Smoking laws coming into effect Jan. 1

[Boblobla]

Originally Posted by Swarly

I still cant get over how dumb the previous law was of covering up all the smokes. That in itself is a fine idea but they took it too far. I went into petro to buy some cigars so I asked the guy what they had. Well they arnt allowed to tell you that as it would be advertising tobacco products not even give you an idea of what they have in a price range. I left bewildered and a couple of pom poms because thats the only name of cigar I could think of.

I was in Shefield and Sons (sp?), which is a Tobacconist, and they had all of their cigars covered up. It was ######ed. The place specializes in the sale of tobacco products and they had to black out all of the windows of their humidor. It is probably the dumest thing I have seen. While I can agree getting rid of the 'power wall' might be useful it went WAY to far in this case.

[Boblobla]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Sure it can.

But tell me, what percentage of smokers are addicted, compared to almost ANYTHING else? It isn't in the same ballpark.

And your Tim's argument? That's a stretch. If you had left it a coffee I may have been tempted to grant the caffeine/coffee addiction (while I doubt the health effect are anywhere near as severe as smoking), but to include the 4 creams/2 sugar and a doughnut as if everyone who goes there gets that just made the argument inane.

I quit smoking cold turkey after being a pack a day smoker. I could never give up coffee. I am different person on the weekends before and after my coffee. Don't tell me that 18% crack cream they put in Timmies coffee is good for me either, regardless of if I get a doughnut or not.

I don't really know where I am going with this but go to a Tim Hortons anywhere in the city during the morning rush hour and tell me that people aren't addicted to caffine...

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Lets turn the conversation around.

What CAN be done to try and reduce smoking, without setting up a smoking gestapo?

I'm not sure smoking education or graphic warnings can go much further.

What if, in order to sell tobacco a business needed a specific license, and if they are caught selling to minors they can lose the license?

I guess the point is, since public education and graphic warning label went into effect in the late 80's, early 90's, there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of smokers in North America since the late 90's.

I'm of the opinion that public smoking bans, while not benefitting smokers, led to far less quitting/non-starting than health awareness ever did.

Maybe I'm in the stunted minority of people who believe the government and anti-smoking lobbyists have done fine in reducing the amount of smokers (higher tobacco prices helped as well), and all the latest measures (coverups, pharmacy bans, outdoor smoking bans) are just to appease the groups which have gained too much public support, and are taking it too far.

Why do we need more controls?

Is what we have really not enough? Why does it have to be stepped up every year? Are anti-smoking groups never going to be happy until absolutely no one in North America smokes?

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Boblobla

I could never give up coffee. I am different person on the weekends before and after my coffee. Don't tell me that 18% crack cream they put in Timmies coffee is good for me either, regardless of if I get a doughnut or not.

I don't really know where I am going with this but go to a Tim Hortons anywhere in the city during the morning rush hour and tell me that people aren't addicted to caffine...

In my little list of vices to ban in post 101 I left out coffee:

Contrary to belief Coffee/caffine is not bad for you in moderation. I questioned a Doctor on this a year or so ago. I asked him "whats so bad about a few cups of coffee in the morning?..what part of my body is it hurting?" he stumbled a little and blurted "Liver"..

He was wrong? as are many people when talking about the consumption of coffee.

"The latest research has not only confirmed that moderate coffee consumption doesn't cause harm, it's also uncovered possible benefits. Studies show that the risk for type 2 diabetes is lower among regular coffee drinkers than among those who don't drink it. Also, coffee may reduce the risk of developing gallstones, discourage the development of colon cancer, improve cognitive function, reduce the risk of liver damage in people at high risk for liver disease, and reduce the risk of Parkinson's disease. Coffee has also been shown to improve endurance performance in long-duration physical activities"

http://www.health.harvard.edu/press_...ealth_risk.htm

[Boblobla]

Originally Posted by T@T

"The latest research has not only confirmed that moderate coffee consumption doesn't cause harm, it's also uncovered possible benefits. Studies show that the risk for type 2 diabetes is lower among regular coffee drinkers than among those who don't drink it. Also, coffee may reduce the risk of developing gallstones, discourage the development of colon cancer, improve cognitive function, reduce the risk of liver damage in people at high risk for liver disease, and reduce the risk of Parkinson's disease. Coffee has also been shown to improve endurance performance in long-duration physical activities"

There is the catch

I am sure that is black coffee as well that is good for you, I am pretty sure I am as addicted to that cream they put in Tim Hortons coffee as I am to the coffee itself...

