Next Smoking Zone 40 Kilometers
What will they think of next?
Such a question can be asked in a wide range of situations. It's a valid question to ask when discovering that Campbell's has introduced a chicken noodle and a tomato soup both with Goldfish crackers already inside the can. It's an equally valid question when viewing the newest idiotic Pontiac television commercial ("Wow! You bought a Torrent! Big freaking whoop! Stop wasting my minutes!").
This very same question is useful when thinking about the regulation of tobacco use.
All around the world, cities, provinces, states, and even entire countries are going "smoke-free." This does not imply that the entire country has stopped smoking. Rather, it means that one cannot smoke indoors when the location is a work site or a public place. Cities like North Bay proactively took steps to limit smoking indoors with a bylaw, which was later engulfed by a province-wide ban and law. Countries like Scotland and Wales are already smoke-free, and just recently England joined the ranks of countries who were trying to limit the second hand smoke that the average citizen is exposed to unknowingly or unwillingly.
If you or someone you know has had to "take it outside," they could very well feel that they've been shunned by a society that finds his or her habit unpleasant.
Well, its about to get a lot worse.
A number of states, including the great state of California, headed by The Terminator himself, have recently enacted laws that ban anyone from smoking in a motorized vehicle when there is a person under the age of 18 in the same vehicle. Fines for being caught smoking in a vehicle with kids inside would be on par for being caught smoking in an indoor public place. The proponents of the law argue that smoking around children, although bad and should not be limited in all places, is especially harmful to them in a car, where ventilation isn't great. Now the Ontario Medical Association is calling on the provincial government to extend the anti-smoking law to include vehicles where minors are present as well.
Yes, it seems that the places in which a smoker can actually smoke are becoming fewer and fewer. Eventually, each city or town will have a single spot out in an isolated part of the community, likely at the city or town line, where a smoker can have a puff, and let me tell you that spot will be quite the popular destination, for nicotine addicts that is.
I, for one, agree with prohibiting smoking in a vehicle where minors are present, for the arguments presented by groups like the Ontario Medical Association. Now, many other people will agree with this proposal for any number of personal reasons. However, it is for one purely logical reason that I support this proposal.
It is because there is already an existing law banning smoking in indoor public places that makes it reasonable -- almost necessary -- to adopt any amendments to the law that would further protect the public from second hand smoke. After all, the precendent has already been set by the original smoke-free law. Since the spirit of the law was to protect innocent members of the public from the health effects of second hand smoke, then it makes reasonable sense to include other indoor areas and confined spaces, like inside an automobile, or certain public areas inside one's house, under the law to protect as many of these innocent non-smokers from exposure in as many places as possible.
Now, some of you may be quick to argue, "Hey theopinionguy, as much as I think you're a dashing individual, I think its unfair to smokers, some who have tried to quit unsuccessfully, to continue to tell them where they can and can't smoke. It's supposed to be a free country!"
And you'd be quite right about that! It is a free country, and you are right that smokers have as many personal freedoms as non-smokers have. However, just as smokers have the right to smoke, non-smokers have the right to not smoke. Put one of each in a room together; whose rights should overcome the other?
It could be that there are more non-smokers, it could be that not smoking has more health benefits than smoking does, or it could be that the OMA contributed more to political campaigns than the tobacco companies did. Whatever the reason, law-makers sided with the non-smokers, and the current smoking ban exists as a result.
No political party has the appetite nor the death wish to revoke such a law for the benefit of a smoker's right to smoke. Thus, the current law must be re-examined periodically to include other limitations where one can smoke. A vehicle is one such reasonable amendment, especially when there is a kid inside.
Personally, I look at the struggle between a smoker's rights and a non-smoker's rights, and think that governments need to make the ultimate decision about tobacco once and for all. Should it stay or should it go? Obviously this is not a decision that can be taken lightly; lots of public consultation over a broad cross-section of the population will be needed, including bar and night club owners, everyday smokers, doctors, tobacco farmers, and of course the general public.
In failing this, the government should start making more significant progress in trying to help those that want to quit to quit once and for all. Spending tonnes of money on television ads and on booths at local shopping centres are ineffective uses of taxpayers money. They should use the money to find those smokers that wish to quit, pay for their counselling, pay for their patches and nicotine gum for the first little while, etc. That way, the only smokers that will remain will be the ones that don't care about what it does to them, and they'll be so few and far between that no one will even notice them. And thus, we can eliminate the need to keep shrinking the areas in which those smokers can light up.
In the mean time, I would like to propose The theopinionguy Amendment, where basically no one is allowed to smoke within 40 feet of theopinionguy...
