Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!decvax!yale-com!bj From: bj@yale-com.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: "Re: Smoking . . . (Slow Motion Suicide) - (nf)" Message-ID: <1634@yale-com.UUCP> Date: Fri, 17-Jun-83 21:16:54 EDT Article-I.D.: yale-com.1634 Posted: Fri Jun 17 21:16:54 1983 Date-Received: Sun, 19-Jun-83 14:58:15 EDT Lines: 34 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? Oh, so it has to be disabling to be illegal? I assume you are against penalties for slashing people in the face with knives since that doesn't have to disable them? There is no need to have a medical problem to be bothered by smoke. Smoke can cause watery eyes and headaches for people without special problems. As for your esthetic distaste for finding crushed cigarette butts: that's a pretty flimsy basis for something as serious as a law. There already are laws against this -- laws against littering. I don't feel that cigarette butts should get a special law, but large numbers of smokers are slobs. 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. There are differences between being fat and smoking. First, being fat is not something you can turn on or off, while a person can not smoke. Second, having a fat person near you does not affect you physically, while having a smoker next to you can. B.J. Herbison-BJ@Yale decvax!yale-comix!herbison-bj