Aiight....if smoking is banned outside in public places and from public doorways, cigarettes must be hidden from plain view in sotres, ads cant be posted and they cannot sponsor things like the old "Benson and hedges Fireworks Show" Why doesnt the Canadian government just ban smoking? Quit producing tobacco? They like the profit? Like reaping the benefits of tax dollars?
Denny

It is banned in Japan in public places.In stations you can smoke in marked places only.

Maybe they observed and learned from the US's great Prohibition experiment.

“The results of the experiment are clear: ...organized crime grew into an empire; ...disrespect for the law grew; and the per capita consumption of the prohibited substance -- alcohol -- increased dramatically” (McWilliams). It is obvious that this “noble experiment” was not so noble but rather a miserable failure on all accounts. Reasonable measures were not taken to enforce the laws and so they were practically ignored. People flagrantly violated the law, drinking more of the substance that was originally prohibited. The problems prohibition intended to solve, such as crime, grew worse and they never returned to their pre-prohibition levels. Not only was prohibition ineffective, it was also damaging to the people and society it was meant to help. Prohibition should not have gone on for the thirteen years it was allowed to damage society.>

Jim.

Na!! too reasonable.

Ethan

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
"Why shouldn't the American people take half my money from me? I took it all from them." - Edward Filene

Say what you want, Prohibition was better than no booze at all.

Shelly

There are those who would like to see smoking disappear entirely and are working towards that.
JP

If I were king (which, thankfully, I am not) I would levy a huge tax on it, I would increase penalties for evading that tax, and I would limit liability claims (to zero) for anyone that claimed injuries from smoking or its side-effects.

Dave

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Well said, your majesty!

I think our national healthcare system should be paid, in large part, by cigarette & alcohol tax.


If a pack rises to $6, so be it.

Visit the Basement

Cigarettes ought to be relatively cheap for you, or else the tobacco companies are ripping you off.

According to this link - STATE EXCISE TAX RATES ON CIGARETTES - Missouri is 50th out of 51 states and Wash, DC., taxing a piddling .17¢ a pack - hardly sufficient to pay for any health care, national or not.

Jim.

Tax rates would obviously have to rise to pay for the healthcare...and in Missouri a lot.

Visit the Basement

Heres another chart showing beer,ciggys,gas,Sales Tax for all of the states.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/Advice/TheBestAndWorstStatesForTaxes.aspx?page=2

Levying sin taxes is not a reliable method of financing anything. The problem is that sin taxes ultimately limit or eliminate the sin.

I think it is responsible to see to it that everyone understands the dangers of smoking. Beyond that if someone still insists upon killing themselves, it is their responsibility, let them. In a free society you do not legislate private behavior that does not threaten others. I was a heavy smoker. When the dangers of smking became known to me I gave it up totally and permanently in 1967. Had I not done so I have no doubt I would have died by mid 2000.

Shelly

Here in the land 0f 10000 taxes Minnesota, if Tobacco were outlawed the State would lose 300 million a year in revenue. Now politicians being politicians would just find something else to tax. Cutting spending is an abomination to any politician. So be thankful for smokers. Smokers also tend to die sooner so they are less of a burden on the Social Security system

Dave

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Dave

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www.woodenpropeller.com

The problem is enforcement. If law enforcement cracked ( pun ) down on illegal drug use they would snare many powerful elites who think there is no harm to illict drug use. Then there would be hell to pay and officials just doing their job would be on the street.

You mean to say that otherwise righteous citizens use dope? Shocking news...

The problem is, just as it was during prohibition, there is an enormous popular demand for the stuff and the supply is illegal. Maybe if it wasn't illegal the cops could get on about doing necessary police work and little old ladies wouldn't have to worry so much about getting beaten upside the head with a lead pipe every time they use an ATM to withdraw their OAS benefits.

But I'm sure it must say something about dope being an abomination in the Bible somewhere, and that would be the main reason we can't bring ourselves to deal with this problem -- and so many of the "immoral" others -- pragmatically.

