they are harmful to others.

I was particularly irked when Al Gore, who once bragged about working in his father's tobacco fields and whose father accepted thousands in tobacco subsidies, emotionally decry the evils of tobacco and the companies that sell it because they killed his sister.

There is far too much money available to elected officials to have them do anything detrimental to the tobacco industry. It's similar to harry Reid's decades long blocking of any legislation requiring mining companies to pay royalties for extracting ore from the land they lease. Oil companies pay to lease and pay royalties to the government, but not mining companies and Harry's going to make sure it stays that way as long as the mining companies keep paying him off. Sorry for the rant.

[The Annoyed Man]

JALLEN, I feel for you, genuinely, and it makes me angry and disgusted that people are that inconsiderate to you, even in the face of an obvious respiratory problem. One of my favorite movie scenes:

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=mu_cYrDFU18[/youtube]

As a former healthcare worker, I'm well aware of the secondary effects of smoking, and I don't think that people who are innocent of the destructive behaviors, but whose health is affected secondarily by the destructive behaviors of others, should be cut off from societal support in financial extremis. Smoking is very bad for diabetics, so an adult diabetic who smokes should have any societal support curtailed. . . . . if for no other reason than to incentivize less self-destructive behavior. But the diabetic child of an adult smoker is hostage to a situation over which he or she has no control, and they should not be forced into medical victimhood without society's willingness to intercede on the child's behalf.

[philip964]

My parents both smoked. One died at 63 the other at 72. My dad quit about 10 years before he had to go on oxygen full time. His father did not smoke and lived to be 93.

Quit while you still have time.

[rotor]

I agree with TAM. I too haven't smoked since the mid 70's. I don't believe there is a stronger drug addiction than nicotine. But I would not ban it. People have to make their own choices but I should not have to pay for their decisions. I relate this to driving a motorcycle without a helmet. You can legally do this but if you splatter your brains on the concrete I shouldn't have to pay your bills or care for your family. Tired of the nanny state with government banning everything. Keep it away from kids. Adults make your own choices. Don't make me breathe the smoke though.

[G26ster]

And obesity deaths number 2d behind smoking at 300,000 per year. While one's obesity doesn't effect another's health, it does the same to the public pocketbook as smoking. But, it can also be argued that two obese parents are passing along all the wrong eating habits to their offspring, and therefore their obesity does effect others. In my day, if your parent(s) smoked, there was an excellent chance you would too.

I think we as advocates of the 2A need to be careful how and when we rail against smoking or other legal activities, where out rights "may" effect others rights. After all, it can be logically argued that injuries or deaths caused by gun discharges to innocents or bystanders are no different than the second hand smoke effecting another's health.

There is little difference in my mind between an obnoxious smoker disregarding your rights to a clean air environment by smoking in your space, and an obnoxious anti-smoker who will go out of their way to ensure there is no place anyone may smoke, even in a private area away from all others, that has no effect on their clean air. I have not smoked around non-smokers for many, many years. To me they are the same as rabid anti 2A folks who are working hard to convince the public at large that the mere ownership of a firearm is harmful to the general public. Remember, everything in the future from here on out will in some way be tied to a "public heath issue" now that the federal government controls health care, and that includes our gun rights. After all, after we rid the country of smoking and obesity, it will leave other fertile areas, for those that want to "control" your life to ensure their power, to conquer.

BTW, I fully agree that smoking is a completely stupid addictive habit that I wish I never started when it was "cool" to do so. But I'm like Andy now on e-cigs.

[VoiceofReason]

Well, let’s see.

They sued the Cigarette manufacturers. They sued the Gun manufacturers.

They tried to regulate smoking out of existence. They are trying to regulate Guns out of existence.

They tried to tax smoking out of existence. They are trying to tax Guns out of existence.

Smokers are now pariahs. They are trying to make gun owners Pariahs.

Smoking is legal. I know the dangers. You don’t know me. You don’t know why I smoke. Leave me alone.

He wrote as he lit another cigarette.

[VoiceofReason]

150,000 die yearly because of lung cancer.
That is at least 10X more than death by firearm for any reason.

An estimated 300,000 deaths per year are due to the obesity epidemic.

It's kind of odd/sad to see people standing outside saloons, VFW, American Legion, Elks, casinos, etc. smoking while their are sitting inside on the bar.

Alcohol abuse kills some 75,000 Americans each year and shortens the lives of these people by an average of 30 years, a U.S. government study suggested Thursday.

I shouldn't have to pay your bills or care for your family.

I have had Blue Cross Blue Shield for 35 years. I retired July 12 and elected to pay a high price to keep it. I pay extremely high taxes on cigarettes. Not to mention income taxes and Social Security for 40 years and Medicare since they started deducting it.

Quit while you still have time.

I am crippled and have extreme chronic pain in my leg. Why should I worry about smoking?

Don’t be so quick to judge others. I have learned that.

[clarionite]

I quit smoking 7 weeks ago - I'm dragging on an e-cig so it's still nicotine, but... it still beats actual cigarette smoke with all the weird chemicals and stuff.

I quit 5 years ago. It's been one of the hardest things I've ever done. But it can be done.

[mojo84]

And obesity deaths number 2d behind smoking at 300,000 per year. While one's obesity doesn't effect another's health, it does the same to the public pocketbook as smoking. But, it can also be argued that two obese parents are passing along all the wrong eating habits to their offspring, and therefore their obesity does effect others. In my day, if your parent(s) smoked, there was an excellent chance you would too.

I think we as advocates of the 2A need to be careful how and when we rail against smoking or other legal activities, where out rights "may" effect others rights. After all, it can be logically argued that injuries or deaths caused by gun discharges to innocents or bystanders are no different than the second hand smoke effecting another's health.

There is little difference in my mind between an obnoxious smoker disregarding your rights to a clean air environment by smoking in your space, and an obnoxious anti-smoker who will go out of their way to ensure there is no place anyone may smoke, even in a private area away from all others, that has no effect on their clean air. I have not smoked around non-smokers for many, many years. To me they are the same as rabid anti 2A folks who are working hard to convince the public at large that the mere ownership of a firearm is harmful to the general public. Remember, everything in the future from here on out will in some way be tied to a "public heath issue" now that the federal government controls health care, and that includes our gun rights. After all, after we rid the country of smoking and obesity, it will leave other fertile areas, for those that want to "control" your life to ensure their power, to conquer.

BTW, I fully agree that smoking is a completely stupid addictive habit that I wish I never started when it was "cool" to do so. But I'm like Andy now on e-cigs.

If my bullet flies over and contributed to some innocent person's demise, I'm held liable. That's not the case with smoking. Your right to smoke should end when your smoke enters my body. Just the same as with my bullet.