No more smoking in France

[BlackCatBonz]

so if a parent wants to go without a seatbelt....thats cool.
but if they let the child go without....uncool.
now we have an accident with dead parents and an orphaned baby.....really uncool.

apply that logic to smoking.

 

[Kacey]

I challange you, most of all, to really take a hard look at what kind of society you would like to live in, and that you would like your children to live in.

I would rather live in a society that charges me, as a taxpayer, for prevention (i.e. regulation) than live in a society that charges me, as a taxpayer, for treatment of those too stupid to avoid risky behavior (i.e. medical bills for those who smoke, who inhale SHS, who drive without seatbelts and insurance, etc.). From a purely pragmatic viewpoint, prevention is cheaper. Also pragmatically, while it is one thing to say taxpayers shouldn't pay the bills for such persons, it's just not going to happen - people will still be affected by such risky behaviors, and those costs will still be passed on - through taxes for the uninsured, and through premium hikes for the insured. Regulation is cheaper.

 

[Makalakumu]

1. People who want the ban believe that SHS is gravely harmful to the health of others. I disagree because when peoples bodies are actually monitored when exposed to SHS, there are no measureable effects (unlike the effects seen from smokers themselves). Once again, I challange anyone here to post up some evidence linking SHS to disease or death. A website that simply says its true without any discussion as to how that data was gathered is only an illogical "appeal to authority" rather then evidence.

The American Heart Association has been cited. The American Lung Association. So was the CDC. On all of these sites, links to hundreds of supporting reports exist. On the fact sheets given by the CDC, there are literally over 1000 reports available for view. In the posts regarding SHS, the links I provided will take you over 100 studies that show that SHS is directly linked to heart disease, lung cancer, SIDS, and a whole slew of other ailments. This is NOT an appeal to authority, it is an argument that is overwhelming in support of the FACT that SHS is harmful to your health.

2. I believe that in just about every case, adults have the choice now a days to be around SHS or not. People don't have to go to places where there is SHS. People don't have to sit in smoking sections. Most public places now a days are non-smoking establishments. People who work in smoking establishments have the choice to work elseware or to compromise with employers on the issue, despite all the sob stories of pregnant bartenders forced to work in taverns because there is no other comparible employment. This is nonsense. I challange you to think of regular circumstances and occurances where people couldn't simply choose to not frequent places that allowed smoking, and go ahead and name them. Most of what I will get are crybaby stories where people could, of course, choose to not be around SHS but decide to anyway.

SHS contains 4000 carcinogenic chemicals plus particulate matter that is harmful to peoples' health. If a smoker was a corporation, all of those chemicals would be regulated in some way so that the people who are WILLINGLY EXPOSED are properly protected. The corporation is federally mandated to FORCE there workers to wear the proper protective gear. With SHS, many of the same chemicals that OSHA regulates are well above the levels that would normally be regulated anywhere else.

There, IMO, the circumstances of exposure just don't matter. These chemicals are dangerous and need to regulated.

3. There is no evidence that SHS is a pollutant that is on par with any of our other current polluting behaviors. We can't link SHS to global warming or carbon dioxide levels or what have you. The issue of SHS as a pollutant is negligable as compared to our reliance on fossil fuels. I challange you to provide evidence that proves that stopping smoking would lower the worlds pollution levels significantly as compared to other pollutants, and I will be willing to entertain this idea.

"Pollutant" according to how it is regulated by environmental engineers, refers to a chemical has been tested and proven to be harmful the health of humans. SHS contains over 4000 classified pollutants. With many of them reaching levels where they would be regulated by OSHA if that agencies regulations had that broad of a sweep. SHS isn't going to contribute to global warming, but it is going to increase your chances of getting sick.

4. I believe that the real problem with smoking around others is not SHS, but exposing the behavior to children, particularly within the homes of smokers. This because children are more likely to become accustomed to smoking and grow up smokers. I believe that by banning smoking in public places, instead of allowing the few places left for adults to smoke, you create an environment where now parents of smokers have to smoke around children because they can only do it in homes and vehicles. With this in mind, I challange you to prove to me that a public smoking ban would help solve this issue rather then complicate it.