[transplant99]

I think the argument against that stance, Tranny, is that alcohol, in moderation, really isn't that bad for you (glass of red wine, etc) while smoking has zero benefit.

I get that...however IF everyone who drinks only has a glass of red wine a day thats the only way that argument has any merit. That, as you and I both know, simply is not the truth though.

Look at it this way. John Doe can go to the liquor store and browze 10 aisles of hooch, buy a dozen bottles of hard stuff and then proceed to go home and drink them one after the other and no one blinks an eye.

Another guy wants to go to his local tobaccanist, get a dozen panamanian cigars to smoke once a week after a dinner, cant even see what is offered, cant be told what is offered, cant go to a bar or patio (that one still baffles me) to smoke them and is villified for even attempting to do so.

Both LEGAL products and BOTH taxed by the same governments.

The double standard is stupifying, but so many cant or wont admit it.

I dont think anyone is saying that smoking is a good thing for anyone, but anything in moderation certainly is not neccessarily a bad thing.

The fast food/alcohol/speed bike arguments are a bit of a stretch, but the standard is set by the government themselves, not the smoking population. If its bad for you and it can affect others...then everything that can do that should be under the same sort of scrutiny....they aren't.

It is the addiction that makes smoking different.

LOTS of people are addicted to alcohol. Thousands and thousands as a matter of fact. I wonder to this day why there are not pictures of livers that were affected by scerosis like the cigarteetes that have pictures of smokers lungs...yet another double standard. Pictures of decapitated bodies that were involved in alcohol related trafiic deaths would be another one.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

I really don't get the logic some smokers use.

"Hey, we're terrible but... look over there, so are they - you have to ban us all!"

That's not really how it is. It's more like "Hey, we're terrible, but so is everybody else, so why don't you care about what they are doing?".

I really don't get the logic some anti-smokers use. Why does anyone care where I buy cigarettes? What's the difference? I'm still going to have them, I'm still going to smoke them. My few shekels have been transferred from the drug store to the convenience store. Can a supporter of this law tell me how they (or anyone else) benefits from this?

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by transplant99

I get that...however IF everyone who drinks only has a glass of red wine a day thats the only way that argument has any merit. That, as you and I both know, simply is not the truth though.

Look at it this way. John Doe can go to the liquor store and browze 10 aisles of hooch, buy a dozen bottles of hard stuff and then proceed to go home and drink them one after the other and no one blinks an eye.

Another guy wants to go to his local tobaccanist, get a dozen panamanian cigars to smoke once a week after a dinner, cant even see what is offered, cant be told what is offered, cant go to a bar or patio (that one still baffles me) to smoke them and is villified for even attempting to do so.

Both LEGAL products and BOTH taxed by the same governments.

The double standard is stupifying, but so many cant or wont admit it.

I dont think anyone is saying that smoking is a good thing for anyone, but anything in moderation certainly is not neccessarily a bad thing.

The fast food/alcohol/speed bike arguments are a bit of a stretch, but the standard is set by the government themselves, not the smoking population. If its bad for you and it can affect others...then everything that can do that should be under the same sort of scrutiny....they aren't.




LOTS of people are addicted to alcohol. Thousands and thousands as a matter of fact. I wonder to this day why there are not pictures of livers that were affected by scerosis like the cigarteetes that have pictures of smokers lungs...yet another double standard. Pictures of decapitated bodies that were involved in alcohol related trafiic deaths would be another one.

Not so fast my friend..there is a difference here. When somone smokes around me I have a chance of getting cancer...when someone drinks around me I dont. IF you smoke at home its my choice to come and visit you in your environment, and not many non smokers take that chance anymore. If you are an obtuse drunk then its likely you are drinking to entertain yourself, as Im sure most people likely dont visit you for your humor.
Smoking kills you dead or creates issues that you will have a difficult time living with until you do expire.
Its not a smokers right to kill me too.