Dave

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Dave

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www.woodenpropeller.com

Illegal drugs kill the addicts and, cause a major percentage of the economic and violent crime in our society. The drugs of choice have little intrinsic economic value, and are only expensive because the main source is organized crime, just as it was the source of alcohol during prohibition.

You may think me brutal, but legalize drugs and there will be no big profit in producing and distributing them. In a few years the drug producers will have to find other ways to make a living, Organized crime will lose their major source of income and wither, the addicts will not need to steal, and maim honest citizens to afford their habit and will quickly die of overdoses. Children will see their bad role models dying like flies and loose their interest in starting on drugs.

End result: Junkies die out cleansing the gene pool, and they cease to be an economic drain on society and the prison system. Organized crime goes broke and declares bankruptcy. Drug growers and producers are thrown out of work and seek retraining for useful occupations. And we convert most of our prisons into Holiday Inns.

Seems like a win-win solution to me. No society ever eliminated sin by outlawing it, or became rich by taxing it.

Shelly

As usual, your reactionary political views hamper creative thinking, or recognizing reality.

Addicts already have free health care, other than prisoners and government employees, they are probably the only segment of American society that has free health care. There are free clinics for them in every population area in the country. The taxes levied, along with the savings in the penal system and reduced numbers of police needed, would probably pay for health care for the rest of us.

Shelly

So it means unrestricted access to all substances known to man or developed in the future with no penalties or laws regarding usage?

Perhaps, but above all it involves common sense.

Addendum: An afterthought -- everything but enriched uranium...

Years ago there was a comedian by the name of "Uncle Dave Gardner"dead now ,alcohol I think. I remember in one of his skits he said " Hell the way to do away with crime is to legalize everything.I would think that your post was tongue in cheek.

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Of course it was tongue in cheek, but you have to admit it's creative thinking outside the box!

Shelly

But, Old Uncle Dave was fine with his particular choice of poison being legal -- it was just the other guy's he objected to, or made corn-pone jokes about between his bouts of eventually fatal delirium tremens.

The red state school of philosophy -- Old Uncle Dave and the Cable Guy... Horse flies and cow patties...

For Christ's sake, Bob, fix your avatar. I'd rather see your brooding old puss up there than that cryptic thing you've got going now.

Visit the Basement

I'm not sure how many addicts die of their disease and how long it takes them to do that when they do succomb. Many do die of the crimes related to supporting their habit, but few die of accidental overdoses. The cost to society is really in lack of productivity and inability to be self sufficient, including their medical care. In essence they create a whole class of "voluntarily" disabled people who ultimately get supported by public funds.

Dave

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If the drugs were cheap and available at Walgreen's or Kmart, there would be no economic reason for them to limit their habit.

Shelly

Well
The chart needs a change gas tax in Minnesota just went up another 2 cents on April 1 and that is not a joke I think it is supposed to go up a total of 8 cents over the next year

I don't smoke in my car, I don't know how clothes burn, I guess I'm a careful smoker, I don't smoke in the house, so no soiled draperies, and I have (must!) money to burn.

Visit the Basement

Smoke prices here in Nova Scotia are around $12.00 a pack. There are some places you can get them a little cheaper.

Because the government can only be the government as long as people let them. You'd practically see heads displayed on pikes if they tried to cut people off tobacco

You're right about it being a huge source of revenue of course, and you can bet that not all of it goes directly back in to the health care system. I don't think Canada and the Provinces could do without those taxes. (cigarettes are pretty much $10 a pack now and most of that is tax)

So they'll just push it out of sight and continue to rake in the dough.

Grogan

QUOTE:
Because the government can only be the government as long as people let them. You'd practically see heads displayed on pikes if they tried to cut people off tobacco

You're right about it being a huge source of revenue of course, and you can bet that not all of it goes directly back in to the health care system. I don't think Canada and the Provinces could do without those taxes. (cigarettes are pretty much $10 a pack now and most of that is tax)

So they'll just push it out of sight and continue to rake in the dough.

