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New antismoking law takes effect yoday


jrod

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The new 2023 anti-smoking law goes into effect today all over Mexico: no smoking in public places, even if they previously offered designated areas for smokers. Includes arenas, parks, beaches, transportation sites, as well as places where food and drinks are served. Fine is up to 100x minimum daily wage.

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Well I for one am VERY grateful for what you call "heavy handed authoritarianism and oppression" as it applies to banning smoking in public places. I think "live and let live" is fine as long as your living isn't contributing to my suffering or dying. 

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10 hours ago, RickS said:

Well I for one am VERY grateful for what you call "heavy handed authoritarianism and oppression" as it applies to banning smoking in public places. I think "live and let live" is fine as long as your living isn't contributing to my suffering or dying. 

Your car is polluting the air I breath, please buy a Tesla😊

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This guy sums it up nicely for me.  And Rick, if your health is in danger from someone smoking feet away from you on an open beach, you probably are either extremely fragile or maybe just over dramatic.

BTW. he's a non smoker too.  Just not hysterical about it.

Quote

Is Second-Hand Smoke Really that Dangerous?

Treating smokers as second-class citizens?

Posted July 20, 2009

 

Traveling around the world, you will find few products made in the USA that come out on top. The locals will tell you about better wines from here, more dependable cars from there and brighter school children from almost anywhere. But no matter where you go, American tobacco is considered superior to all others. So, being as patriotic as the next guy, I have to wonder if tearing the guts out of that industry is really justified? Just how dangerous is second-hand smoke? I'll begin by admitting that I don't know. What troubles me is, who does?

 

The largest and longest study (Enstrom & Kabat) followed more than 35,000 subjects for almost 40 years and found no significant risk associated with second-hand smoke. Similarly, the World Health Organization spent seven years at a dozen research centers in seven countries and came to the same conclusion. This must have been very embarrassing to the WHO because they subsequently tried to do an about face with a paper titled Don't Let them Fool You. I read it carefully and had to wonder just who was trying to fool whom?

 

Anyway, think for a moment about how very hard it is to measure one's exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. The exposure of a woman married to a two-pack a day guy living in sunny SoCal where doors/windows remain open for much of the year will differ significantly from a similar wife living in Vermont where houses are sealed tight for the six-month winters. It's extremely difficult to design a valid experiment when you wind up comparing apples with oranges.

 

So I called the American Cancer Society and spoke with several people. My question seemed simple - "Why haven't we seen a decline in lung cancer deaths despite Draconian anti-smoking legislation?" - but it went unanswered. The ACS representatives didn't know and were clearly uncomfortable talking to the media. Eventually I reached a PR VP who, alas, also had no clue. Of course, I got a promise of "I'll get back to you on that." but I never heard another word. The tricky bit here is obvious. If they say deaths have decreased, they're looking at cuts in contributions. If they say deaths haven't decreased then one must wonder if their assumptions regarding tobacco are just plain out wrong.

 

Personally, I don't see how filling your lungs with hot smoke wouldn't be harmful yet people rarely feel that way or make that connection when they talk about marijuana. So, I have to wonder - bottom line - about genetic pre-dispositions to cancer. Are some people hair-trigger loaded to come down with lung cancer if they're exposed to lots of smoke, a little smoke or no smoke at all? It would explain why some people smoke all their lives and suffer not at all while others don't smoke and suffer respiratory disorders. It would also explain why Asians (Chinese and Japanese smoke all the time) don't have the same rate of lung cancer deaths that Americans do.

