About fifteen years ago I was walking through a Vancouver park with a friend of mine, a strict vegetarian who was obsessively concerned with her health and with what went into her body. When she saw someone about ten or fifteen yards away from us sitting on a bench smoking a cigarette, she became agitated, and started talking about her right to breathe clean air. Thing is, the smoker was actually downwind from us; my acquaintance was not being tormented by any actual violation of her lung-space, but rather by her own thoughts, by the idea that her well-tended health was being violated, and she seemed mulishly, self-righteously unable to see the distinction.
I mention this because the executive director of Action on Smoking and Health recently called for a ban on smoking in parks and playgrounds in Edmonton, and now City Council is debating whether or not to implement the proposed ban. The chief executive of the Lung Association of Alberta, who has come out in support of the proposed changes, noted that “In the indoor world, we started with small areas that were smoke-free…and moved on from there.”
Boy, have they ever moved on. It might be hard to get overly worked up about a ban on smoking in playgrounds – although even that is probably a bit of an overreaction – but…city parks? The last time I checked, the outdoors is a pretty big place.
Even Edmonton’s Mayor Stephen Mandel, who has a tendency to see the city as a community league or a social club that every resident has voluntarily joined, said “There are all kinds of rules and regulations, but where does government start and where does government finish?”
Well, if the nanny-statists have their way, it finishes one precisely-measured finger length inside the opening at the end of your alimentary canal:
Anti-smoking advocates upped their demands on Wednesday, calling on the province to outlaw smoking in provincial parks.
Seriously.
Keep your curtains drawn and your bathroom door locked at all times, folks…
So will my natural wood burning barbies be outlawed?
Sounds just like another famous group of socialists, Germany’s ‘National Socialists’ who always worked something deeply evil ‘for the benfit of the populace.’ These tyrannical busybodies will not stop until their Berlin Bunker is bombed to Hell.
If smoking is prohibited in parks and other public spaces, what is stopping the state from proscribing it in one’s backyard?
Pace Simeon, when will the anti-smoking lot morph into the broader anti-smoke? And if said vegetarian friend or her more radical ilk have their way, how long before meat-eating is proscribed?
Indoor smoking restrictions I can understand. Outdoors? It’s an insane restriction of personal liberty.
Reminds me of the drunk driving thing, started as ” lets keep the obvious drunks off the road”, then it became ” let’s keep people over some reasonable limit off the road”, but that “reasonable” limit keeps getting lower and lower, and pretty soon if you have a glass of wine with dinner, or a beer, 3 hours ago you’ll be in in violation.
Oh, did I say “pretty soon”, my bad.
The real problem lies when these folks get on boards or form NGOs.
There’s an old expression that there’s a problem when someone’s preoccupation becomes their occupation.
Once a paycheque gets introduced, then things all too often move from the field of genuine concern and practicality to perpetuation of the job (remember, politics: the acquisition and retention of power).
And that is what has happened to so many of our environmental and health & safety NGOs – as each benchmark is achieved, they have to come up with new goals to justify their continued funding and existence. So the demands have to become more restrictive, more repressive.
Save the trees, becomes save every tree.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving becomes Mothers against Drinking.
And on the quasi-judicial side of things, HRCs move from simple cases of alleged workplace/services discrimination to whether or not someone was “offended” by something that was said.
And in most cases, it’s tax-payer dollars funding these groups. They meet all the criteria for parasitism.
Sounds like we should all fire up a big fragrant stogie on Let’s Mock Mohammed Day. The NYC failed car bomber will no doubt be charged with a smoking (SUV) violation …feeling safer now?
Second-hand smoke kills.
I don’t like people smoking around me
and when they do I make their life miserable.
To my (albeit, limited) knowledge, a post-mortem result citing second-hand smoking as cause of death has NEVER been posted
Brad, you make life miserable, because YOU are nothing but a miserable miscreant. Go back to polishing your jackboots. Find a good brick to throw through a tobacco store window (the new Jews).
Second-hand smoke kills.
I don’t like people smoking around me
and when they do I make their life miserable.
Posted by: Brad at May 4, 2010 8:18 AM
————————————
I’m betting it’s just not the smokers’ lives….
Anti-smoking incivility is a conditioned behaviour akin to the dehumanizing indoctrination a commie culture warrior undergoes.
These people are the Borg. Deal with ’em as such.
The filter is on the wrong object.
“Second-hand smoke kills.”
. No, it doesn’t. About a dozen non meta-analysis studies have been done on the issue since 1958. Not a single one every found anything close to the required 300% risk increase necessary to establish a link.