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Dave101

"The only goddamn thing you know about the law is how to break it." Chief Lafleche

I think it's a bit less harmful without the additives and burning catalysts and stuff, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it is harmless (especially not smoking... smoking anything is nasty)

Grogan

Quite the topic. I must admit that I'm still hooked. A few years ago an organization named "Smoke Free Alberta" lobbied the Alberta Government to raise Provincial tobacco taxes. They went as far as demanding that "loose" tobacco be taxed at the same level as manufactured cigarettes so that one cigarette made with loose tobacco now costs as much as a manufactured cigarette.

The net result was that individuals on fixed incomes who "rolled their own" got hit the most. I just find it hard to imagine an Oil Baron in Downtown Boomtown Calgary using a pouch of tobacco to roll a cigarette.

By no means do I mean to defend smoking but I'm convinced that most of these special interest groups are self serving as far as receiving Government funding.

I can't stand righteous anti smokers (or ex smokers) and I'll never be one. I don't smoke (anything) anymore and I never will again, but I'll still stand up and defend your right to smoke if you choose to.

Those lobby groups can go blow smoke out their asses. They disgust me.

Anyone who truly wants to quit now, it's not hard anymore with the nicotine aids that are available. All it takes is a bit of willpower to break the smoking habit without suffering (much) physical withdrawal. However, I stress that you have to want to stop, or your mind will just keep making excuses.

Grogan

QUOTE:
I can't stand righteous anti smokers (or ex smokers) and I'll never be one. I don't smoke (anything) anymore and I never will again, but I'll still stand up and defend your right to smoke if you choose to.
I agree up to a point. But then, I would have no problem with the medical profession refusing or limiting care to smokers. If you choose to smoke you accept the consequences.

And anyone who started smoking within the last 30 years or so should have ABSOLUTELY no right to legal redress for consequences. The effects have now been obvious long enough. My mother died of lung cancer 23 years ago. She knew what killed her.

---

Paul D

  

Nobody should be suing the tobacco companies... especially not the provinces. If anything, they should be suing themselves and the federal government because they are the ones who reaped the most profits from the sale of tobacco products.

Grogan

Grogan

I started smoking when I was 12 in 55.

I stopped smoking in 92 by using a 3 stage patch system the was only available by prescription.

Because I used the patch system it was easy for me to stop.

I haven't had a smoke since and even if I am in a room with anyone who is smoking the urge to want to smoke does not show its face.

I have been told because of all the years that I did smoke that I still have a chance of developing infazima.

Love to know how true that is.

My breathing has improved to the point that I feel as though I never smoked.

Still I have empathy for those who still smoke and do hope that they will quit.

The restrictions that have been put on smokers sometimes seem to me to be very harsh and cruel.

Like others I too wonder what is being done with all the sin tax money.

This John Stossel ABC 20/20 report Friday night should be interesting.

John Stossel: "Give Me a Break!"





Galila Huff's neighbors are suing her for smoking in her own apartment. The neighbors claim her smoke leaks out into the "common hallway." "Toxins" are "being breathed every day by our 4-year-old," claim the couple that live next door. They sent her a letter saying: "Dear Resident … We are unwilling to allow you to continue endangering our son's and our health… immediately cease smoking in your apartment."

It may not surprise you to learn that they are lawyers. Our legal system often invites lawyers to act like bullies. These lawyers even wrote Ms. Huff to remind her that they had a legal advantage, because they "… are both lawyers, and both litigators, for whom the usual barriers to litigation are minimal." Exactly!

The husband, Jonathan Selbin, is a "super lawyer," according to his firm's Web site. His firm, Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, has made millions from class actions suits.

Philip Howard of the legal reform group Common Good says "The legal system has become a tool for bullying — If you're a lawyer, and you don't have to go out and spend money for another lawyer, you can use it as a hammer."