[Swarly]

Originally Posted by Cheese

Not so fast my friend..there is a difference here. When somone smokes around me I have a chance of getting cancer...when someone drinks around me I dont. IF you smoke at home its my choice to come and visit you in your environment, and not many non smokers take that chance anymore. If you are an obtuse drunk then its likely you are drinking to entertain yourself, as Im sure most people likely dont visit you for your humor.
Smoking kills you dead or creates issues that you will have a difficult time living with until you do expire.
Its not a smokers right to kill me too.

you have it backwards, its very easy to avoid second hand smoke if you want to. however you can't avoid alcohol, you have no choice if a drunk decides to drive and hit you. saying you're going to get cancer from second hand smoke is dumb, avoid it, its not very hard. but if you get hit by a drunk driver I'm betting that has a much larger affect on your life.

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by Swarly

you have it backwards, its very easy to avoid second hand smoke if you want to. however you can't avoid alcohol, you have no choice if a drunk decides to drive and hit you. saying you're going to get cancer from second hand smoke is dumb, avoid it, its not very hard. but if you get hit by a drunk driver I'm betting that has a much larger affect on your life.

Well my friend...Im 52 years old and have NEVER been hit by a drunk driver or come close. I have been around pathetically drunk idiots and removed myself from their presence without issue. A few drunks tried getting in my space, but because they were so drunk they didnt cause me any issue.
I cannot get away from smokers even in areas where smoking is banned. I walk out of offices and into a cloud of putrid cigarette smoke from the masses of smokers huddling just outside the entrance. This same scenario is played out at every facility that allows smoking outside its doors.
I can smell the stink of your cigarette just by driving behind you in the summer with windows open.
Second hand smoke kills you...and it makes my clothes stink as bad as you do. I choose to have you smoke away from the public if you desire to kill yourself and make me stink like you do. Eventually you will see the light as well.

IMAGES DELETED BY MOD: A little too much for this site.

[Swarly]

Originally Posted by Cheese

Well my friend...Im 52 years old and have NEVER been hit by a drunk driver or come close. I have been around pathetically drunk idiots and removed myself from their presence without issue. A few drunks tried getting in my space, but because they were so drunk they didnt cause me any issue.
I cannot get away from smokers even in areas where smoking is banned. I walk out of offices and into a cloud of putrid cigarette smoke from the masses of smokers huddling just outside the entrance. This same scenario is played out at every facility that allows smoking outside its doors.
I can smell the stink of your cigarette just by driving behind you in the summer with windows open.
Second hand smoke kills you...and it makes my clothes stink as bad as you do. I choose to have you smoke away from the public if you desire to kill yourself and make me stink like you do. Eventually you will see the light as well.

Have you contracted lung cancer from second hand smoke in that time?

for the record i dont smoke so I dont stink, at least not of cigarettes

I'm not sure what offices you walk out of that have hundreds of people huddled right around the doors but I have never encountered anything 1/4 as bad as you make it out to be.

should i start posting pics of drunk driving accidents now? how about pics of obese people who die of diabetes? you take a simple argument and try to add shock value to it. I just dont get the whole look down your nose at smokers attitude of some people as if everything you do is perfect.

[driveway]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Can a supporter of this law tell me how they (or anyone else) benefits from this?

I don't really support the law, but I'll take a stab at building an argument in favour of it.

1. The harder it is to acquire smokes, the fewer people smoke.

2. Pulmonary disease treatment (not including lung cancer) costs in Canada exceeded 5.7 billion dollars in direct costs and another 6.72 billion in indirect costs. Granted, not all of these are smoking-related, but a significant portion of them are.

Source: http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/...agisme-eng.php

3. Total taxes collected from Tobacco in Canada, provincial and federal combined in 2007-2008 were 6.8 billion. This does not cover the combined direct and indirect costs of pulmonary disease treatment in Canada.

Source: http://www.smoke-free.ca/factsheets/pdf/totaltax.pdf

4. Reducing the number of smokers will reduce health-care costs. Something that every Canadian pays for.


The issue with this argument is that it ultimately hinges on the first proposition, that making it harder to get smokes reduces smoking. I have no idea whether this is accurate or not, or if there are any statistics to prove or disprove it.

But there's the argument.

Also, to simply throw some numbers at the drunk-driving argument, in 2002 there were 37,209 tobacco-attributable deaths in Canada. The number of Canadians killed in alcohol-related accidents in 2002 was 909 (however, this number is acknowledged to be an underestimate).

[transplant99]

Not so fast my friend..there is a difference here. When somone smokes around me I have a chance of getting cancer

No question...but who is advocating smoking around you? Im certainly not...no one is.

Its not a smokers right to kill me too.

Is ANYONE saying it is?

Love ya man...but that post is just odd.