 

Look At It This Way
Perhaps a case can be made for the emotional response to smokers being just another example of Political Correctness. I don't smoke, I never smoked and, with the current price of cigarettes, I don't plan to start. Furthermore, I'd prefer that people around me didn't smoke. However, I'd be less than honest if I said that I was sure my aversion to second-hand smoke was based on anything more than a personal bias. And if tomorrow they come for smokers, why should I care? I'm not a smoker.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/look-it-way/200907/is-second-hand-smoke-really-dangerous

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Here's another rational look at banning outdoor smoking:

https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/9/1/95

Quote

Conclusion

A minority of people in tobacco control do not like to even see people smoking. Australian non-smokers rights activist Brian McBride wrote recently to some of his colleagues about outdoor smoking: “We must be prepared to fight the aesthetics and personal standards argument as well as the health argument, and that is what I intend to do. We should not underestimate the public awareness value of having smokers found guilty of negligent actions in all situations indoors or outdoors. The more cases we run the better.”

I would argue that the two need to be kept thoroughly apart. Mixing “aesthetics” arguments with health arguments risks infecting tobacco control with the accusation that it is fundamentally the providence of people with capricious authoritarian proclivities, caring little for the scientific bedrock on which public health ought to stand.

Health promotion campaigns have often sought to portray smoking in ways different to those typically portrayed in tobacco advertising: smoking has been framed as desperate, disgusting, and slovenly. Don't such efforts also appeal to aesthetic rather than health concerns? Yes, but for my own part, I am comfortable with portrayals that seek to counterbalance the distortions of tobacco advertising with alternative definitions of reality. If a tobacco company can describe a carcinogenic product as “fresh”, I am comfortable in countering that kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray.

The world is full of people who do not like the “aesthetics” of others' different religions, race, sexual expression, modes of dress, or music. Too often these doctrines have found expression in paternalistic or downright oppressive regimes. We do not need authoritarian doctrines in tobacco control.

There is no scientific basis for banning outdoor smoking in dispersed settings.  It is all about controlling others because one doesn't like their behavior and not really about health at all other than trying to coerce and oppress the smoker into giving up a habit which others (including myself) find smelly and off putting.

I love that comment about kissing a smoker being like licking an ashtray.  I've always felt that way and when I was first dating my spouse of now some 45 years together I told her much the same and that I couldn't really be in a relationship with a smoker.  To my great surprise and ever lasting admiration she promptly quit and took up running which she and I did for decades until our knees said no mas.

Also, I was raised in a smoking environment and have the borderline COPD to prove it.  There is no question that chronic contact with smoker(s) in a confined setting is a serious health hazard.  I was delighted when smoking was banned indoors in restaurants, theaters, and the like because for the most part I avoided those places because of the smoking.  It is a stinky habit but in settings where others are not affected other than having their sensibilities offended banning it is authoritarian and oppressive.

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Government restrictions on smoking aren't about morals or the "rights" of non-smokers (sorry, Pollyanna), they're about money.

Any government that operates a public health insurance system has an interest in creating friction for smokers, because of high long-term costs to the system. There's no way to kick smokers off the system, so the only thing left is to make smoking harder.

The U.S. government, which doesn't have a universal public health system per se, is nevertheless in the same boat because of the large population it covers under Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA. Many states likewise cover pensioners as a bargained-for benefit.

There's no right or wrong, you just can't have it both ways. If you want the health insurance, you can't at the same time sabotage the health insurance.

So, these authorities create friction (taxes, location restrictions), because there's nothing else they can do.

LQ

ps. I like nicotine a lot.

 

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I had my last cigarette on Nov. 12th, 1989, one day before my 50th birthday. It's been so long since I quit, that I am not bothered when sitting at a table where others are smoking, unless they are 6 inches from me blowing smoke in my face, Am I glad about the new anti-smoking rules? I guess so, but I think it is a little too strict. And that there should be places where smokers could sit together and have a cigarette or two while having a drink or a meal.

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As the daughter of a smoker who tried many times to quit and died from bronchitis, a mother who died with COPD, and as an asthmatic with serious allergy to cigarette smoke, I say 'yeah Mexico'. No it won't be strictly enforced but if there are fewer places where I have to trot holding my breath thru a gauntlet of smokers, I will be be selfishly happy. Heavy handed? Fine with me.