What can Huff do? She's smoked for 40 years and tried to quit but failed. Does she have to move? Give me a break!

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Visit the Basement

No, she has a right to smoke in her apartment where she pays rent if there wasn't a non smoking clause at the time of lease. It is they who will have to move if they can't tolerate it. With the money they make as lawyers, they could afford their own plastic bubble to live in. Note that a whiff of the smell of cigarette smoke doesn't kill anyone. I highly doubt that it's that bad in the hallway for brief periods.

Smokers have rights too and if she doesn't chicken out the court will side in her favour. (Suing the landlord, or more appropriately the building owners is a separate matter)

P.S. The last apartment I rented, I put weather stripping around the door to contain the smoke, as a courtesy. I didn't have to do that either. I wish some of those rotting fish smelling/burning grease apartments would have done the same.

Grogan

We don't know how bad the smoke is. If it really is bad then I can see where a good lawyer can win.


If it isn't bad and it's just a scent of smoke, I'm sure there is a study or a doctor somewhere that says you will get cancer even with that.


The best way to fix this problem is for the landlord to revise the lease when it's time to renew. Being able to smoke inside is increasingly rare these days, that landlord should jump on the wagon.


I remember when I was little we lived in an apartment below a guy with extremely rotten body odor. He had no idea what deodorant was. On some days our whole apartment would reak of it. And once you walked out into the interior corridors it was so strong we just used the back door where you walked out into the open air.

Should that tenant have been allowed to do that?

Visit the Basement

Holy stink pot, Whipper! At the very least, you had a surefire submission there for Ripley's "Believe It Or Not."

Attachment #1, (jpg file)

I was in the company of friends last night -- three incessant cigarettes, one cheap cigar, and a pipe that was emitting the cloying yet indecisive stench of something akin to that of a cheap air freshener combined with a six-day-old corpse that had been left to lie rotting in the gutter. And all this in a room the size of a walk in closet.

All the while (me, a loudly indignant, self-righteous reformed smoker who sucked it up and bit the bullet when cancer sticks hit $7.50 a pack six years back) my eyes were hot coals turning to cinders. And when I at last escaped to home I had to re-shower and shave, trim what had surely become radioactive nose hairs and double bag my clothing to await pickup by a hazardous waste removal team, hopefully, for everyone's sake, to be entombed with spent nuclear waste in an underground crypt located somewhere in a remote corner of an Arizona desert.

This morning I awoke to experience a hacking cough and a raw throat -- which, on top of the self-induced monumental Johnny Walker hangover, ain't no f'n picnic.

IMO, smokers should be compelled by law (and threat of life-imprisonment in an Edmond Dantes type dungeon -- no smoking allowed -- with only a filthy digging spoon to seek wiser counsel and without any possibility of parole) to confine their addiction to standing naked in the median of an interstate at rush hour where their disgusting emissions would blend in little noticed with the exhausts of single-occupant SUVs and farting eighteen-wheelers.

I would think that when even the thought occurs of needing to duck tape your windows and doors against the possible escape of smelly carcinogens, it would maybe be time to reassess priorities.

But it was your choice to be with them, was it not? Seems like you know how to avoid the experience.

It bothers me a bit to be around smoking now too (doesn't take long), but it's something I know I have to tolerate. My Dad still smokes, and many of my customers smoke in their homes and I have no right to tell them they cannot.

I spend most of my time in my basement office which is quite isolated and has a strong exhaust fan in the ceiling right above me that pumps directly outside, through about 5 feet of straight duct. I still run the fan, because if nothing else it exhausts hot air out of the room from my computer equipment. What used to keep my smoke contained, now isolates me from Dad's lol.

