Viti

Yes of course, we smokers are ugly, sloppy, tacky and bitter dontcha know

I live in Nevada where smoking is not nearly as demonized as other places...when I go to California I feel like I have stepped into the movie "Escape from LA"..."The United States is a non smoking nation Mr. Pliskin"

Vesica

Don't come to sunny FLA anytime soon either. In June, all restaurants and other public establishments go non-smoking. I think there is some clause in there that protects free-standing bars but not much else!

brighid

Vesica,

Unfortunately many people buy into stereotypes of all kinds and this is no different then what some people believe a “typical” smoker to be. Stereotyping is wrong in this and any case. Alcohol is regulated and like smoking there is NO outright ban on alcohol, but regulations about where and when can buy it (as with cigarettes), where and by whom it can be consumed by, and there are much tougher laws against people who harm others because of their alcohol consumption. There are no laws penalizing smokers for the harm their smoking may, or does indeed cause another.

I also see a difference between the public health interests of alcohol and smoking. A person drinking a glass of wine is harming no one buy drinking a glass of wine. There is even some scientific evidence that a moderate consumption of wine has a positive impact on health. Also it gives off no toxic substances in any form, diluted or otherwise. Other people in close proximity of another consuming an alcoholic beverage don’t have physically ill reactions to that consumption, and employees of drinking establishments aren’t endangered by the actual consumption of alcohol by merely being in the presence of others that drink. Separate actions caused by the affects of alcohol (such as driving while intoxicated) cause harm, and those actions do have criminal consequences. Prohibition was an abysmal failure and I see no reason why any adult should be disbarred from consuming alcohol, even becoming intoxicated. I do believe that people should be responsible as to avoid harm to others.

Smoking is entirely different and it a closed setting SHS cannot be avoided, unless adequate barrier and ventilation measures are in place (such as the restaurant/cigar bar I mentioned.) When one person smokes others, without their consent, inhale the byproducts of that smoke. For some it is only a minor “irritant” and for others it causes severe physical reactions. The more people smoking in a setting the more SHS is in the air and the more difficult it is to breathe for the majority of non-smokers.

Although I agree that smoking should remain a free choice for adults I do not agree that the social stigma attached is entirely bad. There are reasons societies develop stigmas (and not all of them are reasonable OR good). Smoking cigarettes has been conclusively determined to be a major health risk for a majority of people and therefore it is reasonable to stigmatize behaviors that are actually detrimental for the health and welfare of an individual and for a community. There is also a social stigma against drunk driving and that stigma and pressure associated with it does have a positive affect on some people. It is your right to smoke, but you cannot expect others to support, or even ignore behaviors that are proven to be harmful to yourself and to others.

It is very difficult for me not to make a face when I smell cigarette smoke. It is a very unpleasant odor to me. It also causes me lungs to immediately go into hyper-reactive mode. It is painful and I take action to remove myself from the presence of a person, or people smoking. Although I may want to have a conversation with someone who is smoking it is physically painful for me to be in their presence while they smoke. I don’t think any less of smokers as people, but I literally cannot be in their presence while they smoke. I know this reaction (although perhaps not as dire as my own at times) is similar for other non-smokers. To inhale and smell SHS is unpleasant and uncomfortable and therefore it is more of a function of the act of smoking that is being shunned, and not the person (although some, even many will shun the person.) In all cases people should be judged on an individual basis. I do not support smoking in public settings, but I do not want to be lumped in with radical anti-smoking propagandists because of it. I also don’t feel that the supportive evidence about smoking and SHS should be concluded to be propagandist because some groups have, because of their own agenda, taken things too far.

I agree with your position on perfume. I have very similar reactions to strong perfumes. Usually the stench subsides and I can get back to normal, but I have had some rather violent reactions to someone who bathed in noxious perfume. I personally feel it is socially rude to douse oneself in perfume. It’s even worse when it is cheap perfume. Perfume doesn’t get the attention (although more attention has been given it recently) then smoking does for what to me are obvious reasons, but I have come across some literature that has talked about curbing perfume usage in closed settings. I doubt it will ever garner the same kind of attention that smoking and SHS has because it does not, in any way, shape, or form pose the significant health risks and social burdens that smoking does.

Brighid

Vesica

I completely understand your position and I wasn't trying to whine about limits imposed on public smoking. I am just disturbed by the overarching stigma attached to smoking. As a people we have embraced the logic that smoking is Bad with a capital B. I would argue that smoking tobacco is more stigmatized than smoking pot. Yes, one is illegal but that aside.

Smokers are portrayed as evil, of low morals, of low class etc. in movies and tv. Some of this is based on health issues but more of it comes from societal attitudes from 50 or more years ago! While most of the posts here have focused on the medical reasons to limit and criminalize public smoking, most of what is presented out there relies on making smokers as people bad or unintelligent or wrong. Maybe that's the danger of having an obvious vice....the other ones are so hard to harass random strangers about.

Vesica

Ahem, re-reading that I feel the need to summarize:

I am troubled by the promotion of inaccurate and historically mysogenistic, racist and classist stereotypes as a valid means to the end of protecting a person's right to chose exposure to the known toxins in tobacco smoke.

brighid

I don't see that. Could you point to some examples of this, or give personal examples of this?

What I get from your statement is that the stereotypes are made or perpetuated out of a hatred for women, prejudicial views about minorities and the poor, in an attempt to shame people to quit smoking?

Brighid

brighid

I am not sure if that is the message I get from the media. Societal attitudes 50 years ago were more supportive of smoking, even 30 years ago. It was "fashionable" to smoke up through the 70's. Anti-smoking ads did not appear on television until 1967 and went off the air in 1970 (and obviously were revived later.) Only one anti-smoking ad ran for every 4 smoking ads.

Tobacco companies also pay big money to have their products featured in movies. One example is Lark cigarettes were featured in the 1988 James Bond Film, "License to Kill" costing $350,000. According to the American Lung Association for the 133 top movies in 1994-95 82% of the leading characters smoked.

Marlboro Man ads are ones I can recall where male smokers are portrayed as handsome, rugged and all American.

I also don't remember any support given her for the criminalization of smoking, except as it may violate new public smoking bans.

Brighid

Vesica

It was "fashionable" to smoke up through the 70's.

For some people.....that is ignoring the centuries of 'the only women who smoke are whores'. No, smoking is not particularly liberating but it was seen that way in the 20's.

I wasn't trying to point to an deliberate or conscious agenda of repression in my summary. Just that many people have extreme biases in how they view smokers as a group or women who smoke or what the average person who 'chews' is like.

Recent campaigns have focused on the smoking as a behavior not the smoker as a person but some of this attitude still exists. On the whole it is social okay for a non-smoker to give a smoker, sitting or standing in the designated section, carefully partitioning themselves from thier fellow humans, grief for smoking. Or a lecture on how many years they are cutting of thier lives, or how they don't understand how such a smart (pretty, nice) person would do something like that.

I find the ever-changing tide of societal attitudes about smoking intresting...it seems we have been all over the map.

brighid

Vesica,

Unfortunately anything back then that a woman did outside of being a dutiful wife and mother got her labelled a "whore."

I think people in public settings should (at least in general) keep their opinions to themselves. But if something you are doing (such as smoking) is bothering them they do have a right to speak up and say something. They don't need to lecture you on the perils of smoking, but I see no reason why they should stay completely silent either.

Brighid

Vesica

I think people bothered by SHS have very right to make themselves heard...However, my opinions are drastically different if the offending smoker is already in a section or area designated as the smoking area.