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#51
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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 |
#52
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OT Calif. City Bans Smoking in Public Places
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. |
#53
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OT Calif. City Bans Smoking in Public Places
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 |
#54
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OT Calif. City Bans Smoking in Public Places
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 |
#55
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OT Calif. City Bans Smoking in Public Places
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 |
#56
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OT Calif. City Bans Smoking in Public Places
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 |
#57
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OT Calif. City Bans Smoking in Public Places
"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 |
#58
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OT Calif. City Bans Smoking in Public Places
"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 |
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OT Calif. City Bans Smoking in Public Places
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#60
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OT Calif. City Bans Smoking in Public Places
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. |
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