# Smoking to be banned in cars in Ontario



## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

(if you have anyone 16 or under in the car with you)

http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1384234

I suppose this comes as no surprise.

I think it's a good thing.

Your thoughts?


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## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

It's about time!


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## ronmac (Sep 22, 2006)

Paul said:


> We've had this conversation before.
> 
> I'm in favour of laws that protect children. I'm also in favour of laws that make smoking so inconvenient that nobody would want to start. One reason I don't go to our local mall anymore is that I don't enjoy walking through the clould of smoke at every entrance.


+1

Nova Scotia has this law on the books already.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Paul said:


> We've had this conversation before.


Yeah, 26 pages worth or something. Those were the days on this forum, weren't they!

My opinion hasn't changed. Tobacco should be made illegal, and that's pretty much what is happening except that it's being done in baby steps by yellow-bellied moronic politicians. Extremely spotty enforcement doesn't help. Smoking is a dirty evil killing blight on a modern society which should have sense enough to be rid of it. That people can subject children to smoke anywhere, never mind in a confined space, is nothing short of abuse. 

Peace, Mooh.


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## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

Paul said:


> We've had this conversation before.


Thanks for that Paul, I just had a chuckle revisiting some of that banter.... "you're better than me"? LOL!


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## al3d (Oct 3, 2007)

i'm a smoker personnaly..but i agree with the law if you have kids in the car. And i don't think you should smoke in the car even when your alone and have kids...cause the smoke and smells stays forever in the car.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

What about cell phones?


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

GuitarsCanada said:


> What about cell phones?


If your cell phone is smoking then you should get it fixed :smile:


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

I used to work as a parking attendant when I was in school, and although I was a smoker at the time, I always was annoyed when I would see mom and dad puffing away in the front seat, and poor jonny's strapped into his baby seat in the back looking like he's about to be sick. 

It's a great idea. 

I've got nothing against smokers, though I don't anymore except for the very infrequent one I'll have when I'm out. I actually sometimes miss the smoke in bars and clubs because that's how I remember nights out being when I was younger, but in the long run, it's a good idea to have banned it.


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## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

GuitarsCanada said:


> What about cell phones?


Hasn't that legislation been passed? Hands free only?


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## bobb (Jan 4, 2007)

Most pathetic sight I have seen around here is an old man driving a four wheel scooter with a full wraparound canopy(clear plastic down to the wheels) to protect him from the rain. In this tiny enclosed space, he was smoking while carrying a 4 year old girl on his lap.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

Paul said:


> We've had this conversation before.


Yes I know but back then it impacted one small region of Nova Scotia. This law will impact MANY people.


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## bagpipe (Sep 19, 2006)

I think its a good thing in general. However, parents who are dumb enough to smoke in a small enclosed environment, with their kids present, are likely to be doing lots of other stupid activities that place their children in danger. Its just one stupid act removed from that list.


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## suttree (Aug 17, 2007)

meh. i think anti-smoking lobbyists are becoming more and more sactimonious by the day. 

if someone wants to kill themselves, what business is it of mine? now, i understand that a third party is involved here, and so at first blush i support the idea of this law, but then i realize that the proverbial "slippery slope" is being walked on. we're becoming a nation that feels it has the right to legislate fully the actions of others, and i think we're losing something far more important than a few lungs in the process.

if a business wants to cater to smokers for instance, it no longer is allowed to. if a bar put in $50,000 worth of glass walls and ventilation systems to cater to it's smoking clientele, it's been told "tough". the bar industry is dying, and musicians are suffering directly as a result. me, i'm glad that when i get home my clothes don't smell like smoke. at the same time, i also miss the money one used to be able to pull down playing. 

well, someone had to ring in on the other side.


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## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

suttree said:


> meh. i think anti-smoking lobbyists are becoming more and more sactimonious by the day.
> 
> if someone wants to kill themselves, what business is it of mine? now, i understand that a third party is involved here, and so at first blush i support the idea of this law, but then i realize that the proverbial "slippery slope" is being walked on. we're becoming a nation that feels it has the right to legislate fully the actions of others, and i think we're losing something far more important than a few lungs in the process.
> 
> ...


