How can smokers and non-smokers ......?

Question

How can smokers and non-smokers exercise their rights to smoke and not smoke, respectively, without infringing on each others rights in each others company without one or the other being segregated?

Answer 1

Well when a non smoker nonsmokes, it doesnt harm the health of the smoker. But when a smoker smokes, it does harm the health of the nonsmoker. So the situation is not symetrical. The answer is to abolish smoking in public. Or make the cigarettes more cancerous so the smokers die off quicker and the issue is thus resolved.

Answer 2

Actually, the correct question should be: "How can smokers exercise their rights to smoke, and non-smokers exercise their rights not to breathe in smoke"..

I think part of growing up is the realisation that you can't have your way all the time. The stubborn insistence on "one's rights" is a sure way to conflict. There should be negotiation and compromise. Smokers/ non-smokers would not die if they did not get their way all the time.

Segregation is a loaded word. While it is true that it is impossible for both smokers and non-smokers to sit at the same table and "exercise their rights" at the same time (without having to use a mask or the invention of a new type of cigrette that has no smoke), the new law that requires the partitioning of a smokers corner for outdoor eating areas is in-your-face and may not be entirely necessary if patrons are willing to shift to different tables more discreetly.

Of course, the easiest answer to your question is the invention of a cigrette that gives no smoke. :)

Answer 3

In the same room, segregation is only way, unless you install a big exhaust fan, and the smoker stands by it! As a smoker I try to be considerate, but this new law in Houston about banning smoking in bars, (even the ones that have separate areas for each), is ridiculous. The non-smoker can get drunk, and go home and beat their spouse and kids, or get in a car and kill people, but that's ok, because they didn't pass on secondhand smoke? Bizarre.............

Answer 4

That's like asking, how can two people stand in a swimming pool and only one of them get wet (without the use of a wet suit, etc)? Short of sealing the non-smoker in a plastic bubble with it's own independant oxygen supply there is no way that the non-smoker is going to be unaffected.

The truth of the matter is that smoking should not be practiced in public because the risk to others is unavoidable and far too great. I choose not to smoke, and I should not have to suffer the health effects because someone else does not have the self control to restrain their addiction around me.

Answer 5

Not sure, I hate smoke and don't appreciate it when people light up their filthy cigerettes and polute my air with cancerous chemicals. Addiction is a sign of weakness, so smokers should be segragated from those of us who actually have some willpower. In nature the weak naturally die off and so will all the smokers, i just wish they'd hurry up and croke.
Boy do I ever feel negative tonight.

Answer 6

I don't think it's possible. Smoking should not be allowed period because it always infringes on someone's rights somewhere. For example, a mother who smokes with her children in the car or at home, is certainly not giving her children a choice as to whether or not they want to get lung cancer.

Answer 7

Since when is polluting the air people breath a "right"?

Sorry, I have COPD and it is all from second smoke. I never smoked, my family never smoked, my ex-husband never smoked. It was all from public smoking.

Answer 8

thats like saying how do we get oranges and apples to grow on the same tree

Answer 9

There is no way, expect segregation.