Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!floyd!vax135!ariel!houti!hogpc!houxm!ihnp4!we13!otuxa!ll1!sb1!burl!duke!unc!tim From: tim@unc.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: "Re: Smoking . . . (Slow Motion Suicide) - (nf)" Message-ID: <5374@unc.UUCP> Date: Mon, 13-Jun-83 21:33:34 EDT Article-I.D.: unc.5374 Posted: Mon Jun 13 21:33:34 1983 Date-Received: Wed, 15-Jun-83 16:39:01 EDT References: ihlpf.130 Lines: 67 "...the burden of proof lies on the claimant..." Do you actually believe this nonsense or are you just arousing debate? Damn straight I believe it! Don't you? If someone makes a claim, are we to just believe him without any evidence? Just because we like the story? What other basis is there for rational discussion? When I am in a room with smokers, my eyes burn, my contacts fog up, my sinuses burn, my nose starts running and if I am eating, I find the smell quite a damper to my appetite. I hate to go to the beach and see it littered with cigarette butts. I hate to go into ANY public place and find cigarettes crushed out on the floor. I hate going into the rest room and finding a half dozen butts in the urinal. I hate being physically burned by someone who is waving their cigarette inadvertently. When enclosed in a vehicle with someone who is smoking I have found it makes me nauseous and gives me headaches. I'm sorry. Do you have a medical problem, like an allergy to smoke or something? I've made it clear that I consider someone who knowingly and willingly smokes near a person who has some disabling condition that makes the smoke physically intolerable should be considered guilty of assault. Why don't you ask them to put out their cigarettes? Do you have to have a cop at your back? As for your esthetic distaste for finding crushed cigarette butts: that's a pretty flimsy basis for something as serious as a law. I happen not to like the way fat people look (apologies to fat readers -- I just can't help it), but that doesn't mean I want to ban them from public transportation, or from eating in good resaraunts. Considering all of this, I am now asked to PROVE that the smoker is causing DAMAGE to my health before I may ask for legislation to prevent my exposure to undesirable effects such as I have listed above. No, you aren't. Your reactions to cigarettes are sufficiently violent that a doctor shold be able to determine a physical cause if their cause is physical. If it's psychological, well, just go jump in a lake. Freedom cannot accomodate the legislation of such subjective preferences. Where would that stop? I agree that legislation is not a magical solution to problems and I honestly wish that ALL smokers would consider the annoyance that their smoking causes to others. However, I know that this will not happen. Therefore, I am now and will continue to be in favor of legislation which requires well ventilated non-smoker areas in enclosed public places which allow smoking OR to disallow smoking in these places if the requirements are not met. Don't you just hate to find snot on a chair in a public place? Let's regulate this, shall we? Anyone caught picking his or her nose in public will be arrested and given a criminal record. It would be nice if nobody picked their nose in public, but I know that isn't going to happen. Until that glorious day, let us make sure that the irresponsibility of a few doesn't wind up making us all sick. In all seriousness, let me point out that if what you say is as blatantly true as you claim, there should be no difficulty in producing scientific evidence, which is the only fair way to resolve a conflict like this. Let's see it! Until that time, no law enforcing your beliefs can be said to be fair. Tim Maroney