This is a valid point, however the real tragedy is that the children will have more direct exposure to SHS. This will have a detrimental effect on their health. For example, my wife lived with a mother who smoked constantly and she developed a case of SHS asthma that went away as soon as her mother stopped smoking.

The good news is that smoking bans have been proven to reduce the amount people smoke (citations for this have already been posted). We can only hope that there is a counterbalancing with these two effects.

5. Mass regulation of behavior and "victimless" crime never really works better then other means of solving problems, like education and freedom of choice. We ultimatily end up wasting money and valuable Law Enforcement resources on policing and regulation. This is money that we could be using to fund education, to clean the environment, to cure disease and solve our health care crisis, and so forth. mass regulation didn't work with prohibition. It has yet to work with the drug war. Hell it didn't even really work with seatbelts, as it is arguable that the PSA's and education are the real hero's behind increased seat belt use rather then fines and policing. And, this won't work for public smoking either. In general, regulation of bad choices and victimless crimes only accomplish more people getting put jail and more fines and more money spent on enforcing individual behavior. Our jails are crowded with people involved in victimless crimes, and are getting more crowded every year; all tax dollars and resources utterly wasted. I challange you to ask yourselves how increased enforcement and regulation of victimless crimes makes society better rather then worse.

In the literature I posted before, it was shown that smoking bans cost the taxpayer very little. Especially if the businesses that allow illicit smoking to occur are levied with fines. One need not chase down every individual smoker...only eliminate the places where they gather.

5. We ultimatily have to decide what type of society we would like to live in, and what we decide will always come with a price. The price of freedom is choice, and allowing people to be a victim of their own choices. The price of saving people from their own choices is to create a system based off regulation and punishment where choices are made for the people. One is a free republic or democracy that protects civil liberties, the other is a totalitarian police state based on controlling others for some sort of "greater good." You need to decide what kind of society you would like to live in. I am deciding that I don't want to live somewhere that isn't free due to someone elses idea of what is safe and good. Others have decided that they are willing to pay the price of freedom for the illusion of security. I see dangerous precidence and slippery slopes created with things like "statewide/nationwide public smoking bans." How far will we allow these things to go? It all seems OK until over-regulation begins to effect you. Sure, it may seem OK when we are talking about "common sense" stuff like helmet laws and seat belt tickets. But now Ontario and Bejing won't allow entire dog breeds, and has been mass Euthanizing them. France won't allow smoking, sure. Rights to weapons and self-defense means are almost completely lost in the first world nowadays. So how far are you willing to go for the sake of illusionary security and safety? How about cameras on every road that automatically sends you tickets in the mail? Since Obesity is fast becoming more of a problem now then smoking, how about ID cards that ration your food purchases if you exceed the height/weight chart? How about wiretaps without warrents? How about microchips to regulate healthcare and insurance coverage and monitor "pre-existing conditions" These aren't apocalyptic fantasies folks, these are things that we have the capabilities to do right now, and that are happenening or can fast become the norm (next 20-50 years). So, we need to decide right now how we want to live, and keep the trend towards freedom. Because once the trend gets too far in the other direction, we will find ourselves in an orwellian society with no means of changing it.

I don't think there is any need to worry about the slippery slope. Smoking bans required bi-partisan support in order to pass and Dems and Reps can hardly agree on anything now day. They agree on smoking bans, however. And they do this because the evidence of their effectiveness and of their need is overwhelming.

The last thing I'm going to point out is that I find it really interesting that all of these countries are so far ahead of the US when it comes to promoting the health of their populace. We are in really deep doo doo when it comes to our health. If you look at the Dept of Health statistics, the amounts of illness caused by smoking, obesity, and other diseases is sky rocketing...and much of this is caused by the choices that we make. So why are all of these other countries so much more progressive then we are?

I think that the common demoninator in almost all cases is socialized medicine. The taxpayers in those countries directly feel the bite of the bad decisions other people are making in regards to their health. Except in their case, they can VOTE to make some changes. The people can actually try and make things better.

In our case, our privatized system makes it impossible for us to do this. Thus, our insurance premiums keep going up and up and there is no end in sight. IMHO, our national health has got to be a national priority. We need to all understand that we are all tied to each other, that we all support each other. If one person gets sick because of the stuff they do, it affects us all. And this is no different then anywhere else in the world...