Get smartenized…
http://www.davehitt.com/facts/index.html
The assertion you are parrotting is based on the thoroughly debunked ’93 EPA study which was established (in a US Court of Law) to have been faked.
Most people looked the other way because they knew that it was good policy. Read Crichton’s “Aliens Cause Global Warming.”
That is why we now have the nannies moving into energy with the whole Climate Change thing. We let them get away with SSH…so now they feel empowered to move onto other areas of control.
First they came for the Jews…
“Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.” – Fletcher Knebel
I am waiting for the fat police and the fashion police – personally I am deeply offended by fat people wearing clothes which are 2 sizes too small for them so that everything hangs out for all to see.
The smoking thing – are “they” going to ban the outdoor bar-b-que pits in the prov. parks – no more weeny roasts for you my friend!!
Does “smoking” include inhaling, with great enjoyment, the lingering smell of gunpowder smoke after firing several dozen shotgun shells at wandering hippies?
I wonder, would these anti-smoke nazis be more concerned that I “smoked” in public, or that I shot at some hippies?
I wonder, would their heads explode if they ever left their little hell-holes and visited a place say like France, where smoking is used as a fashion accessory and weight loss aid?
The French aren’t known for their fighting skills, but I dare say that asking one not to smoke, particularly after a skimpy meal, would probably land you in a fight or at least a good tongue lashing.
So, in a statement not likely to be heard here again for several millennium, I say that smokers should be more like the French and just tell these anti-smoke nazis to pizz off!
PS: trust me, writing “be more like the…” was as traumatic for me as it was for you to read it!!
Brad
[…..Second-hand smoke kills.
I don’t like people smoking around me
and when they do I make their life miserable.]
What a lovely excuse to bully folks. That sort of activity/behaviour can be hazardous to your health. It is not the way to make friends but can influence people….into very non-sypathetic activity……
Does Vancouver have a needle “exchange” program (quotes because they’re usually just needle-giveaway programs). If so, does anybody see any contradiction between, de facto, encouraging use of, say, heroin, and banning smoking. Does Vancouver do anything about people smoking marijuana in parks?
They want no smoking for everyone except themselves.
http://www.thestar.com/article/585012
I would prefer that they banned…..flatulation. It’s effects are far more disturbing.
Yes, some anti-smoking nuts are they themselves nazi like about it, makes one wonder what damange they do if that’s the attitude they have and they are medical professionals.
Image a very overweight physician scolding a paitient about smoking, then denying that patient proper medical care unless or until they quit, and not talking organ transplants here.
We’re there, here Ontario.
I think I’ve met Brad. I think I explained he was going to die soon anyway but left out a cause. We have no smoking in selected parks (well there is a law anyway.) You can carry a machete, smoke dope, shoot dope, be drunk but not have a dog or a smoke. The hassle is one of the reasons I haven’t been back to BC in a number of years. When I could not buy a large package of cigarettes (25) as opposed to a pack of 20 because of the law, I turned right and have never been back. I do not support crap. I graduated grade school quite some time ago. You are going to die and the majority of the cost is in the last 3 months. If you die sooner the cost of dieing is the same but they have payed less entitlements and the taxes on cigarettes is massive. We pay for your Aunt Matilda’s health care and that is the truth.
Exactly, Jim. Outdoor smoking may, at worst, annoy other people but you can just move a bit further away. Discarded IV needles lying around the playground and parks is far more dangerous. Nonetheless, it’ll grandpa smoking a cigarette while supervising the grandkids that will get hassled and fined.
Get ready for it. Here in Vancouver, the ship of fools down at city hall just passed the no smoking law for parks and beaches. It is remarkable how they manipulate facts and science to justify their social engineering. I would wager a great sum of money that there is no credible science anywhere that claims the amount of second hand smoke inhaled by the average park or beach goer harms the health. Yet since the science says second hand smoke is harmful they extrapolated that to the great outdoors. People just bend over and take it too. They passed it around the same time they were turning a blind eye to thousands of protestors smoking pot downtown without arrest.
It seems in Vancouver you can’t smoke (cigs) at the beach and in parks but it was fine for people to smoke dope openly on the same day that law was passed.
Also if you don’t want your chickens any more the city has setup a home for wayward chickens at a cost of $20,000.00.
First they came for the smokers…..
Smoke bothers me a lot, but some happy soul enjoying a quiet smoke on a park bench does not in the least offend me. In what way does his/her smoking impact on my life? We have many things belching effluvia into the atmosphere, including many “green” initiatives such as manuring fields or burning candles during “lights off” day. I think there are folks who simply resent other people having any kind of pleasure or good time. It troubles me because they often have the fanatic’s strength of purpose to ruin things for everyone else.