Grogan

There's none so self righteous as a reformed non smoker! I count myself in that group!I have nothing to boast about I started smoking around the age of 14 on the fishing boats, because I thought it was the "Manly" thing to do. I stopped aged 36 when my mother died of a sudden heart attack aged 61 having never smoked. That was 30 years ago yesterday, and I can't help wondering whether it was my and Dad's smoke that was a factor in her early departure.
In the UK now it is illegal to smoke in all public buildings, and public transport, and I noticed the other day that hospitals have now banned smoking even in their grounds.
They say that the most dangerous drugs of all are tobacco and alcohol because they're socially acceptable, but it has to be said that among my circle of friends, unlike when I was young, there seem to be more people that don't smoke now than those who do.
Regarding hard drugs, I feel that at some time they will be legalised, so as to destroy the drug barons, but it will take a long time.
I was reading the other day, someone has the idea that in Afghanistan, instead of burning their poppies, we (The West) should buy them, and synthesise then into useable pharmacuticals, and maybe then we might win hearts and minds......we don't seem to be doing too well at present!
Sincerely,
Richard.
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Its nice to be important, but its important to be nice

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Smoking fact sheet:

http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=39853

Shelly

Secondhand Smoking Myth Fact Sheet :

http://www.prnewsnow.com/Public_Release/Tobacco/181633.html

Anybody with an axe to grind can take and present statistics to suit their agendas.

"Innocent smoking citizens have become target practice for discrimination and social hatred. They are accused of anything from being killers to child abusers, all based on junk science, propagated with an appalling blindness to scientific and social ethics."

I could not have said that better.

Look, there is no doubt that smoking is bad and second hand smoke is bad and exposure should be minimized, but they blow it way out of proportion. As I said, a mere whiff of the smell of it won't kill anyone. Cooking smoke is as bad or worse. (but there isn't the incentive to gather skewed statistics to prove it)

Exhaust fans and segregated areas are fine. What they are doing is ostracizing people punitively and self righteous societies are facilitating it.

Grogan

Mike, what you say is true, but with qualifications.

Several years ago my wife and I took her sister to a play produced by our local bank. Our daughter was starring in the play. No smoking allowed in the theater.

During the play, a cabinet was pushed over, and simulated dust(talcum) blew out across the audience and my sister in law chocked up on it. But she recovered shortly.

After the play was over, on the way out of the theater, some person impatient for that cigarette, lit up as he still stood in the doorway.
The smoke wafted back in my sister in law's face and she quit breathing. I thought we had lost her at this time, eventually after cpr, she started breathing again.

I personally do not care if a person wants to commit suicide by tobacco, alcohol or drugs. If that is their joy, go for it. But don't subject someone else to your death wish.

Bill K.

I don't doubt that the cigarette smoke was the straw that broke the camel's back and triggered that most frightening response though and I'm very sorry to hear that happened to her. But it was not the cause of her condition.

There are also people so allergic to food items like peanuts, that just having someone else eat them in the same room can invoke a deadly histamine response. Should we also ban peanuts in public?

It's probably a good thing you didn't take your sister to Joe's Fireside Grill where they routinely gas everyone half to death with BBQ rib smoke. (I was in a place like that last summer and it even bothered me and I'm not sensitive. I'll never subject myself to that again). Cigarette smoking is not allowed in there though, of course

It also kills me that smoking is banned in workplaces... like welding shops.

Perhaps if there would have been a proper smoking lounge that man could have gone to, he wouldn't have been standing in the doorway smoking and your sister wouldn't have been exposed to concentrated smoke. We have to look at it that way too. That's more than just a whiff, when someone is lighting a smoke in a doorway. Those first puffs release a billowing cloud in a confined area. There's a perfect situation where someone should have been charged.

I did state that I agree that exposure should be minimized, but it's more than just that to them. It's fanatical, like the Salem witch trials. It's meant to be punitive.

