Prediction: City Hall Will Attack Smokers
Second-hand smoke, according to the Surgeon General's report of June 27, will kill everyone in America in the next seven minutes or so, especially smokers' children, trapped as they are in nicotine-filled mini-vans, rather than breathing the pure exhaust of the hybrid cars surrounding them.So here's my prediction: within a week, some civic-minded City Council Member will introduce a bill "to protect the children" by, among other things, prohibiting parents and anyone else from smoking near children, including in their own homes and cars. Five years later, to stop the epidemic of childhood obesity, parents and others will also be prohibited from feeding fat kids anything but tofu, water and rice cakes.
Oh, and the S.G.'s actual words did not, technically include the seven minutes thing. Rather, he said, "Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke at home or work increase their risk of developing heart disease by 25 to 30 percent and lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent." Now, for that to have any meaning, it would be nice to know what the existing risk is. For example, does second-hand smoke increase your risk from 1 in 100 million to 1.25 or 1.30 in 100 million? If so, I think I'll pick something else to fret about today.
Posted by Walter Moore @ 6/27/2006 11:44:00 PM
12 Comments:
Ay, Wacko es mucho muy Loco!!!
Legalize dope and criminalize tobacco. That's the answer.
No level of anything is "safe." Seriously. The FDA has a long list of products -- including peanut butter -- that fail "safety" tests, but are exempt because they've been used so long.
Also, I think respect for Native American culture militates against further regulation. After all, who first cultivated and used tobacco? It wasn't Europeans.
According to the LA Times article, 557,000 people die of cancer each year in the U.S., and 44.5 million people are smokers. That's a ratio of about 1%. If we take out the breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer and brain cancer deaths, I wonder how many lung cancer deaths we'd have.
And then, if we removed from that group the number of lung cancer deaths who were "firsthand" smokers, what number would we have left as possible "secondhand smoke" deaths?
I'm not saying I want to be locked in a small car for a long time with a smoker. I'm just saying I'd like a little more specifics on the statistics. I have never known anyone who supposedly died from secondhand smoke. Have you?
Then do some research, you lazy fuck. That's why you lost the election, because you're a lazy fuck.
Nothing turns me on more than a man with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, turning his fingers yellow and his teeth brown, smelling gross.
Legalize dope and criminalize tobacco. I'm with you.
I have the solution. No, really. I keep telling people this, but I keep getting dismissed. Let me know what you think. The idea here is not total prohibition, but to take the profit motive out of it.
Both tobacco and marijuana should be legal to possess by people over age 18, below a certain amount for personal use. It should be legal to smoke in private places. It should be illegal to smoke either one in public places.
Next, it should be illegal to SELL either tobacco and/or marijuana from an ongoing, licensed business. That includes home businesses. Anyone violating this would have their business license yanked.
It should be illegal to sell marijuana or tobacco outside of a licensed business.
It should be illegal to sell marijuana or tobacco plants through the mail or online.
It should be illegal to be "under the influence" of pot or tobacco while driving.
The only way you could get either tobacco or marijuana would be to have another adult give the stuff to you for free, or to buy seeds, get them through the mail, grow them in your own house with hydroponic lights, and smoke the stuff in a private residence only.
Anyone seen with a lit cigarette or joint in public would get an immediate fine. Problem solved.
here's a topic of choice that should be researched.
Can you name five brands of cigaretes?
And then can you name five brands of condoms?
If you can name more brands of cigarettes as opposed to condoms, then you should stop killing yourself and start enjoying sex more often!!!!
If someone dies at 90 from heart disease and their spouse was a smoker who died 30 years earlier, the people doing these stupid "studies" count that person as someone who died from exposure to second hand smoke.
3:14 PM
Sure, that's a good solution. Or one could move to the Netherlands, where true freedom exists.
According to a report from the BBC (printed July 9, 2004), a new study says that cranking up your backyard grill could kill you with cancer. Specifically, they say: A study by the French environmental campaigning group Robin des Bois found that a typical two-hour barbecue can release the same level of dioxins as up to 220,000 cigarettes. Dioxins are a group of chemicals known to increase the likelihood of cancer... If we're to take the report as scientific, then the danger from one cigarette's second-hand smoke must be 1/220,000th as dangerous as a single barbeque. Actually, the report doesn't say they're referring to second-hand smoke. They could be saying that all the smoke from 220,000 cigarettes is equal to one barbeque. That would be first-hand smoke, the kind I've
gleefully filled my lungs with for 40-some years. So... for all of you who are convinced that cigarette smoke causes cancer, kills tens of thousands of people every year, reduces birth weight, and all the other nonsense that has been pumped toward us... you should REALLY get up in arms about barbeques!
No laws are needed. The Surgeon General's report is going to be Exhibit 'A' in a future wave of lawsuits that will extinguish smoking around non-smokers faster than you can say 'I'll take your bank account'.
Here's the scenario: Your boss or your co-worker or your roommate smokes around you. You point to the SG report and ask them to stop. They continue. You have heart attack, get lung cancer, have a stroke, varicose veins, anything. You sue smoker for causing your medical problems. Smoker knew he was endangering you, knew it could cause cancer in you, didn't quit. You have negligence and causation and damages.
One big publicized win in which someone loses his life savings, and smokes will go out.
As per subsequent posts, the first lawsuiit was filed by a tenant against a landlord for allowing other tenants to smoke. Sheesh.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home