I don't disagree with you. What ADULTS choose to do for themselves in this regard is one thing, this legislation however is addressing what is done in the presence of minors. I'm all for that.


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

Mooh said:


> My opinion hasn't changed. Tobacco should be made illegal,
> 
> Peace, Mooh.



Making it totally illegal are going to make some rich. Remember what happenned when cigarettes went really high in price. You had smugglers making a killing. I think making it illegal would drive it underground as there are some who are just not going to quit. Making it so its a pain in the butt is probably the best bet. 
The lead singer in one of my bands will sit out side in sub zero weather with his wife to smoke. The will not smoke in the house as they have children and they don't like the smoke smell in their house. I said to him the other day during a break in practice, "Why don't you just quit"? I guess thats not an option for him.


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## suttree (Aug 17, 2007)

guitarman2 said:


> Making it totally illegal are going to make some rich. Remember what happenned when cigarettes went really high in price. You had smugglers making a killing. I think making it illegal would drive it underground as there are some who are just not going to quit. Making it so its a pain in the butt is probably the best bet.


this is exactly what started the stupid "war on drugs", and now we collectively fork over billions of dollars a year to do nothing besides kill people, and drive profits higher for criminals.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

I don't think maing tobacco illegal is a good idea.


What we're talking about here is child abuse. 

If someone pours gin down the throat of a child they should be hammered for it. Smoking in a car with a child present is only slightly less obnoxious in my opinion.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

I don't suppose for a moment that minds will be changed here, but many much less toxic things than smokes are banned for our protection, so why not tobacco? Especially when it's not just first hand use that harms. 

Peace, Mooh.


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## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

suttree said:


> meh. i think anti-smoking lobbyists are becoming more and more sactimonious by the day.
> 
> if someone wants to kill themselves, what business is it of mine? now, i understand that a third party is involved here, and so at first blush i support the idea of this law, but then i realize that the proverbial "slippery slope" is being walked on. we're becoming a nation that feels it has the right to legislate fully the actions of others, and i think we're losing something far more important than a few lungs in the process.
> 
> ...



I agree with you. We are walking a slippery slope where people are giving away too many of their freedoms to the gov't without any real reciprocation. 

As I see it:
1. An adult person in a democracy has the RIGHT to injure themselves however they see fit. 2. Children are the responsibility of their adults. 3. Society has the responsibility to care for members of society who are powerless and cannot care for themselves. 4. It is difficult, if not impossible, to prove that short term exposure to 2nd hand smoke in a car can have a lasting health effect on children. 

The law is in place because of the public perception of 2nd hand smoke and #3. But because of 2 and 4 I think this law will not withstand a supreme court challenge. I'm surprised the civil liberties people don't jump all over this one. A car is private property after all.

I am opposed to smoking in general and to smoking with kids in the home/car as well. However, the only good laws are ones that are enforceable laws. This one is not. It is a PR exercise and nothing more. 

matt


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Maybe the simple thing to do is train a bunch of dogs to smell tobacco smoke and park them at the entrance to emergency wards and children's hospitals. If the dog smells smoke on your kid, they don't get in. So, if you want your kid to be eligible for treatment of any kind, don't smoke around them.

I don't know that I would call smoking around kids "child abuse", since that tends to blend in something slow, insidious, and unintentional (i.e., nobody smokes aroud their kids inorder to get more smoke into the kid's lungs) with something more acute and deliberately harmful. But it is obviously harmful to the child, and is one more public health burden/cost that can be easily avoided with just a few simple public interventions. I guess the bigger question is whether this is something that is enforceable to the degree that it will accomplish the intended objectives. Certainly the logical link between the law and the outcome is clear, but if it is enforceable only 1% of the time then the public health outcomes tend to slip through our fingers.

As for the "dying bar industry", we've been through that cycle here in Ottawa, and despite the imposition of municipal smoking bans, and the biggest-spending job sector (telecomm) going t**s up, the live music scene and restaurant community is alive and well.


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

I don't even know where to begin ......

One one hand, I am so sick and tired of people interfering in other peoples lives. On the other hand, I am so sick and tired of people who are so stupid and irresponsible that they need people to interfere in the first place.

What we end up with, is an industry-unto-itself with enough self-serving stats, donations, grants, and employment to ensure that it survives in perpetuity. One cause/blight after the other.

