OT Calif. City Bans Smoking in Public Places

Monique Y. Mudama wrote:

Yeah, but so does exposure to the sun, participating in contact
sports, riding a motorcycle ... eating greasy food ... not exercising
enough ...

I agree that smoking is a risk factor, but I worry about where that
line of thinking would lead.

I agree!! In fact, plenty of scorn and blame (for rising medical costs,
etc) is already dumped on people who eat high-fat food and don't exercise.
We certainly don't level this kind of invective against, say, hang gliders.
Sure, hang gliders don't harm anyone else, but then, neither do junk-food-
eating couch potatoes. I guess the anti-smoking thing is a little too much
like to the "obesity epidemic" hysteria for my taste. It's that moral
witch-hunt aspect of it that turns me off, not the fact that people are
concerned for public health. (But if we're really concerned about public
health, how about going after industrial emissions?)

Not to say that I'm OK about breathing people's smoke - I'm mildly
asthmatic and it really bothers me. Smoking should be banned from all
public indoor spaces, and many outdoor spaces as well. But I don't
think it needs to be banned from all outdoor places.

Joyce

On 2006-03-20, Pamela Shirk wrote:

Do you know that cocaine was only made illegal in the
30s, if I recall correctly. It was still used for medical purposes in the
mid-70s.

Cocaine is still legal in 2006. It is used as a local
anesthetic. It became prescription only in 1914. Before that
date you could buy it over the counter in a variety of patent
medicines. Coca Cola had coca leaves in it. It still does,
but with the alkaloid extracted before the leaves go into
the syrup.

--
The night is just the shadow of the Earth.

CatNipped wrote:

Researchers have found that it doesn't matter how much you smoke
(except that it increases your chances), it only takes one time for
the chemicals in smoke or second-hand smoke to mutate a gene that
causes lung cancer.

Yes, but it's all about the law of averages. I mean, it only takes one
plane crash to kill you, but what are the chances the plane you're in is
going to crash? Not every whiff of smoke will mutate your cell into a
cancerous cell. In fact, the chances are small that any single whiff will
do that, and you need repeated exposures to have a significant risk.
Doesn't mean you can't be colossally unlucky and get cancer from one
whiff, but the chances of that happening are quite slim.

Joyce

CatNipped wrote:

Also, to stretch a point, drivers who are distracted by fishing out
and lighting up a cigarette could (and do) cause accidents.

Ditto for CD players - I had an accident about 4 years ago because I was
futzing around with a CD and went off the road and hit a phone pole! (I
wasn't hurt, but my car was totalled.) Then there are coffee drinkers,
people talking on cell phones, and so on. (I'm guilty of talking on a
cell phone while driving, I have to confess.)

Joyce

wrote:
CatNipped wrote:

Also, to stretch a point, drivers who are distracted by fishing out
and lighting up a cigarette could (and do) cause accidents.

Ditto for CD players - I had an accident about 4 years ago because I was
futzing around with a CD and went off the road and hit a phone pole! (I
wasn't hurt, but my car was totalled.) Then there are coffee drinkers,
people talking on cell phones, and so on. (I'm guilty of talking on a
cell phone while driving, I have to confess.)

Joyce

Oh, yeah. CD players, cell phone yakking, and mothers who try to
discipline small children in the back seat while driving down the road!
But the one that stands out, that I'll never forget -- I actually saw a
woman reading a paperback book while she was driving down the street.
That's just stupid...it made me wonder what exactly would be on the
ticket that she'd get if a cop saw her. "Driving while stupid"?
Sherry

Cheryl wrote:

...a smoker myself, I'd never knowingly force others to breathe
in my second hand smoke... I don't even smoke in my own house. I'm
outvoted with 4 non-smokers vs just me.

I used to smoke (quit in 1987), and I was the same way. I never minded
going outside away from people, as I would have felt like an anti-social
clod smoking among people who didn't want to breathe it. (Now I would
see myself more as a public danger to do that, but at that time it was
seen more as a social gaffe.)

Actually I found it sort of fun and kind of a bonding experience to
smoke with the other "degenerates" who would hang out with me on street
corners and behind buildings, etc.

Not that I regret quitting for a second!! I've never had a desire for
a smoke since then, except in some of the "Oh, no, I can't believe I
started smoking again, what kind of idiot am I?" dreams that I have from
time to time.

Joyce

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:

Yes, I can see where an orthodox Jew or a Sikh might have
grounds for a class-action suit - but usually the scumbags
who make such arbitrary rules don't offer jobs worth having,
anyway!

If one is desperate for cash and your company is the only one in
town that's hiring it's a job worth having! Unfortunately, not
everyone has the option of turning down employment even when it
requires unreasonable compromises from its employees.

Joyce

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:

And FYI, LSD didn't even
exist until well after WW2. (It came along just about the
same time as the Beattles, IIRC - remember "Lucy in the Sky
with Dianonds"?)

I got curious about this, so I Googled it, and discovered that LSD was
actually first formulated in a lab in 1938. However, the scientist who
did this (Albert Hofmann) didn't do anything more with it until 5 years
later, when he went back to work on it again. It was in 1943 that he
first experienced the effects of the drug after accidentally ingesting
some of it. That made him curious, so he then deliberately ingested some,
and had, as he put it, "the most incredible bicycle ride home."

http://www.erowid.org/culture/charac...n_albert.shtml

It didn't become popularized until the 1960s, but both the military and
the CIA performed experiements with the drug before that time. For an
interesting book about this, look he

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...980720-9732442

Joyce

wrote:

Back on topic, I watched a movie, I believe it was a Stephen King
vignette, called "Quitters." This thread is eerily reminding me of that
movie! Ever seen it?

Isn't that one section of the movie Cat's Eye? The King story is called
"Quitter's Inc". Two other stories, whose names I can't remember, but
that are also by King, are the bases of the other two sections of Cat's
Eye. What ties them all together (rather thinly) is a striped tabby named
General (which also brings this thread totally on topic ). I've always
loved the third piece of the movie, with baby Drew Barrymore and her cat
General, who protects her from a little troll who tries to steal her
breath, and of course, her parents blame it on the cat.

Joyce

On 2006-03-21, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:

Pam, SFAIK marijuana has ALWAYS been illegal in the U.S.!

Not always. Federal legislation was in 1937. State laws varied.
You could buy over the counter preparations with marijuana 100
years ago.

--
The night is just the shadow of the Earth.