Last smoking day in Holland
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Where I live we are definitely moving of the direction of banning smoking from outdoor public areas. No more just going outside for a smoke if outside means a public sidewalk. We already have bans of smoking on many public properties. If a teacher wants a smoke on her break she is expected to get completely off the school property to do so. As you drive around, even rural areas, you may see a small group of people standing around at the end of the driveway many metres away from the buildings. They are the smokers and you'll see them even in the blustery winter weather, standing in the slush.
We have zero smoking in bars and restaurants -- no smoking areas at all - indoors or out. No smokers decks or patios. The mood of many is definitely towards further restrictions on smokers. Many (and not just anti-smoking activists) are really bothered by smokers who toss their butts out car windows or who stomp them out on the sidewalk. There are calls to arrest such smokers for littering & hit them with significant fines.
Some places in Canada now even have bans on smoking in your own car if there are children on board. Activists want bans if there are pets in the car.
Stores selling cigarettes here aren't allowed to have them on display. The retailers keep them in cabinets behind the cash -- buyers have to ask for a brand as retailers can't open the cabinets to show them the selection. The packages have huge health warnings that take up a significant portion of the package 'real estate'. They'll have very bold messages like "Smoking Kills" or "Smoking Causes Impotence".
Regards, Ross
PS - I should add that in my adult years it would seem there has been a significant decline in the numbers of smokers here. The stereotypical smoker here now is either a poor low-educated person or a teenage girl. I work in an office of twelve people - nobody smokes. When I think of the people in my neighborhood - nobody smokes.
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I read in the paper today puffing weed in coffeeshops will remain legal (well... "legal"
), but one can only smoke weed - there's no tobacco allowed in your joint. Which is fairly strange, as weed's even unhealthier than tobacco.In the long run, I realize that, all these new laws are for the better. But this is idiotic: "If a teacher wants a smoke on her break she is expected to get completely off the school property to do so." There's really no rational reason for this.
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I heard that scratching your ass in public will soon be illegal.
Also having 1 finger up your nose while talking to a stranger will be illegal.
Two fingers, no problem.
Damn rules.
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@kwistenbiebel said:
Also having 1 finger up your nose while talking to a stranger will be illegal.
but thats only because you dont emmit harmful substances when both your nostrils are blocked...
no, honestly. as long as your actions do not harm others (or yourself beyond tolerable measure (what is tolerable?
)they won't be prohibited.
and of course things, that may harm your surroundings, but are inevitalbe, will still be legal (the average human farts 15 times a day
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@unknownuser said:
But this is idiotic: "If a teacher wants a smoke on her break she is expected to get completely off the school property to do so." There's really no rational reason for this.
Well, before the ban when the nonsmoker visited a public building they'd often have to move through a huddle of smokers camped outside the front door under the canopy. The ground would be littered with butts. In the case of schools, the children entering the school could also face this.
Furthermore, in buildings with operable windows (remember them?) the smoke would enter the building. Depending on the design the smoke could also enter the fresh air intakes of the building.
Harassing smokers like this (plus taxing the hell out of them) does result in smoking being far less socially acceptable. Rates of smoking are in decline.
By the way the main reason banning all smoking from restaurants from bars & restaurants succeded is to protect the health of staff at the establishments. Most people here would agree it is isn't right to make a waitress have to serve patrons in a smoking area and it isn't right to only give jobs to smokers. I don't believe it is legal for an employer to ask a job applicant if they smoke - as doing so could result in discrimination.
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@plot-paris said:
the average human farts 15 times a day
Not me. I fart only once. A piano fart. Really big and heavy.
Makes you wonder how 'Stinkie' got his name.
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@coen said:
Today, Monday June 30th, is the last day before the nationwide smoking ban in public places.
we have this thing in italy yet. here smoking in public places was banned more than 3 yeras ago, the only good thing berlusconi did.
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@unknownuser said:
but still she stayed alive until she was 93 years old...!!
50 % of smokers die by smoking, so your grand-mother was very lucky
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i've never been a smoker. . .(I onced puffed at the age of 11--bein' real sneaky. Made me sick. I hated it) quite frankly. . . I never really got it. Remember the old Bob Newhart routine about Crazy Wally? Sir Walter Raleigh--talkin' to the Dutch East India Company? Classic!
%(#8000BF)[*"Wo wally. . you're saying we take the leaves, roll them up in tissue paper, stick it in our mouth. . ..And SET IT ON FIRE??Uh Wally? Why would I wanna do this? Uh-huh. . .uh-huh. . . .Cuz it is tastes good?"
You call this stuff TO-BAC-C0? And you 've sent us 50 tons of the stuff?
*]Of course, Newhart was a 5 pack a day smoker himself before he quit. Johnny carson, Yul Brynner, Nat Cole, Bogart, etc etc. All died from Smoking. Very sad.