And aren't the stats just something ......


> 'one in five children are subjected to smoking in cars'


...... That one was used in NB ....... funny that according to the Cancer Society


> 'one in five adults smoke'


. Heck - I saw in the paper today that


> 'one in five teenagers smoke'.


Geeeeez - I'm betting that one in five statistics are truthful one time in five.

How about the Drinking Business........ According to the cops in T.O.


> 'DWUIs were up 50% over these past Holidays'


.... DFig a little deeper to find that 90 infractions were handed out compared to 60 last year. Number of cars stopped? almost 90,000!!!!!! That's 0.1% of all the cars stopped - one out of every thousand!!!!!!. How many millions does that program cost? How many cops not doing other good work? Course if it saves one life .............. 

And then on the news this week I learned that they are now studying the dangers of *Third Hand Smoke*.............. Gawd help us all.

For the record I quit smoking last May.


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## screamingdaisy (Oct 14, 2008)

Paul said:


> GPS units are balancing the line between useful tool and distracting annoyance.


It's less distracting than trying to read a map, change lanes and make sure you take the right freeway ramp whilst driving. I just did my first long distance trip with a GPS and it was the most headache free experince I've had thus far.



guitarman2 said:


> Making it totally illegal are going to make some rich. Remember what happenned when cigarettes went really high in price. You had smugglers making a killing. I think making it illegal would drive it underground as there are some who are just not going to quit. Making it so its a pain in the butt is probably the best bet.


A total ban would also be a hard sell considering the cultural value of tobacco to Natives.



Milkman said:


> I don't think maing tobacco illegal is a good idea.
> 
> 
> What we're talking about here is child abuse.
> ...


Kids can consume alcohol when in the presence of an adult, and in some provinces are free to do so in a public resteraunt. Though I'm sure that this minor consumption of alcohol probably isn't want you meant...


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

Paul said:


> .
> 
> Not that I have any first hand knowledge of the escort bidness.


No but you seem very well versed should the occasion present it self.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Public health interventions are a curious thing, and often highly informative of human reasoning processes. From my own experience, it works sorta like this. If I LIKE to do what it is you're trying to manage as a public health issue, then I object to infringement of my rights. If I don't like the health challenge that public authorities are trying to manage, then I'm upset with the insufficiency of the strategy being used.

So....

I *don't* like getting food poisoning: "Where the hell are all those food inspectors kicking down the doors of restaurants and food preparation companies to make sure I don't get sick?"

I *do* like driving around without the restrictions of a seat belt and/or bike helmet, or smoking pot...or anything: "Why are all these law-makers spending all this time pestering me with ineffectual laws and infringements on my privacy/freedom?"

Ironically, the degree to which we tend to agree or disagree with public health-promotion interventions is much less a function of the extent to which it increments our health than we think. There are probably all sorts of things we scream and shout "There oughta be a law!" about, which have only modest impact on the health and well-being of people, and things we actively resist that could have significant well-being and cost impacts.

Take for instance, the recent listeria outbreak. Several dozen people died, which IS a tragedy. And many more became quite ill, but recovered. In the long run, what is the impact of that, cost-wise and otherwise, compared to the long-term care costs of a comparable number of kids or young adults who become head-injured as a result of not wearing a seat-belt/bike/helmet/motorcycle helmet?


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

mhammer said:


> Maybe the simple thing to do is train a bunch of dogs to smell tobacco smoke and park them at the entrance to emergency wards and children's hospitals. If the dog smells smoke on your kid, they don't get in. So, if you want your kid to be eligible for treatment of any kind, don't smoke around them.



Wow. So children would get double whammied. They have dumb parents that smoke around them, endangering their health and they would be refused medical treatment.


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## screamingdaisy (Oct 14, 2008)

Paul said:


> As I understand it, a car is NOT considered private property, at least for the purpose of communication for the services of a prostitute. The way it was explained to me is that prostitution in and of itself is one crime, and negotiating the price in public is a different crime. In that context courts have ruled that a car is a public place. That's why the escort ads typically say that they won't talk price until you meet at the incall or outcall location.
> 
> So, if I recall this stuff correctly, there is a close to on-point precedent to determine a car is a public place.
> 
> Not that I have any first hand knowledge of the escort bidness.


Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more!


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## screamingdaisy (Oct 14, 2008)

mhammer said:


> As for the "dying bar industry", we've been through that cycle here in Ottawa, and despite the imposition of municipal smoking bans, and the biggest-spending job sector (telecomm) going t**s up, the live music scene and restaurant community is alive and well.


Dudes don't go out to smoke, the go out to drink and chase women.

While it's easy enough to drink at home, it's really hard to chase women while sitting alone on your couch.


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## screamingdaisy (Oct 14, 2008)

allthumbs56 said:


> How about the Drinking Business........ According to the cops in T.O. .... DFig a little deeper to find that 90 infractions were handed out compared to 60 last year. Number of cars stopped? almost 90,000!!!!!! That's 0.1% of all the cars stopped - one out of every thousand!!!!!!. How many millions does that program cost? How many cops not doing other good work? Course if it saves one life ..............


The trade off is RIDE programs create awareness, and that awareness is hard to measure since we can't measure how many people would have driven drunk if they knew no cops would be out looking for them.


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

screamingdaisy said:


> Dudes don't go out to smoke, the go out to drink and chase women.
> 
> While it's easy enough to drink at home, it's really hard to chase women while sitting alone on your couch.


At my age its just simply too hard to chase women.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

guitarman2 said:


> Wow. So children would get double whammied. They have dumb parents that smoke around them, endangering their health and they would be refused medical treatment.


Umm, it IS a Jonathan Swift type comment, and NOT a real plan.9kkhhd

All that aside, if you look at the health behaviour literature on smoking, one of the things you see is that parental smoking is a very robust predictor of children taking up that same habit. The link never really made complete sense to me until I came back from visiting my sister during a period when she was a pack-a-day gal. It took a while for the stench to come off my clothes. It was then I realized that, if one smoked but didn't want your kids to smoke, there was little chance you could tell if they had or hadn't been smoking. In contrast, if you didn't smoke, all it would take is one cigarette to know your kid had crossed over the line. The smell would be easily detectable.

So, the parent/child link is not only one of modelling (i.e., it's OK to smoke), and availability ("Dad, can I bum a smoke off you?"), but simple signal detection: you can't prevent or stop what you can't detect.

I do not want to embark on a things-I-hate-about-smokers tirade, but if you've ever spent any time at a bus stop (something Ottawans don't do much of these days) frequented by high school or CEGEP kids, one of the things you'll be struck by is the amount of spitting. There's just mounds of gob everywhere. They puff, they spit, they puff, they spit. Hoark city. The sad irony is that they really do NOT like the taste of smoking, yet they persist because of the pharmacological effects and social consequences.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

hollowbody said:


> I used to work as a parking attendant when I was in school, and although I was a smoker at the time, I always was annoyed when I would see mom and dad puffing away in the front seat, and poor jonny's strapped into his baby seat in the back looking like he's about to be sick.


Yes, that was me in the back seat. My lungs are my weak spot...wonder why? An asthmatic child, I was hospitalised with pneumonia a couple of times as a little un, and always had bronchitis. Parents wouldn't stop smoking. I moved out as soon as it was legal to do so. Should have done it sooner. The kicker is my mother now complains to me on the phone about _her_ asthma, while smoking. She doesn't have asthma, she had emphysema but she's still an addict in denial. 

I'm all for personal responsibility. What I don't get is the inconsistency in people who say this violates their personal freedom (there's one of those libertarian threads over on TGP about this which of course quickly degenerated into shouting about the second amendment, nanny states and evil socialism), but are perfectly happy that they're already not allowed to do certain things -- smoke dope, drop e, shoot heroin, talk on their cell phone while driving, drive naked, not wear a seatbelt...


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

mhammer said:


> All that aside, if you look at the health behaviour literature on smoking, one of the things you see is that parental smoking is a very robust predictor of children taking up that same habit.


I don't believe that. My wife and I have never smoked and so far 2 out of 3 of our children do. I just hope my 17 year old daughter doesn't take up the bad habit.


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## al3d (Oct 3, 2007)

GuitarsCanada said:


> What about cell phones?