Like so many things in politics the number of complaints get multiplied by some factor to discover the vast majority of people feel the same way. For example: if the city of Edmonton received 10 complaints on one issue it means 10,000 people feel the same way, so get 2000 people to complain then 2million out of the 1 million residents agree.
The city should prove they can enforce their current bylaws in the parks first, for example how many littering tickets where issued to smokers putting their butts on the ground?
I enjoy a cigar from time to time while out in the dog park and it amazes me that people will bend over to pick up their dog’s crap but have see no problem in tossing a cigarette butt on the ground.
Motorcycle riders will tell you how great it is having butts tossed at you while in traffic…
I don’t have a problem with smokers, I have a problem with littering a-holes.
Here’s one that really got me ticked.
A while back I wanted to take the kids to see the new Alice in Wonderland movie. It was rated PG so I went to see it myself first just to double check what was in it. The movie seemed appropriate for my kids age so I took them.
Later I looked up the rational for the PG rating because it didn’t really make sense to me. The reason was because of… a smoking caterpillar.
The movie rating system has now been infected with politically correct BS rendering it useless as a guide. Now even just seeing an animated bug on a screen,smoking, is considered “dangerous”.
Well EBD, sadly smokers in general (not all) do not look after their cigarette butts. At the place at which I work, people violate smoking zones all the time. Ash trays are set out, large containers for butts are set out, and these are surrounded by butts on the ground. It’s unsightly, and frankly bothersome.
A friend of mine smoked, he has more brains than probably anyone I know, and he threw his butts on the ground. I asked him why he did that, he didn’t even realize it.
Ticketing people isn’t a solution, because that won’t work.
So I’m fine with the proposed initiative.
Rita, NRO had a article about the leftists banning fetish. The author argues that leftism functions as a secular religion and its “Puritans” are the force behind the restrictions and regulations.
Dennis Prager
April 13, 2010 12:00 A.M.
Squashing Life’s Little Pleasures
Liberals object to dodgeball, pin-ups, flirting, and even wood-burning fireplaces.
Like the medieval Christians who wore hairshirts and the Puritans who thought dancing was sacrilegious, the Left, consciously or not, is uncomfortable with many of the joys people experience (with such notable exceptions as sex and drugs).
http://article.nationalreview.com/431157/squashing-lifes-little-pleasures/dennis-prager
When I have a problem with second hand smoke I make sure I am not near the source. Too easy, but if the source of the smoke plunks their fat butt beside me without consideration then I have an issue with the asshat. It’s called common sense and courtesy.
Smoking in the woods can and perhaps should be banned whenever the fire threat dictates no open fires or flames. I’ve seen more than one fire caused by someone’s butt. Tossing your cigarette out of the car window just to keep your ashtray clean ain’t smart.
Something on the radio yesterday about Vancouver being the most unfriendly place to live in Canada.
Some must feel conflicted that at the same time they clamor for smoking ban, then, the same are those that want smoking weed to be legal.
I ain’t going to their provincial parks if I can’t smoke a pile of pine.
I think a brilliant and money-saving idea would be to outlaw house fires! The savings in lung damage from that smoke would be incredible!
This is an example of “Rule by the most headachey neurotic.” The reasoning is in order to set the standard of public behavior as high as possible, the law makers can simply ignore everyone but the most irritable whiners.
The result is, as we all know, utopia.
I don’t support these sort of bans, but smokers really don’t help themselves with their persistently rude and selfish behavior.
1) Stop using the ground as your personal ashtray. I’m sicking of cleaning up cigarette butts from the sidewalk and boulevard in front of my house.
2) If you’re standing in the middle of a crowd watching your kid’s soccer team, don’t just light one up. Show a little common courtesy and ask the people around you if they mind.
Again, I don’t want the government doing anything about this – its just about manners and consideration for others.
Say what you like about the Governator, but Ahhhnold just vetoed a ban-smoking-in-parks bill passed by the California legislature.
At least that’s what I heard on the radio yesterday.
I don’t support any bans on smoking in PRIVATE establishments or outside. I think it a vile habit and would avoid places that allow it, but it should be the owners decision.
Smoking outdoors is fine, but there should be some mutual consideration for each.
What bothers me the most about smoking is the littering and grass fires caused by the stupid smokers. Calgary currently as push on the idiot taxes to try to curb these habits. I like this idea.
I’ve never had a problem with the government banning things that are outright stupid, and smoking is one such thing.
Sure, slippery slope and all that will be argued, but to survive a civilization sometimes needs to draw the line on true stupidity.
