:rofl:

Agreed. Smoking is a part of life. I always make sure that smokers and non-smokers get and are REQUIRED to take their breaks. Even if they don't want them. They may not realize it, but their break often times improves their productivity.

~String

Yes, MZ3. Under normal circumstances, it might be inappropriate for me to be so flip. I am not really sure how else to deal with what amounts to bigotry, though. I have been a victim of bigotry, prejudice and hate for other reasons, and it is simply wrong.

There may be some original sense behind the anti-smoking lobby, but there is a dangerous undercurrent in it that resembles racism and homophobia. It makes itself most apparent of all in people like Marie. If men like Katz are unwilling to take action to keep people like Marie under control, then I don't see any value in what they have to say, either.

If we are going to prevent bigotry from taking hold in our society, then we must wreck any and all bandwagons that such-minded people attempt to board. It is not second-hand smoke that concerns people like Marie. She only uses it as a convenient, modern-looking pretext for using abusive and cruel behavior to make herself feel superior. No matter what she is pretending to advocate, she is wrong.

LMFAO!!!! You have lost your ever lovin mind Alien. She's not abusive, or cruel, or racist or a homophobe. She just doesn't like breathing in foul air.
How is that wrong?

Don't be a silly billy. How am I out of control? I hate smoke and I shouldn't be forced to inhale it. I like the way things are now in my state. I wouldn't change a thing, so what am I supposed to be in control of? Why do I have to tolerate nasty smoke clogging up my lungs. And large groups of smokers make it worse, which is why they shouldn't be gathered anywhere, much less near restaurants.

Proof or you're lieing. smoking on the job is a firehazard.

Is that true of everybody?

Second hand smoke is revolting and intrusive. Moreover, it's been proven to cause cancer. How is it that people should be required to tolerate other people's smoke when they, themselves, don't smoke?

~String

Here smokers get EXTRA breaks... To SMOKE.

yep. They say they are going to the restroom. Its amazing how many of them pee outside.

... What annoying people...

That'll get'cha fired where I work. Employees get specific breaks. Taking extra ones don't sit well with me. I've heard it before, "Man I really need a smoke." To which I say, "Quit smoking and that will stop being an issue. Everybody has a set number of minutes for breaks. It'll have to wait for yours." Time theft and break abuse is a big issue with most companies. Smokers are, historically, the biggest abusers. They are often times the biggest excuse makers; upon being caught I'll get lines like, "Well, I need a smoke, you don't understand. . . " Lame. So, if I smoke I get to strong-arm the company for more paid-time to stand around talking. BRILLIANT!

~String

However, in saskatoon at least, you get a specified amount of breaks AND if you are a smoker they give you EXTRA breaks.

For one thing, you are perfectly capable of asking me for citations without making these kinds of accusations.

For another, I bet that you will not be able to find a single negative consequence of nicotine on the central nervous system, aside from it being habit-forming.

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/200...runc_sys.shtml

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0114072413.htm

Nicotine can also function as a mood elevator

http://www.dukehealth.org/HealthLibrary/News/9863

In fact, the brain is one thing that nicotine is good for, mate.

You are unable to evidence this claim.

And your suggestion that smoking breaks would impede productivity fails in the face of evidence that any rest break actually improves productivity.

Some people find it offensive. It is nonetheless a problem. This is why we try to make sensible laws for making it less of a nuisance for people like yourself. The idea should be partially to make it easier for smokers and people like yourself to get along nicely.

I have an eighty-year-old neighbor who has been smoking since he was a teenager. He also has more energy and spunk than I do.

Smoking cigarettes does not cause cancer. It precipitously heightens your risk for cancer, but this does not mean that all smokers are going to come down with cancer.

You should not. However, cigarette smokers should not be the only group of people involved who should make sacrifices.

It is common sense to keep cigarette smoke out of your life to a sufficient degree to annul its chances of harming your health.

If you want the world to guarantee that you will never have to interact with a cigarette smoker, for any length of time, throughout the entire course of your life, then you are being just as ignorant as the people who supported the Jim Crow laws.