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2 hours ago, johanson said:

......since I quit, that I am not bothered when sitting at a table where others are smoking, unless they are 6 inches from me blowing smoke in my face...

Pete, first of all, congratulations for making it this far! 

Otherwise I think that it is interesting that you are NOT bothered by close-up smokers. Most ex-smokers are the worst complainers about smokers and their smoke as I recall, me included. Maybe it's because I have lived in a state for a VERY long time that was one of the leaders in outlawing smoking inside. 

I beat you quitting by a long time.... me it was 1968. Like MC suggested,  kissing a smoker is horrible and I can't believe I subjected my then wife to that! 

My mother, a non-smoker, had 4 other siblings. All were smokers. All of them lived within 100 miles of each other their entire lives. All died by the time they were 60! COPD and Cancer. Mother.... she lived until she was 97! 

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18 hours ago, RickS said:

As in the  "heavy handed authoritarianism and oppression" comment?

 

That was the source I cited.  Looking at that law I would say that is a fair observation.  Let's face it, this is really about people of a certain control freak philosophy trying to control others, there is really no health reason to ban people from smoking outdoors in a dispersed setting.  This is only one example of a general trend in that direction.  Each day brings a new intrusion on the privacy and rights of others in the name of junk science for the purpose, really, of making them behave as said control freaks want.  The final result is always 1984 followed by war and collapse because whether said control freaks like it or not, their forcing others in this manner is against human nature and when people have had enough of it they rebel.

What I find really ironic here is proponents of such over regulation coming from a state that has legalized dope smoking thereby greatly expanding the number of smokers and health damage.  That apparently is OK with said proponents of controlling others because they approve of smoking dope and the fact it is being found to be just as damaging to personal health if not more so does not matter because of that approval.

And said state that has now many more smokers does not presume to outlaw outdoor dispersed smoking at all.

What is strange to me in my old age is I can remember when said philosophy was all about expanding and guaranteeing personal freedom, not the opposite as it mainly is now.  Sure glad I won't be around to see this play out.

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2 hours ago, Mainecoons said:

What I find really ironic here is proponents of such over regulation coming from a state that has legalized dope smoking thereby greatly expanding the number of smokers and health damage.  That apparently is OK with said proponents of controlling others because they approve of smoking dope and the fact it is being found to be just as damaging to personal health if not more so does not matter because of that approval.

I also have been amazed at the hypocrisy of supporting one while decrying the other. Both are injurious to one's health and both stink like hell. It also puts LQ's argument to the sword. 

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23 minutes ago, Lou Quillio said:

I'm afraid it doesn't. The legality of cannabis -- which need not be smoked -- is unrelated to smoking cigarettes.

LQ

 

Well I suspect the vast majority is smoked, and some in public places, and inhaling smoke of any kind into one's lungs is by definition harmful.

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Pappy I suspect that you are right about the majority being smoked but much is consumed in other modalities such as 'edibles'.  And by 'experience' I don't mean indulging but rather observing!  

Living in MC's "legalized dope smoking state" for years.... as opposed to just talking in conjectures about something but having no real experience in said.... I don't see nor hear of much of what is being alleged. And I don't have my head in the sand on the subject. 

The first legalization in Colorado was for Medical MJ;  then later came 'recreational' sales.  In those years I did not see or smell any more 'evidence' than from when it was done under-the-sheets.  Since all smoking by now is banned (by the heavy handed authoritarians and oppression control freaks!) in public places there is basically no smoke of any kind being disbursed and boy is it nice! BYW, public places do NOT include walking down the street or in a park etc. But I RARELY smell MJ anywhere when I am out. 

Now don't get me wrong. I am NOT a champion of smoking.... ANYTHING. But it is not my right nor intent to bad mouth anyone who chooses to do so.  I was a fool for smoking for 8 years way back when. I choose to NOT go to places where smoking is allowed (in other states and countries). My choice. My money. My life. 

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