Im talking about something inherently different than forcing tobacco on anyone.

[transplant99]

1. The harder it is to acquire smokes, the fewer people smoke.

I cannot prove it one way or the other, but unless it is outlawed alltogether (whole other argument)....this statement seems impossible. Nevermind it doesnt make it "harder" to acquire them, it just makes the shop owners lose revenue from sales of other things that those buying tobacco may of purchased when getting thier product. So who is getting punished?

As for making it illegal.....this has been attempted once before with alcohol. An unmitigated and collosal failure. Many not know the whole story of prohibition, but you really should read up on it and what it caused across North America.

Originally Posted by flip

Should we stop selling chocolate bars in pharmacies too? Because fat people can get their prescriptions then buy candy.

Originally Posted by flip

Should alcohol? Motorbikes? Snowmobiles? Fast cars? Fast food? etc etc.

Originally Posted by flip

So I'm not even going to adress that statement further because you took what I said so out of context. Lets not make stupid assumptions for shock value. Use a little reason in your post, don't just throw dumb stuff like that out there.

Oh the irony.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by driveway

2. Pulmonary disease treatment (not including lung cancer) costs in Canada exceeded 5.7 billion dollars in direct costs and another 6.72 billion in indirect costs. Granted, not all of these are smoking-related, but a significant portion of them are.

Source: http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/...agisme-eng.php

3. Total taxes collected from Tobacco in Canada, provincial and federal combined in 2007-2008 were 6.8 billion. This does not cover the combined direct and indirect costs of pulmonary disease treatment in Canada.

Source: http://www.smoke-free.ca/factsheets/pdf/totaltax.pdf

4. Reducing the number of smokers will reduce health-care costs. Something that every Canadian pays for.

Hate to break it to you, but everyone has to die of something. All old people cost the health care system ridiculous amounts of money.

Whether you are dying of smoking related disease at 60 or liver cancer at 80 you will cost the heath care system a lot of money.

I had one grandfather who smoked his entire life and got lung cancer at 85. Within 3 or 4 months he was dead. Yes it cost the health care system money to treat him.

I had a second grandfather who never smoked. He died at age 98. For the last ten years of his life he had been in and out of hospital with just about every problem you can imagine.

Who do you think cost the health care system more?

[Ford Prefect]

Why don't they just sell tobacco products in liquor stores only? Wouldn't that take care of the issue of exposing virginal minors to the evil weed? Or might that lower sales too much and cause the government to get tobacco sales tax withdrawal delirium tremens.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Swarly

So in a store like Co-op should they not be allowed to sell junk food either? That stuff is bad for you, too much salt too and yet they are allowed with pharmacy there. The only reason they have both is for convenience to the customer not some evil tobacco plan to subliminally suggest that hey if is sold at a pharmacy it must be safe for me.

Eating junk food or using salt in moderation isn't going to kill you. Me eating a chocolate bar or a bag of chips once a week isn't detremental to my health. The same can't be said for cigarettes.

if you had read beyond my first sentence you would see I agree with the covering up of smokes but that they took it way too far, if someone wants to see what products they have they should be allowed to show them.

Most adult smokers know what brands are available so i'm not sure why they need to ask. I believe it's the teens that they are targeting - one who are just starting to smoke and are not sure what brands are available.

[driveway]

Originally Posted by blankall

Hate to break it to you, but everyone has to die of something. All old people cost the health care system ridiculous amounts of money.

Oh, for sure. I totally agree with you and, as I said in my post, I'm not in favour of the new smoking regulations. I was just constructing the argument that's used to support them.

However, there is a huge difference between assessing responsibility for the costs of people who develop chronic conditions as a result of the natural aging process and those who make the choice to start smoking and subsequently develop illnesses. One is inevitable, the other is preventable.

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by Swarly

Have you contracted lung cancer from second hand smoke in that time?

for the record i dont smoke so I dont stink, at least not of cigarettes

I'm not sure what offices you walk out of that have hundreds of people huddled right around the doors but I have never encountered anything 1/4 as bad as you make it out to be.

should i start posting pics of drunk driving accidents now? how about pics of obese people who die of diabetes? you take a simple argument and try to add shock value to it. I just dont get the whole look down your nose at smokers attitude of some people as if everything you do is perfect.

Nope...but I do have horrible asthma around cig smoke. Both of my parents are dead of lung cancer and my sister is well on her way as well. Whats your point?