Again, the laws that govern where people are allowed to smoke, when people are allowed to smoke, and what people are allowed to smoke should be sensible and fair. If you have any reason for disagreeing with this statement, just let me know.

It may be challenging to determine what actually does constitute "fair and sensible," but the right answer is almost never easy.

Well, then just don't go to the bar. It's cheaper to drink at home anyway. I don't understand why society in all its capitalistic glory can't come up with business segregation. The bars that allow, and the bars that don't. I mean, for real, people are going to light up anyway. Give the nonsmokers a great bar and let them complain about the other one down the road all they want! Nonsmokers should be given a choice and smokers should not be "chided" or "excluded" when the pack they buy is legal anyway. It's governmental hypocrisy at it's finest. States would damn near go broke but for the sin tax, plus the amounts tobacco companies pay in settlement dollars.

Nonsmokers seem to have this deluded idea that either all smokers want to quit or should quit. The former is naivety, the latter an unfair assumption allowing society to dictate an individual's right to that which is free to purchase and use anyway. I'd like to go to a bar where alcohol is prohibited to those who have any criminal background involving the use of it. Fair is fair.

That is not the problem. The problem is that you are completely unwilling to coexist.

I like it. If people were filling the air with some stinky substance - say a foul insence - and this substance was unhealthy for both the fillers and the other smellers, it wouldn't even be an issue. But because there is a tradition around this stinky, unhealthy smell some people pretend it is OK.

Second laws like this protect workers in these places.

Just because one person dodged a bullet doesn't make them a statistic or something to boast about. My grandmother lived to her 80's as well, smoking unfiltered Camels. Having achieved this fact, should not be used as a selling point, or an excuse, for smoking.

Odd. There's must be some conspiracy involving every hospital, reputable doctor, medical school, scientific studies and most governmental health agencies, in every nation on planet Earth. Because, I keep hearing from them how smoking does cause cancer. That some people escape without the disease doesn't negate the fact that tobacco is a leading cause of cancer on this planet.

A poor analogy. Water, then, doesn't drown people because many people swim in it every year without dying! Car's don't cause deaths, because millions of people drive every year to no ill effect. You're splitting a ridiculous hair, and selling a blatant lie in the process.

Wrong. Smoking is the action which is causing the negative side effects in question (as we aren't discussing--say--alcohol or cocaine usage), and therefore its users are the ONLY ones which should bear the brunt of sacrifices. Why should non-smokers who's non-smoking contributes--in no way--to other people's deaths be required to "make sacrifices". Smokers smoke, they should make the sacrifices in dealing with any consequences thereof.

I'm asking that all unwanted/uninvited cigarette smoke be kept totally out of my life. I also have the right to demand that Asbestos and Benzine be kept out of my lungs. The burden isn't on me to "make concessions", despite the fact that those two chemicals cause cancer. The burden is on the HARM DOERS.

Yes it is. People who cause harm should not be permitted to allow their harmful chemicals to enter the lungs of those who do not want it there. Demanding that the passive public just suck it up and stay home is out of the question. Smokers are the ones contaminating other people, they--by any reasonable measure--are the ones who should be "contained."

~String

Of course they should. They are adding to the situation. The people who want to blast loud music in libraries do not need to be compromised with. 'They keep it on volume 8 and you wear earplugs'

A simple, firm, verbal reminder of how long they have until their next break tends to temporarily alleviate any psychological cravings for nicotine. The sense of structure provided by regular break-times tends to provide a sense of security. A hostile response is only going to worsen those psychological cravings. I know that you do not hear your words above as being hostile, but a cigarette smoker does. It may be childish, but a cigarette smoker who says this sort of thing periodically is looking for some form of reassurance, not so much a cigarette.

If a smoker thinks he or she needs more than three-to-five cigarettes in the entire day, it is normally due to some form of psychological distress. It could be anxiety. It could be depression or spousal abuse. Maybe the worker would be happier in a different occupation. Either way, compulsive smoking is something that I consider to be a major red flag. It is not mentally healthy to need nicotine that often in the day.

And the same people would be overeating, cutting themselves or engaging in some other dysfunctional behavior, even without cigarettes in their lives.