I understand the reasoning which isn’t bad. Parents face ban on smoking in front of children.
on 12/15/2009 at 01:40 PM
I do understand and agree with the reasoning. Unfortunately, it is only one short step or two from that to regulating all kinds of things that the government has no business regulating. Sometimes in the name of greater freedoms you just have to let people make bad decisions for themselves.
Posted by Nicole
12/15/2009 at 05:59 PM
Until all governments
a) ban the growing of tobacco
b) ban the import and export of tobacco
c) ban the possession of tobacco
d) cease subsidizing farmers to grow (or to not grow) tobacco
e) stop raising billions in taxes off of tobacco
they should all just BTFO of everyone’s lives. Make it fully illegal or else bugger all.
I grew up with parents who both smoked. As did everyone else. Everywhere. All the time. Stores, restaurants, bars, movie theaters, doctor’s offices, airplanes, cars, buses, offices, sidewalks, beaches, sports arenas. And somehow I haven’t just keeled over dead. Not yet!
Yes to Drew - it is not illegal, it is not immoral and it is done all over the World - I can abide by Federal buildings or even the crappy public buildings - but the rest (not smoking in a car with children, bars, etc) is just too much of the nanny state - now it’s window blinds, and cribs - tomorrow it will be your gun and your booze, or your music or your church.
Give these hypocritical, lying, scum sucking, tax anything that moves or someone lives in it jackasses an inch and they will rule your days from cradle to grave. Nope, not at all.
Butt Outt. (And I’m an ex-smoker).
From the time I was seven no-one smoked in my home. Yet by the age of 14, I was smoking myself (the glory days of vending machines out of sight of buttinsky clerks), so I really can’t say I was seduced into smoking by watching the adults in my life light up.
I am sorry about your brother, and about your own health problems, but don’t jump to the conclusions of gov’t (a dodgy source, at best) that non-smoking by parents in front of kids is going to make a huge difference, and as WardMama said so well above, the gov’t can butt out.
“ . .. seen by some as too draconian and the trickling of nanny state rules again.”
Please remind me, when did Nanny State rules in Britain slow back from a 100 psi firehouse to a trickle?And after all that, I still typed ‘firehouse’ rather than ‘firehose’.
I dunno Sid… An entire firehouse of pumper truckss might be a better analogy here!
actually just not allowing the nasty things to be sold would do, dont make tobacco illegal just dont allow retail sale, if people want to smoke (why for heavens sake?) let them import their own and yes around children should have been first. Tobacco should have gone with the coke in coke and opium in chemists, . A question for smokers, why is it legal to smoke and drive but not to eat? I have repaired 3 bad smashes where the hot end dropped on genitals and attention wavered but I have never knowingly had a smash in that was caused by eating (it must have happened but I have never heard of it)
Posted by Chris Edwards
12/15/2009 at 10:25 PM
But Chris - the US attempted to make alcohol illegal (see the pre-feminists, the Temperance movement) and it failed miserably with the resultant crime etc. Coke & opium are a whole different animal. This is one of those issues that as I said is World wide but more than that, as with the 2nd Amendment, it is one of those issues when government attempts to mess with it - the people come out of the woodwork to defend it - it is one of those personal issues that just gets people going. [Aside, I wish that those people would get riled up about taxes, the out-of-control Klownposse in DC and such as they do about their smokes and guns - but that is another post]
It is one of the proverbial ‘lines’ in the sand. And you are correct - that legislating it won’t make a difference - my hubby grew up with two non-smoking parents and few if any relatives that smoked but was smoking like a chimney by age 18 (and all these years later is down to a pipe but still a ‘smoker’).
Because you can’t legislate morality - no matter how hard the Nanny state buffoons want to ‘make it so’.
Ah, but not allowing retail sale would end all those tax dollars that governments (US at least, not sure about UK) get by taxing those sinful sticks. Taxes on tobacco are the first things to be raised whenever they have a pet project that needs funded. Then they wonder why they can’t raise enough money because the higher taxes drive some consumers to quit.
It’s not about health. It’s about what they can tax and not have an outcry.
Posted by Nicole
12/16/2009 at 08:06 AM
Disallowing retail would create a black market instantly. Well, I should say an even bigger black market.
Cigs sell for $10 a pack in New York City due to all the taxes. An amazing number of New Yorkers are smokers - just go past any office building at 10am and you’ll see crowds out on the sidewalk puffing away. Yet official sales are down. No kidding. Any ding-dong can drive a van to upstate NY and buy them from the Indians. No city tax ($1.50) state taxes ($2.75), no federal taxes ($1.01). Sure, you probably have to sneak them off the reservations, but the profit potential is huge. Sell them on the streets of NYC for $8 and you’ll get eager buyers, and probably still make $5 profit per pack. And gosh, how tough is it to forge the tax stamps if you want to make them look legit? Heck, why even bother with that? Just tell your buyers to take the plastic wrapper off. Sheee-it, you don’t even have to make street sales. Everybody lives in a high rise apartment building, so if you’re the “rum runner” you make a trip once a month with orders from all the tenants. A carton for this one, two for that one, etc. It shouldn’t be hard to accumulate a 300 carton order - 20 cases full. That’s $15,000 profit for a day’s driving. Crime does pay!
I thought the evil right-wing religious gun-loving knuckle-dragging losers were the ones who were going to invade our homes and lives and tell us how to live?
Posted by TheOldMan
12/16/2009 at 12:41 PM
So stopping the legal sales would put some more on the black market, so what, there are lots of addicts who will be fine with grey imports but baulk at illegal. At least government would have to pick up smugglers to get its lost tax money, the price would rocket and custom would die off to hard core smokers and the law could have fun chasing smugglers. I grew up with both parents and most visitors puffing away and hated it, passive smoking has allways given me a sore throat, I have never wanted to smoke, however both my parents committed suicide with factory cigarettes .
Posted by Chris Edwards
12/16/2009 at 06:32 PM
Smokin is BAAAD...Yes Mr Mackie!!
I have no problem with responsible smoking. If you are a parent, I agree that smoking in a car with the kids is wrong, same as in a house. This is why I always step out or refrain from smoking when it is not tolerated. I don’t need the government to advise me where/when is right or wrong.
People will continue to smoke, yes. They will find substitutes when they can’t get their pack a day. If they are smart, they will stop, if not, they live with the consequence of their actions. HOWEVER. I find nothing in the constitution where it says the government’s job is to step in and regulate out morals. They should stick to what they are supposed to do, regulate trade, deal with other countries, declare war, collect duties, etc. This is another attempt to be nannies, and I abhor it. Stopping smoking in most restaurant’s/bars was the first step. (Infringement of the property owner’s right to have a smoking/non-smoking establishment, by forcing the choice on them) now they are taxing them into the strata of a luxury item in an attempt to make people stop. This is coercion on a RICO level.
If you don’t want the children exposed to smoking, stay away from smoking establishments. I can see large indoor areas, such as malls with no smoking, as that would be a place common to children and teens, HOWEVER, A BAR? If your kids are going into bars, it’s time to lock them into their rooms until they can legally enter these establishments!
Restaurants? Pick accordingly. Don’t chose to make me step outside and expose EVERYONE to me wandering the parking lot like a bum with a butt hanging from my lip. I will (of course) pick a place where I can kick back and enjoy a cig after dinner.
I like your little plot Drew. It’s devious! Just remove the cellophane yourself, no worries that a customers may forget to do it themselves.And Peiper, I offer my deepest condolences to you. I can not begin to think of life without one of my siblings. I hope I never find out how it would be.
Just another comment.. Don’t get excited.
Bill
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