Anyway. . .Thats How I have always thought of Smoking. I jsut never really got it. Why not Just put your mouth around the tailpipe of car or something? The tragedy of smoking is that we've know about the dangers since the sixties and yet I see young people more and more doing it--despite all the knowledge that we have gained in the past 2 generations. I understand how addictive it can be tho, so I applaud those who can quit. For your Daughter's sake.
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Ross, even as a non smoker the laws you describe seem pretty strict. I can understand banning smoking indoors but banning it outside buildings seems ludicrous. The argument that the smoke could get sucked in through vents and open windows is plain madness. Yes it does happen but its not going to have an effect as anything reomtely harmful will be diluted to the extent that it is immeasurable.
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We have the smoking ban here in South Africa as well. It is not banned outside in open (ventilated) spaces, however there is a restriction of something like 20m around building openings and such.
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We too have a public indoor smoking ban in Dallas which pretty my renders everywhere unsmokable as going outside to smoke in 100 plus degrees is just not an option.
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I'd suggest the trend is towards more and more restrictions on smokers. Just because you can smoke walking down the sidewalk now where you live doesn't mean it will always be that way. Ideas like making it illegal to smoke around kids (even your own kids) have a way of catching the imagination of the non-smoking community. If they are the majority then their will can result in laws.
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Well, I was in Fargo, North dakota, 2 years ago (I know, Fargo
) and I was smoking a cigarette outside on the parking lot of a mall.Suddenly, some 'security' 4X4 drives by and shouts 'you can't smoke here'.
He looked as if he was going to mace or taze me being the next most wanted criminal.
Even my answer 'Oh, am I not allowed? I will put it out then..' made him even more agressive as if I had to pay severely for the enormous crime I just committed.I needed two minutes to explain him I am from Europe and we don't have such rules, and that I am really REALLY sorry bla bla...before he drove of.
I have a different view on the USA since that experience...
(not because of the rule you can't smoke there,but because of the power abuse ) -
A few years back . . .and I was never in favor of this, even though I do think there should be smoking restrictions. . .anyway somebody thought it would be a good idaea to criminilize smoking as an assault by forcing Some innocent bystander to breathe a smoker's second hand smoke. In a radio debate the prig and prissy Anti-smoker said. . .
"When I am forced to breathe someone else's toxins how is that any different than Union Carbide killing 3000 indians with their toxic gas. ..blah blah blah . .therefore, I should be able to charge taht person with assault"
The smoker on the other side of the debate said. . ."Lady if you can charge me with assault for a brief whiff of 2nd hand smoke .. what's next? Is farting in an elevator ATTEMPTED MURDER?
I laughed so hard I about p**d myself.
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I'm convinced that it's far more dangerous to walk on the sidewalk of a busy road and inhale all the invisible exhaust from cars and trucks, than it is walking behind a person smoking...!!
It seem as if smoking is banned in most countries in the - so called - Western world ... Here in Scandinavia smoking have been banned in indoor public areas for at least a couple of years now...
What I find most ridiculous is that we're able to fly rockets to the moon and back again, but for some reason no-one is able to make a smokers room with good ventilation...
I'm sure that once the percentage of people smoking is below a certain level, they will start chasing next subject...
Fast food...
I believe it would be much better, if authorities spend some time on all the artificial food additives the industry have invented during the past 10-15 years, cause I'm sure that many of them are more harmful than smoking...
Take this example... One of the most widely and commonly used artificial food additive must be NutraSweet , which is a sweetener used in most "diet" products...
The real name is Aspartame but it's marketed under a number of trademark names...
During thousands of years, people have been used to eat sugar... Plane sugar made of canes or beets, but since sugar isn't considered being particular healthy, some people invented Aspartame as a substitute...
The most scary part - (and now people can call it conspiratorial theories or whatever) - is, that no-one knows exactly the influence Aspartame and many other artificial food additives will have on the human body over a longer period...
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As Jerry Seinfeld has said. . .
%(#FF4080)[*it's a good thing we landed on the moon. .. so now we can have something with which to compare all other acheivements.
We can put a man on the moon so why is it so hard to . . . yada yada yada. . .
Imagine if we hadn't gone to the moon. . .
Well, we can't put a man on the moon--so Why should we be expected to do this?*]
I can understand your take on this Fred. . ..YOu let BABIES SMOKE FOR CRYIN" OUT LOUD!!!!
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well, there is the perfect solution for all the poor, discriminated smokers!
a hightech cigaret, that simulates the smoke of tobacco without emmiting second hand smoke.
"...stainless steel shell, lithium battery, micro-electric circuit, atomizing chamber and an indicator light..."
the only thing they have to add is a little speaker that simulates the crackling noise of burning tobacco when taking a deep drag...
shit, after more than two decades of abstinence I am seriously tempted to start smoking!!!
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suicide? -
...and blow vast amounts of money, all from the comfort of your smoke filled living room.
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