The Smoking Debate?

Question

First I would like to say that I am a smoker. Second I would like to say that I am sick and tired of other people telling me what I can and can not do with my own body. Okay this is where all the non-smokers chime in and give me a thumbs down and state that my smoking can harm them. What I want to know is this. All you anti-smokers, where are you when it comes to alcohol, obesity etc. 17,000 people between the ages of 12-21 have died this year due to alcohol related incidents. A drunk driver on the road can harm you or someone you love faster than a smoker can. How about obesity. The United States has the highest rate in obesity and obesity related medical problems or death. Which means that yes you, me and every other tax payer out there is paying for medical care for obese people that can not take care of themselves. Why are you not complaining about this. My final thought is this. I have to laugh each time that the taxes go up on cigarettes. More and More people are

quitting smoking each day ,month and year. States have already allocated the tax money from the cigarettes. This means when the tax money generated from the sale of tobacco is lacking that you the non -smokers are going to have to kick in and pay a portion of the tax to make up the deficit. So go ahead keep increasing taxes if you want. Someday soon you will have to pay them too

Dear Frogme. Please read your answer. You say that other people drinking, getting fat or smoking dont harm you then you say that smokers do harm you. Are you confused on the issue. And answer this. If a person drinking around you then gets into a vehcile and kills you or someone you love not harmful to you. If you sit idly by and watch a love one become obese without doing anything about it and then you watch as they suffer a heart attack or worse a stroke then you watch the life that they have to lead after wards does this not harm you. It may not harm you physically but it will harm you emotionally and mentally. I know that smoking is not good for me. that is not the issue. I know that I am more likely to die from smoking than you are. I accept these risks every time that I light up. But just as you have the right to not smoke I have the right to smoke. Freedom is not conditional.

Answer 1

I don't necessarily disagree with your points. And I wouldn't be in favor of outlawing tobacco. This (the U.S.) is supposed to be a free society where individuals are able to make their own personal choices.
But here's my problem with smoking: People with very little money (but somehow manage to buy cigarettes anyway) and no health insurance smoke themselves into chronic health problems. And then when they can't pay their medical bills, we taxpayers get to pick up the tab. And I'm not picking on smokers. I have the same problem with people who eat themselves into heart attacks and diabetes and alcoholics who drink until their livers are Swiss cheese.
My point is, I resent having to pay for the self-inflicted health problems of the medically indigent. This idea that "it doesn't affect anyone else" is crap. Tobacco, alcohol, junk food should all be very heavily taxed. And that money should ALL be put into a pool to partially offset these enormous medical costs.
Personal freedom needs to go hand in hand with personal responsibility.

Answer 2

Very rarely does any candidate really outperform their opponent in a debate. The debates almost always have a narrow specific field with a loose panel and timed answers. This allows for the candidates to prep for all possible questions, field test answers for reaction, and to bumper sticker or slogan their answer without substance. Hillary and Obama and McCain all did this in their many previous debates and this will continue to be the case. The fact that the moderators really do keep the debate moderate also prevents great debate. They don't ask retaliatory questions of substance and aren't allowed to call candidates out for avoiding direct answers of the questions. A better format for debates would be to have the topics prepared in advance (as they are now) but to force the candidates to speak for 5-10 mintues about each topic and then give the opponent a 5 minute rebuttal. An entire debate could be posed from a single question, allowing true insight to be gained, eliminate quips and catchphrases and bumper sticker responses and force the candidates to show expertise and levelheadedness in their answers. The current debate style has produced a few noticeable one-ided victories, like the first Kerry-Bush debate in 04, or the famous 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debate. The Nixon- Kennedy debate showed not the value of a debate or a well prepared or smooth public speaker, but the effects of visual charisma, and most radio listeners said that Nixon performed better, but television viewers (in the first ever televised debate) said by a landslide, that Kennedy won the debate and his poll numbers jumped immediately. This once again suggests the infrequency of which a candidate can really "smoke" another candidate in a debate under the current system. Most often the media suggests a "winner" based off of preconcieved and predetermined preferences. Ask any Obama supporter, and you will find he clearly dominated Hillary in the debates, as surely as every Clinton supporter will demonstrate how she masterfully outperformed Barrack.

