Smoking Rate lowest its ever been

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I'm sorry that you lost loved ones but please do not feel obligated to enforce your personal feelings on a matter to the degree that it infringes upon the freedom of others to do whatever they want to themselves. Intolerance is intolerance.

Intolerance for some things is necessary.

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I'm sorry that you lost loved ones but please do not feel obligated to enforce your personal feelings on a matter to the degree that it infringes upon the freedom of others to do whatever they want to themselves. Intolerance is intolerance.

Cheese, I find it hypocritical the way you attack the manner in which people proselytize religion upon the unwilling and yet you demonstrate the same behavior when it comes to a different topic.

I'm a non-smoker but I will enjoy the odd cigar or tobacco product (still looking for snus) as one of the few pleasures of life. I believe people should have the freedom to smoke if they want to and being smug and superior over them does not help things... As a matter of personal preference, you'd have to be crazy to smoke Canadian cigarettes though, yuck

On the topic of keeping the Tobacco companies down, banning all forms of marketing completely, and covering the entire pack of smokes with horrifying imagery, I wholeheartedly agree. I don't think it's these things that have changed smoking trends specifically though, but a change in the social perception of smoking as it's nolonger the cool thing to do and as this thread demonstrates, smokers are increasingly being ostracized by their peers.

Boo frikn hoo. What would you prefer I do, sugar coat it? Say what YOU want me to say? Cigarettes are a filthy disgusting habit that kill their users and those who breathe their second hand smoke. Alberta was the last frontier in Canada to get with it and ban it from restaurants, night clubs etc. I remember the high pitched whining on this board about how that was going to bankrupt all of these businesses, that non-smokers would not fill the void. So much for that whine.
As to religion...you have your opinion, I have mine and once again I will speak MY mind, not yours.

[Vulcan]

BC rolls out program to help smokers quit.

VANCOUVER – As part of a commitment to healthy families in British Columbia, Premier Christy Clark announced today that starting this Friday nicotine replacement therapies will be available at no cost and smoking cessation prescription drugs will be covered under PharmaCare.

www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2011PREM0117-001206.htm

In my opinion this will work better than changing the labels on cigarette packages.

[Dion]

Now, anti-smoking lobbyists are jumping in the air claiming this to be a huge victory for them. But officials from the tobacco companies, rather than run around trying to fight this, are sitting with their arms crossed, as if asking "so what?" According to the Canadian Press, they claim this new campaign won't do much to deter people from smoking as the greater public already knows the harms of smoking.

Call them what you want, but smokers are resolved, stubborn, and yes, maybe even stupid; but you can't stop them with an ugly picture or two of a collapsed lung. In the same way that some alcoholics exist according to the rules of Jimmy Tomorrow's "Tomorrow Movement" (i.e. I'll do it tomorrow, I'll sober up tomorrow, I'll go to work tomorrow; just one more drink) in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, some smokers exist according to the regulations of the "It Won't Happen to Me Movement," which convinces them that they will be the exception to the rule; they won't get cancer, they won't get infected, they'll be the one at the party saying he got more out of cigarettes than cigarettes got out of him. But then again, this trait isn't exclusive to only smokers, but also to every rational human being who doesn't want to face facts.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/daniel-..._b_983924.html

[Morning Wood]

Smoking can ruin lives... I know it's a choice, but I think people can agree that the world would not be worse if we could remove it from our lifestyle. Their costly to us financially, physically, and even socially. I hope we can reduce smoking as much as possible

[SeoulFire]

I posted it as a joke before but...take away (or cap) their health benefits. Seriously.