The problem is that stupid behaviour tends to spread. When I was a young kid we had a garden hand who used to smoke, and I was fascinated by it and decided to try it myself. Were it not for the fact that my father found out and put a prompt end to it, I might have grown up a smoker.
I don’t consider myself stupid, but at the time I wasn’t wise enough to know that smoking was a truly silly thing.
The smoking bans are really no different than by-laws that dictate what you can and cannot do to your house. Where such by-laws not in place, you can be guaranteed that some idiot would turn their home into an ugly, noisy ghetto, which would drag down the property values of all homes on the street.
Vancouver…that would be in BRITISH Columbia.
What’s next? Pen knives banned in your car? Have to be 16 to buy a goldfish?
Just a small step from downright silly to plain stupid.
I used to smoke, up to three packs a day.Quit 20 years ago when we had kids. Nowadays when I see a smoker all I feel is pity due to the outrageous tax levels on their vice.Leave the poor bastards alone.
On the other hand I am becoming increasingly fed up with the neo puritanical intolerance of most “progressive” people.Listen to the terms used to describe the basic act of eating something like;”I am very careful about what I put into my body”It’ almost a sexual meme,
Maybe we should be renaming Vegans and other food hysterics as what they really are; Vegesexuals,
Then ban them from parks.
I think a lot of the problem with politicians these days is that all the effective laws and rules have already been put in place and therefore in order to appear as though they are actually doing something they expand the existing laws. Unfortunately the easy way to get your 15 minutes of fame as a politician is to attack the civil rights of the people by making rules and laws that are ridiculous, unenforceable and expensive to administer. They are usually made with no adequate forethought and definitely no consideration for logic and common sense. I am getting so sick of the word “ban” and even more sick of the people who encourage gutless politicians by wanting everything under the sun banned. Somehow we need to correct this.
Anti-smoking mania has developed into a very lucrative industry for some. It is for that very reason that the anti-smoking lobby never pushes for an outright ban on the sale of tobacco products which would, obviously result in their grant income drying up. As with most things that make no sense, follow the money.
The anti-smoking cabel easily recruits allies from the ranks of cowardly politicians, semi-hysterical hypochondriacs, and bullies who see this as an opportunity to push others around within the bounds of political correctness. The vast majority, who are non-smokers, simply indulge in apathy for the simple reason that the jack-booted horde is leaving them alone … for now.
I get a kick out of the envirowackonutjobs who want to protect every single tree in Stanley Park including the dead ones. A few years ago they wanted to expand the highway through the park and needed to remove 13 trees. But the wack jobs put up such a fuss they could’nt Do it. But then along came mother nature with a huge storm that flattened 30-40% of the park.I laughed and laughed and laughed————–. Did the nutjobs help to clean up the mess. Noooo. Could’nt do that.
Now they want to ban smoking in the parks. OK. but ban campfires as well. They are just as dangerous and annoying. And also ban backpacking as it destroys the natural flora and fauna and it disturbs the wild animals.. Only allow camping in designated spots.
“Second-hand smoke kills.
I don’t like people smoking around me
and when they do I make their life miserable.”
Actually Brad, you make life miserable for EVERYBODY!!!
Second hand smoke kills…
but not reliably
Where does government start and where does it finish?
Well, that is the problem. Because in our current system, government never finishes. Never in the history of modern western governence has there been an administration that has campaigned, won, or governmed from a platform of, “No changes.”
So, that leads us to a system of busybody governments on all levels (federal, provincial and local) that will find any number of matters to legislate on. The logical outcome is what we have now: nanny-state legislation on such trival issues as smoking bans, cell phone bans, lawn treatment bans, and so on. When they’re no banning items, they’re pontificating on matters that are not within their jurisdictional purview. To wit, a municipal government in Arizona deliberating on the new state-passed immigration law. Or, in recent years, Vancouver city council discussing the matter of the American invasion of Iraq.
So, there’s the problem. Government never finishes. It is like the Blob of 1950s B-movie horror fame (and a less-than-memorable 1980s remake). It simply consumes and grows…for nothing more than the sake of consuming and growing.
“So I’m fine with the proposed initiative.”
Well Eric Larson, I saw you spitting on the ground (a most despicable habit and dangerous if you have a communicable disease)) so I think you should be banned as well.
The problem is that smoking is not the best example to use to illustrate the encroachment of the nanny state. Most individuals hate smoking, and most parents would never want their teenagers to start smoking.
So basically we end up having a debate about a habit which most people agree is stupid anyway.
I am no fan of the nanny state, and I would agree that there are times when the anti-smoking regulations start to push the limits of what is reasonable.
To convince the general population that the nanny state is bad for society I think requires examples other than smoking bans.