Briggsy
Such a question can be asked in a wide range of situations. It's a valid question to ask when discovering that Campbell's has introduced a chicken noodle and a tomato soup both with Goldfish crackers already inside the can. It's an equally valid question when viewing the newest idiotic Pontiac television commercial ("Wow! You bought a Torrent! Big freaking whoop! Stop wasting my minutes!").
This very same question is useful when thinking about the regulation of tobacco use.
All around the world, cities, provinces, states, and even entire countries are going "smoke-free." This does not imply that the entire country has stopped smoking. Rather, it means that one cannot smoke indoors when the location is a work site or a public place. Cities like North Bay proactively took steps to limit smoking indoors with a bylaw, which was later engulfed by a province-wide ban and law. Countries like Scotland and Wales are already smoke-free, and just recently England joined the ranks of countries who were trying to limit the second hand smoke that the average citizen is exposed to unknowingly or unwillingly.
If you or someone you know has had to "take it outside," they could very well feel that they've been shunned by a society that finds his or her habit unpleasant.
Well, its about to get a lot worse.
A number of states, including the great state of California, headed by The Terminator himself, have recently enacted laws that ban anyone from smoking in a motorized vehicle when there is a person under the age of 18 in the same vehicle. Fines for being caught smoking in a vehicle with kids inside would be on par for being caught smoking in an indoor public place. The proponents of the law argue that smoking around children, although bad and should not be limited in all places, is especially harmful to them in a car, where ventilation isn't great. Now the Ontario Medical Association is calling on the provincial government to extend the anti-smoking law to include vehicles where minors are present as well.
Yes, it seems that the places in which a smoker can actually smoke are becoming fewer and fewer. Eventually, each city or town will have a single spot out in an isolated part of the community, likely at the city or town line, where a smoker can have a puff, and let me tell you that spot will be quite the popular destination, for nicotine addicts that is.
I, for one, agree with prohibiting smoking in a vehicle where minors are present, for the arguments presented by groups like the Ontario Medical Association. Now, many other people will agree with this proposal for any number of personal reasons. However, it is for one purely logical reason that I support this proposal.
It is because there is already an existing law banning smoking in indoor public places that makes it reasonable -- almost necessary -- to adopt any amendments to the law that would further protect the public from second hand smoke. After all, the precendent has already been set by the original smoke-free law. Since the spirit of the law was to protect innocent members of the public from the health effects of second hand smoke, then it makes reasonable sense to include other indoor areas and confined spaces, like inside an automobile, or certain public areas inside one's house, under the law to protect as many of these innocent non-smokers from exposure in as many places as possible.
Now, some of you may be quick to argue, "Hey theopinionguy, as much as I think you're a dashing individual, I think its unfair to smokers, some who have tried to quit unsuccessfully, to continue to tell them where they can and can't smoke. It's supposed to be a free country!"
And you'd be quite right about that! It is a free country, and you are right that smokers have as many personal freedoms as non-smokers have. However, just as smokers have the right to smoke, non-smokers have the right to not smoke. Put one of each in a room together; whose rights should overcome the other?
It could be that there are more non-smokers, it could be that not smoking has more health benefits than smoking does, or it could be that the OMA contributed more to political campaigns than the tobacco companies did. Whatever the reason, law-makers sided with the non-smokers, and the current smoking ban exists as a result.
No political party has the appetite nor the death wish to revoke such a law for the benefit of a smoker's right to smoke. Thus, the current law must be re-examined periodically to include other limitations where one can smoke. A vehicle is one such reasonable amendment, especially when there is a kid inside.
Personally, I look at the struggle between a smoker's rights and a non-smoker's rights, and think that governments need to make the ultimate decision about tobacco once and for all. Should it stay or should it go? Obviously this is not a decision that can be taken lightly; lots of public consultation over a broad cross-section of the population will be needed, including bar and night club owners, everyday smokers, doctors, tobacco farmers, and of course the general public.
In failing this, the government should start making more significant progress in trying to help those that want to quit to quit once and for all. Spending tonnes of money on television ads and on booths at local shopping centres are ineffective uses of taxpayers money. They should use the money to find those smokers that wish to quit, pay for their counselling, pay for their patches and nicotine gum for the first little while, etc. That way, the only smokers that will remain will be the ones that don't care about what it does to them, and they'll be so few and far between that no one will even notice them. And thus, we can eliminate the need to keep shrinking the areas in which those smokers can light up.
In the mean time, I would like to propose The theopinionguy Amendment, where basically no one is allowed to smoke within 40 feet of theopinionguy...
Briggsy