Last edited Wed Jul 4, 2012, 05:15 PM - Edit history (1)

Don't blow that shit on me.

Cigarettes are a LEGAL product here in the USA.

Be careful - one day they might be coming after you for your sugar/butter/margarine/fat intake, soda usage, gas grill fumes, car fumes, or any of the other many things that some folks think you shouldn't be doing.

It is ridiculous for folks to be BITCHIN' about folks smoking outdoors.

I think a lot of folks are too young or just have forgotten how it used to be in the old days when AMERICANS had the right to smoke at their desks in offices, in grocery stores, in the teacher's lounge, and even IN the HOSPITAL (as long as it wasn't a room with oxygen).

The non-smokers have become TOO RADICAL - they are even insisting that people don't smoke in their own apartments and cars.


Bullshit !!!

He cannot be around smoke any more.

Out of deference for the many people with respiratory ailments, smokers should avoid smoking in any confined public area in which other people are located.

As for college campuses, they colleges may be sick of picking up the cigarette butts for irresponsible, thoughtless people. Cigarette smoking can be a messy habit.

Thoughtless people leave all sorts of trash everywhere.

I do not believe that smokers are any worse than any other litterers.


There is a HUGE difference between smokers smoking in dorm rooms and smokers smoking outside.

Cigarette Butt Litter -- A Plague on Our Planet
According to Keep America Beautiful, Americans are smoking fewer cigarettes than ever before, yet cigarette butts continue to be the most commonly littered item in the United States and around the world today. They specify two reasons for this statistic -- lack of awareness on the smoker's part, and the lack of availability of waste receptacles at "transition" locations, such as outside stores and other buildings, and at public transportation pickup spots.

Cigarette Filters
The core of most cigarette filters -- the part that looks like white cotton, is actually a form of plastic called cellulose acetate. By itself, cellulose acetate is very slow to degrade in our environment. Depending on the conditions of the area the cigarette butt is discarded in, it can take 18 months to 10 years for a cigarette filter to decompose. But that isn't the worst of it. Used cigarette filters are full of toxins known as tar, and those chemicals leach into the ground and waterways, damaging living organisms that contact them. And, most filters are discarded with bits of tobacco still attached to them as well, further polluting our environment with nicotine.

http://quitsmoking.about.com/od/cigaretteingredients/a/ciglitter.htm

Here is a list that shows cigarette butts as remaining in the environment form 1-5 years. Other materials remain longer but can be recycled for the most part.

http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=155036

Cigarette Butts are especially hard to pick up and dispose of.

It's easiest if the smoker takes care of them himself.

Maybe we will have a campaign to remind smokers to do this. Dog owners are now picking up after their dogs most places and most times in my experience. That used to be a big problem.

But the most serious problem is for people like asthmatics who have respiratory problems.

As an aside, here in LA, major grocery stores are prohibited from bagging groceries in plastic bags (see the second list) as of July 1. I'm happy to see that become the ordinance.

During the 1940's, 1950' and 60's cigarettes were recommended by doctors especially for women patients who were "nervous."

There were some TV ads that proclaimed that their brand was recommended by nine out of ten doctors.

Smoking was considered sophisticated. So many teenage girls believed it made them look mature.

For soldiers in WWII and Korea cigarettes were part of rations to the service men.

Watch some old 40's and 50's films and see how many 'stars' smoke.

Don't Shame me or my generation we were programmed to smoke.

but that doesn't mean that it's ok to walk around drinking out of a bottle while you're at school.

I'm pretty much ok with banning it within X distance of doorways. I'm absolutely ok with banning it inside buildings.

I'm not ok with cheering on the crusade of the day. Next time it could be one of the things I enjoy that are being targeted.

Wonder how that will go over.

Here in Korea they have banned smoking in public buildings and colleges, but people just stand outside the door and smoke which is just as bad. The problem is there is no enforcement. Without enforcement the rules are about as good as a roll of toilet paper.