Grogan

Shelly

Grogan

An interestung ten year old study. Perhaps you would find these more recent studies interesting, or pronounce them all "biased"

I can easily come up with a few hundred more if these are no good.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/332/7549/1064.pdf

http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2121-5-13.pdf

http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/secondhandsmoke/report/chapter2.pdf

http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/del406v1.pdf

Or just take your pick from this bunch:

http://www.google.com/Top/Health/Specific_Substances/Tobacco/Effects/By_Source_of_Exposure/Secondhand_Smoke/

Shelly

I know how to use Google, thanks. I'm guessing you didn't read all those either, because some of them are irrelevant to the general issues (Maternal exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke and pregnancy outcome among couples undergoing assisted reproduction? Effects of second hand smoke on glucose intolerance?)

The point of bias is the "junk science" used to arrive at such conclusions that there are "no safe levels of exposure" and such conclusions that once exposed, children will invariably contract lung cancer at some point in their lives. All based on phone calls and worse, the testimony of those in hospitals with lung cancer.

I've talked to those kinds of surveyors on the phone and they were all surprised and disappointed to hear that nobody here suffers from respiratory problems. Vultures.

Grogan

I read all of them, the longer ones I "speed read" meaning scanned them for content.

All in my opinion were relevant. Cavalier dismissal is unworthy of you, you are better than that. Whether second hand smoke causes cancer, diabetes, or cardio-vascular problems is a distinction without a difference as far as I'm concerned. The end result is the same -- premature death for people whose only mistake was breathing.

To deny in the face of overwhelming clinical evidence that second hand smoke kills is irrational. Personal belief, political disposition, and wishful thinking changes not one fact.

The smoker makes their choice and pays the ultimate price. I did, you did, and we will pay in bitter currency, months or years of life. No matter when we quit, or how long we have abstained, damage was done and we can never fully erase what violence we have committed upon our bodies. We have no right to complain or expect dispensation for our actions. But by what right do we take the innocent with us? Those who never make the mistakes we did, the child in a car with us, the friends we unthinkingly expose to poisons, even our pets, by what godly right do we shorten their lives?

Shelly

Now James, THIS is worth a bravo!

Visit the Basement

You bet -- but it's better you do it. I almost certainly would be accused of brown nosing.

brown noser

Visit the Basement

I didn't say it was harmless, and I didn't say that exposure shouldn't be minimized. I just believe that it's blown out of proportion as do many other rational people. It can be contained to acceptable levels without banning it everywhere and it certainly doesn't warrant the indignant treatment of smokers that is starting to evolve.

A whiff of the smell of smoke doesn't kill people and that's the point. There are worse things that people are exposed to every day, but there are no evangelical studies being done utilizing flawed statistics collection methods.

Grogan

Well there we can mostly agree. Since Smoking is not illegal, I have no desire to make life untenable for smokers. They have every right to choose to destroy their health or not. They have no right however to harm anyone else or infringe the rights of others. To put it bluntly a smokers rights end at my nose.

There is an old Jewish parable I once read to the effect that dripping water will eventually drill a hole through solid rock. If a million drops will drill the hole, logic demands that even the first drop damages the rock.

In the same manor, if exposure to cigarette smoke can over time damage your health, logic demands that even the first whiff of smoke causes some damage.

It is undeniable that modern society exposes us to many hazards to our lungs. The air we have to breathe is a cesspool of chemicals far different than the air our ancestors were exposed to. We hardly need additional carcinogens added by someone trapped in a self destructive habit. they have no right to force me to pay the price with my health for their weakness. Smoking outdoors away from non-smokers is not an unreasonable hardship to protect the 75% of us who choose to not smoke. It also is now the law in most public places.

Shelly

I just think it can also be done with separate rooms and ventilation equipment if so desired. I said a few posts up, that if there was a designated smoking lounge, people wouldn't be lighting up in doorways and stuff (which they shouldn't be doing anyways of course)

There was a chinese restaurant I frequented in Toronto and even long before the ban the owner spent big bucks installing these scrubbers above each table in the smoking room. They had powerful fans... smoke went right up and didn't come down. When the ban came into effect, he still had to shut down the smoking room even though it really wasn't much of a problem. Yeah, someone ratted him out and he got fined. I think what he did was a reasonable solution to the problem and the ban wasn't fair.

