How come people are allowed to discriminate against Smokers? (I'm a non smoker)?

Question

So, why don't non-smokers just not walk into places or spaces where they can clearly see that people are smoking. Such as, I have seen non-smokers walk up to someone smoking and ask them to put it out. Smokers should be given just as much rights as non smokers. We were all born on the same earth.

Answer 1

Smoking is among the latest scapegoats in a long line of health hysteria trends. It's considered good for society to treat smokers and the overweight like second-class citizens, just as it was once believed that Jews and homosexuals were bad news and best legislated out of existence.
The truth of the matter lies in the term "public health": socialised medicine, which nearly all nations have in some form, uses force to make your body a universal, rather than individual, burden. No one ever said we are required by law to inhale secondhand smoke, so please take responsibility for yourself... because that's your job, not the world's. http://www.afcm.org/hcinar.html
Your life is your own, and if you don't have control over your own body and thus the freedom to do what you will with it (including moving it away from a smoker if you wish), then what DO you own? What IS yours? If our own bodies have been made public property, then what rights do we have left? That is nothing short of slavery.
As long as misguided statists are allowed to make your health a public issue, there will be discrimination against smokers, the overweight (however that's being defined this week), or anyone who dares try to enjoy what time we have. http://www.consumerfreedom.com/oped_detail.cfm?oped=118
Never forget, Hitler was a coercive health nut. If you support reproductive freedom (as I do!), failing to take My Body, My Choice to its logical conclusion is just hypocrisy. I, too, am a non-smoker, but that personal descision doesn't negate my comprehension of individual rights.

Answer 2

I don't think they discriminate the smokers...only the smoking. Smokers are aloud to be any place a non-smoker can be...as long as they don't smoke there. The second hand smoke also affects the non-smokers...even worse in particular cases. I'm a smoker and can certainly understand non-smokers not wanting me in their space when I'm smoking. Someday I'll quit and when I do, I'll be glad that I can go into a restaurant or in a plane...etc...and not have to worry about breathing someone elses smoke. In the meantime...I smoke in places where it doesn't affect or offend others.

Answer 3

I was a passive smoker since my conception. No one asked me what I thought, I was raised to think that was normal. Fortunately one day I decided smoking was not going to be a part of my life. I do not discriminate but I do have the right to demand not having to inhale any more and have someone contribute to my already deteriorated health. Yes, I suffer greatly during the winter season, bronchitis, coughing spells, colds, flus, I am prone to these illnesses thanks to my cigarrette smoking parents, friends and acquaintances, office coworkers and any other person who smoked without ever giving a thought to the rest of us who do not.
My home, car and office are smoke free, my children have never seen me light up a cigarrette. My husband does smoke but never at home.
Smokers were once the majority, not anymore. Please try to remember when people discriminated against you because you did not smoke. You were the oddball.
All the medical reasons have been extensively talked about, so I do not believe it is discrimination, this is my health.

If a smoker wants to ruin his or her health, that's their right. But their right to smoke ends where my right to protect my health begins.

Answer 4

Smoking is the only addiction that harms innocent bystanders. Second-hand smoke has been proven to be a health hazard. Smokers have a right to slowly kill themselves if they want to, but they don't have the right to harm others in the process.

Restricting or prohibiting smoking in public places is not discrimination; it's protection of the rights of others. Smokers still have the right to smoke in their homes and designated areas.

Answer 5

Are you talking people discriminating or jobs descriminating against smokers? Jobs can because a smoker costs them more money in medical insurance, smoke breaks, and typically smokers get sick longer and more often than non-smokers, so in the end a smoker costs more to employ than a non-smoker :)

Answer 6

Smokers have the same rights as everyone else. They do not have the right to cause physical harm to others, which they do when they puff into the air. The government will not ban smoking but they can limit the harmful effects that it causes to those who don't smoke.

It has been scientifically proven that second hand smoke causes health damage.

"Secondhand smoke exposure can cause heart disease and lung cancer in nonsmoking adults and is a known cause of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), respiratory problems, ear infections, and asthma attacks in infants and children, the report finds."

"Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke inhale many of the same toxins as smokers. Even brief exposure to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and increases risk for heart disease and lung cancer, the report says."

The article is below:

Answer 7

Think of any other vice. drink it effects your body only, drugs same, overeating same, smoking bothers those around them.

Example: I am not a smoker and have asthma. The smell of smoke bothers me greatly. My wife is a smoker. She never smokes in the house but outside and smokes when we are in the car together (windows down).

Answer 8

You're nuts. Smokers aren't some disenfranchised group like, African Americans or the Jews...they become smokers by choice, and a stupid one at that. Smoking causes cancer, and second hand smoke causes cancer, so if smokers want to kill themselves, they should do it in a way that doesn't force anyone else to breath their nasty smoke.

Answer 9

Yes. If employers can deny someone employment for having bad credit, then they surely can "discriminate" against one for having bad habits. After all, both of these instances are a matter of personal choice and responsibility. Unfortunately, contrary to an earlier post, the only statuses protected by federal and state employment laws are gender/sex, race/ethnicity, religion/creed, nationality, and sexual orientation (in some jurisdictions). The only instance where smoking is considered a "right" is when religious rituals command it, as in some American Indian or indigenous religions. Otherwise, smoking is not a defined right; it is a privilege.

Answer 10

They shouldn't. Smoking should not infringe on the non-smoking public, but when they can outlaw smoking in a tobacco shop, I think we may have crossed the line. The non-smoking certainly are not infringed upon there!!

Former smoker.