New York = Orwellian? (No Smoking in Parks and Coastlines)

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What do we think to this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12352935

New York is extending the smoking ban to even outside areas.

I don't smoke anymore, but I personally find this idea awful, and offensive. They are removing a persons freedom of choice. They are removing a persons right to do something that's perfectly legal. Why not just make tobacco an illegal substance altogether, and have done with it?

It just smacks me of totalitarian and completely goes against my idea of what a free society should be. God forbid they ever try and enforce something like this over here...

 

I find it excessive. The general idea of a smoking ban inside is that it forces non-smokers to inhale the smoke - thus turning them into the so-called "passive smokers" and endangering their health (not to mention causing them discomfort) against their will.

These are not factors outside, so a smoking ban makes little sense.

 

I agree with Shaman - banning smoking in indoor public areas is one thing. As he pointed out, the confined space makes everyone breath that same air, and many states have banned smoking in indoor places, like restaurants. Outdoors seems to be excessive. Although it is only in parks, beaches, and such. You can still smoke in your car, if you go to a bar, you can still go outside for a cigarette, so it's not like they've banned smoking entirely.

It should also be pointed out that NYC has always had a very strong anti-smoking campaign.

 

The same rationale should prohibit smoking in your car if someone else is in it. I'd hate to be the smoke cops these days, tasked with such inane jobs as chasing smokers out of parks, etc.

 

Stupid idea. Probable it will be challenged on constitutional grounds.

 

As someone who has lived nestled between the New Forest and the Coast - I'd support the idea wholeheartedly in England.

As someone with a tobacco allergy one of the worst weeks for me was when smoking was banned indoors - the fortnight between that law coming in and people adjusting meant that pretty much everyone was just stood in the street smoking, even a few smoking one after another, after another, as much as they could in a break or if they'd otherwise be in a pub doing it.

I don't see why I should have to deal with the litter, the stench and the coughing of someone else expressing their freedom of choice. Especially in places where children play.

 

Indoor bans are cool. I shouldn't have to breath someone else's toxic fumes.

The bans should also apply outside to areas right beside entryways. Here in my neck of the woods, entering many office buildings requires running a gauntlet of smokers huddled around the doorway. It's gross. Many places have a 5 metre radius ban around the entrances, and I think that's a fair deal.

But in public parks? On the street? In parking lots? In one's own backyard? Preposterous. Lots of more serious issues to address once the limp-lunged (like myself!) have been taken care of.

 

I see no problem with this ban, for a number of reasons. Outdoor airflow virtually eliminates any problems associated with second-hand smoke (even smelling it). Extending the ban is more about litter than cleaner air. They're not saying you can't smoke anywhere outside, just in public parks and pedestrian areas. I've been to Time's Square several times, and there are cigarette butts all over the ground. I've never been to a beach in New York State, but I've known people who have, and they say they don't enjoy it much because the sand is filthy, partly from cigarette butts. On public lands, they can restrict smoking all they wish. On private property, though, smoke all you want.

If smokers could be counted on to properly dispose of their butts, this likely wouldn't be an issue. Sadly, many smokers drop the butts where they stand and stomp them out with their foot (or just flick them away) when they're finished smoking. They don't seem to think of it as littering (or they just don't care). I've had a number of good friends over the years who were regular smokers and they rarely disposed of their butts properly, and they were people who generally frowned on littering.

Sidenote: I think I just set an SP record for the most uses of the word "butts" in a single post.

 

"and the winner is.....Death Rabbutt"

On topic it's a pretty good law, as long as they keep it to pedestrian areas and parks. I am a non-smoker in my day-to-day life, though I enjoy a good cigar every now and again. (A nice cigar and a bottle of Mad-Dog is a necessity for a card-game. The Mad-Dog of course is in a brown paper bag at all times.) I hate seeing butts all over the ground. Growing up out east, the Jersey Shore definitely had it's fair share of garbage on the beaches, cig butts being the most prominent. And empty bottles. And used cond.. nevermind, you get the picture. It was a real mess. The boardwalks and piers are the same way.

 

I think smoking tobacco should be illegal, nicotine its an addictive, mind and body altering drug - they made weed illegal, why should one mans drug be legal but Joe hemps drug isnt?

 

Why stop at smoking tobacco? Why not chewing tobacco as well? Because cigarettes don't cause you to be impaired. Pot does. Big difference.

 

I'm almost ashamed to admit this made me chuckle.

 

That's right. Even Mrs. Chandos leaves here cigarette butts on the front porch and back deck. I have to clean them up whenever I work outside. What is it with these smokers?

 

You've got it the wrong way around. Legalize, regulate, tax.

There is nothing worse (well, lots of things worse, but it is pretty annoying) than standing at a train stop with a smoker just over there. Or walking down a busy street and having to breath in the smoke. There is a reason councils have designated industrial zones.

 

Agree 100%.

---------- Added 0 hours, 1 minutes and 52 seconds later... ----------

Agree 100% with this too.

 

I think nicotine does cause impairment, Ive never met a calm smoker, they are very irritable and lose their patience very easily.
Nicotine is highly addictive, it is as a stimulant as addictive as class A drugs such as heroin and cocaine, unlike pot which can be enjoyed in moderation like alcohol, of course these can be abused like any pharmaceutical.
Nicotine is poison simple as, in higher concentrations it is used as an insecticide.

Nicotine causes altered states of heart rate and blood pressure, as these alter they can cause irritability, dizziness and severe headache. It can also cause nausea, diarrhea and heart burn. In the muscles, it causes tremors resulting in shaky hands. some experts suggest that it can also cause loss of eyesight. Nicotine also effects appetite, which can have long term effects on health

definately:

 

That's not entirely true. I can smell smoke from quite a ways away, and you cant always avoid it. People smoke outside my home, outside my work. Sometimes I drive by someone smoking and it comes in my car. It's pervasive and has caused me health problems for most of my life.

I'm a huge huge proponent of freedom of choice. I feel that everyone should be allowed to do everything they ever want to, right up until it impinges on someone else's freedoms - to do what they want, or be free of something they dislike. The same sorts of things apply to noise ordinances. You can play your music as loud as you want, until you bother someone else.

Chewing tobacco, while absolutely disgusting, at least keeps the filth in the users mouth, rather than fouling the air in a huge radius around them.

I totally agree on the litter issue too. Cigarette butts practically never decompose, and are a huge nuisance to clean up. You dont throw bottle caps on the ground when you open a soda, you shouldnt throw anything else on the ground.

 

And yet I was able to stop chewing after 10 years, cold-turkey. I must be both amazing and very resilent. (Slapping self on back at this very moment, Yay Me!)I will have to call my father and thank him for passing down such fine genes. Too bad he couldn't stop the baldness pattern as well.

Seriously though, I have never seen anyone with those symptoms that smokes. Well almost no one, people who have been smoking for 40+ years show some of those symptoms. And of course lung cancer, the down side. But they still funcition normally in society and seem not to get killed after smoking. Amazing how pot, alcohol and numerous other drugs cause driving deaths, but smoking doesn't. Could it be because they are not impaired?

You've never met a calm smoker? Just about everyone I know that smokes is calm. And quiet. They usually are contemplating things when smoking, taking a relaxing moment off from the daily grind. I agree long-term effects of daily smoking can be bad for your health, but what isn't? I'm not advocating smoking but it isn't comparable to pot or other illegal drugs. Different ballgames altogether.