Answer 3

a few points.
1. Just because other things kill you doesn't make smoking alright

2. other people drinking or getting fat or even smoking around me does not harm me - people who smoke around me do, whether they believe that they have a right to or not.

3. Your arguments are extremely self centred and there are plenty of people who do complain about the obesity problem as well as alcohol and other drug related problems

Try giving up smoking for a few years and coming back and reading your arguement and you will see how pathetic you sound

I believe you can do anything to yourself that you want to as long as it doesn't affect others and you just can't believe that smoking around others doesn't affect them.

I don't know about the tax issue, as both alcohol and ciggarettes are taxed quite heavily here, for the same reason. Maybe they should be taxing McDOnalds etc as well to help pay for the obesity epidemic.

I want to have affordable health care when I am old and if the hospitals are full of fat people with heart conditions I hope I can still find a good doctor....

Answer 4

Harrumph!! I have a friend who is a med student and he's looked at lungs from all sorts of cadavers. He said there is nil difference between smokers & non-smokers, but there is a HUGE difference between city folk and country folk. I think smokers are the scapegoats for what really causes lung disease. Think about what happens to a person who spends a few hours in an airtight room full of, say, 50 smokers. There will be virtually no impact. But take that same person and put them in the same room with a running gas engine for 20 minutes or less and they will likely be dead (depending on the size of the room).
If it's such a hazard to your health, then why are there so many chain smokers in their 90's and 100's?

Answer 5

about the taxes, I live in pennsylvania and they are upping the taxes by a whole dollar for a pack of cigarettes... and for what? Oh no, it's not to try to reduce smoking, it's to pay for mass transit in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia because those cities have screwed it up in the past. I mean common, that's just ridiculous. I'm a smoker, and in my opinion it's discrimination to make smokers pay for something that has absolutely nothing to do with them, especially if they don't live in either of these cities.

Answer 6

I am not anti anybody here. In your statement that you are sorry to your smoking however you cannot control yourself and speak out the excues to blame others to tranfer the points out of you.
The karma is being one action will create another result. You love to the enviroment, you will be there. Such as the government get together the smokers into a room for smoking. The smokers they will suffer the smoking room enviroment keep their willing.
What shall we want? Mostly we don't know.
Why we need to smoke? Properly we are empty, we don't know what will be. The religious can help you. See what can help?

Answer 7

what i want to know is.... why do you think its ok to smoke around someone in a public place?? not only are you causing one person to gag, your causing a whole restaurant or whatever to gag. why do you feel you are owed the right to make others nauseaus? and harm their heath? no one ever got cancer from second hand obesity, or second hand drunk driving.

i know that drunk drivers kill ppl everyda, but also know, that i have a problem with it.... i know my tax dollars go to help people (obese or not) who more times than not just dont want to work... i also have a big problem with that! i just dont understand why you would think its ok to pollute a whole area because of your habit when you are in the minority....why is it so hard to just walk around somewhere else maybe to the otherside of the building?? its not that big of an inconvenience... but what is a huge inconvenience is when you are trying to enjoy a meal or whatever, and you have to smell a huge nasty cigarrette the whole time, and then leave smelling like a smoker...

now, i know ppl like to smoke, i used to be a social smoker, myself. and that is your right.... no one can tell you you cant smoke in your own privacy... i dont care what you do on your own time. what i do care about tho, is my children, and them having asthma problems because someone is too inconsiderate to go outside.

Answer 8

I'm a non smoker who is related to smokers and I have smoked before eventhough I was born with Asthma ( I don't have Asthma anymore since I outgrew it ) and I am not going to give you any grief so don't worry about that.
I don't care if people smoke, just as long as they smoke in my house etc with the doors or windows open and I think that instead of these bar smoking laws, why can't the people who moan and whine just not go to the pub/bar anymore? or open a window in the pub/bar?

Answer 9

Smoking is just the latest thing they are attacking. They aren't so quick to jump on taxes for alcohol because Prohibition blew up in their faces. And many of our people in Congress drink.

Answer 10

I smoke also, i think we should ban alcohol again, then ban obese people since that causes a lot of health problems, think of some more and yes lets ban politicians because they get a lot of people killed in wars! Your right where are they going to get their money?