Oh, and I never smoked in vehicles when driving kids.

Grogan

Cigarette smoke contains about 4,000 chemical agents, including over 60 carcinogens. Just because you can't smell smoke does not mean you are not exposed to them. That is why the smoking laws were passed world wide. It was found that no amount of exhausting smoke in a restaurant or other enclosed public space was effective in eliminating the threat.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/tobacco/cancer

Shelly

Now if you can't even smell or detect it, it's still going to kill you. OK, this is getting ridiculous. I'm out. Just stick your fingers in your ears and go "la la la la" because there haven't been the extensive, fanatical studies done on the thousands of carcinogens in cooking smoke (mmm, burning fats and proteins), wood smoke (you'll all think nothing about singing songs with your children around the camp fire in the name of Baden Powell), fuel combustion (including additives that aren't even disclosed), gun powder (I know... cheap shot) or any of the other noxious substances we are exposed to. Blame it all on second hand smoke.

I'll pity you, when you are all lying in hospital beds dying of nothing

Grogan

Bravo on that one! That was good!


I'm sure there have been studies on the things you mentioned. They're just dwarfed by the cigarette studies and therefore harder to Google.

Visit the Basement

Have you a definite opinion about anything? Anything, at all?

Besides me being an asshole.

Yeah I do. Pay more attention.

Visit the Basement

QUOTE:
Bravo on that one! That was good!

I'm sure there have been studies on the things you mentioned. They're just dwarfed by the cigarette studies and therefore harder to Google.

Shelly

He was just reacting to the humour, I think. What I said was meant to be humorously sarcastic rather than disrespectful. I don't really regret what I said, because it wasn't meant in a bad way and it wasn't solely directed at you. I was also "addressing" the component of society that blow this thing out of proportion. I would only regret it if you were insulted by it.. (Don't be, I love you too)

However, you are correct that there was some frustration.

Now, yes, of course there are carcinogens and other toxins we can't smell, however in the case of smoke, the smell and irritation of the smoke is a marker. If you can't smell or otherwise notice it, then the concentration of toxins will be very low. (yes, I realize not zero).

I used the camp fire example, because it's a personal issue. I live in a cottage area. These camp fires might as well be in my living room, because on nights when the tourists are all present, the air is just thick with it. There's a trailer park half a mile down the road, and cottages all around me. It is especially bad on the May 24th holiday weekend (whatever date "May 24th" may fall on that they decide is going to be celebrated as Victoria Day weekend). I'm not exaggerating, I came home from my Sister's place on a Saturday night, and as I approached the area there was a thick haze. When I got out of my car, it was quite obnoxious and on entering the house I discovered it was all through the house too, having been pulled in by our air exchanger. We started shutting it off on those nights because of it. (That's most nights in the summer too and it still gets in because the system has to pull air in from somewhere)

Tell me that smoke doesn't contain carcinogens or affect people with respiratory problems.

Before the province wide smoking bans, a bunch of tourists wrote letters to the editor in local papers complaining that smoking areas were still present in restaurants and that they were going to take their asshole money elsewhere (I really hate that "tourist" attitude) if we didn't mimic the city ordinances where they live. I'll bet that some of those same people were polluting our air with their bonfires.

Grogan

Similar problem here, opposite season.

In Winter whenever the outside temperature drops below the low sixties, everyone thinks in unison that it would be fun to light a fire in their fireplace. Vendors appear on corners selling firewood. When I lived in New England we purchased wood by the cord, here it is sold by the armful. Needles to say, the air becomes filled with wood smoke.

My fireplace has not seen a fire in nearly 20 years, I have long had projection television sets, and worried about getting an impossible to clean layer of soot on the front surface mirrors inside them.

Shelly