Cell phones are now illegals in cars in Quebec since july.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

> Originally Posted by mhammer
> All that aside, if you look at the health behaviour literature on smoking, one of the things you see is that parental smoking is a very robust predictor of children taking up that same habit.





guitarman2 said:


> I don't believe that. My wife and I have never smoked and so far 2 out of 3 of our children do. I just hope my 17 year old daughter doesn't take up the bad habit.


I smoke and my kids do not. They are 20 and 23 and have never touched one. They also remind me several times a month to quit. Which of course, is on my list of things that must get done. I also told them that it is a filthy, disgusting habit and that I wished I had never picked one up. It's a brutal addiction.


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## PaulS (Feb 27, 2006)

I smoke and so far my son (23) does not and I believe as my daughter (13) gets older she will not either. I don't smoke in the family car and only in my own when I am alone and I ventilate it as much as possible. I do not smoke in the house and have also told my kids the many negative things about it and how I wish we were educated. With that I believe the key should be education, not legislation. Look at the new idling bylaws.... Geez when will it end...


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

PaulS said:


> I smoke and so far my son (23) does not and I believe as my daughter (13) gets older she will not either. I don't smoke in the family car and only in my own when I am alone and I ventilate it as much as possible. I do not smoke in the house and have also told my kids the many negative things about it and how I wish we were educated. With that I believe the key should be education, not legislation. Look at the new idling bylaws.... Geez when will it end...


I really believe that's where the answer is. Education. When I was growing up everyone smoked and there was never an ounce of negative talk about it. I would like to throttle the guy that invented it. Like I said it's an insidious habit with no real positive aspect. But when you get hooked on them it's a bitch to get off them. Same as booze. I have seen booze destroy a lot of people and I mean destroy them, along with their families. I had an uncle kill a guy many years ago, driving boozed up. Still see that memorial in the paper every year.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

PaulS said:


> ...With that I believe the key should be education, not legislation. Look at the new idling bylaws.... Geez when will it end...


Ideally, yes. But the education thing isn't really working is it? How long have we known about the ill effects of inhaling the stuff given off by burning a weed full of carcinogens? 30 years? 40? But people still do it, and not just those that are already addicted, people still fall for the marketing hype (hey I'm using my dependence on a toxic chemical provided by a large corporation as a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom!) and start--persevering until they can stomach it. 
So education isn't working. 
Same with idling laws actually...how long have we known we're screwing the environment? What about seatbelts? Booze? People (not individuals, "people" as whole) only change their behaviour when coerced either by legislation or economics.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

devnulljp said:


> Ideally, yes. But the education thing isn't really working is it? How long have we known about the ill effects of inhaling the stuff given off by burning a weed full of carcinogens? 30 years? 40? But people still do it, and not just those that are already addicted, people still fall for the marketing hype (hey I'm using my dependence on a toxic chemical provided by a large corporation as a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom!) and start--persevering until they can stomach it.
> So education isn't working.
> Same with idling laws actually...how long have we known we're screwing the environment? What about seatbelts? Booze? People (not individuals, "people" as whole) only change their behaviour when coerced either by legislation or economics.


Actually, I would like to see some stats on this. maybe there are some out there somewhere. Again, I can only go from what I see and this is what I see. I can't think of one of my kids friends that I have ever seen with a cig in their mouth. Of all my friends, their kids... I can think of one that smokes, all the others do not. My observation is that the ones that are smoking today are also the ones that have their pants down around their knees with their underwear showing. They are the ones that are throwing pizza on the walls in back of my shop at 11:00 pm on a school night. I see a lot of street kids puffing. We have Niagara College here as well as Brock and I can tell you the majority of the educated kids are not smoking. So there must be a message getting through somehow. i think a lot of it is coming from home. The parents, like me, that got hooked on it in our generation are telling their kids about the dangers and the stupidity of it. Something we never had.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

Paul said:


> The lyric "... I cursed Sir Walter Raleigh, he was such a stupid git" just popped into my head.


At least he gave us potatoes. No Walter Raleigh, no chips! What would Brits eat?

[youtube=Option]wk2kFC9lrT0[/youtube]


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Obviously, with ANY epidemiological analysis and data set, there will be cases where A happens and B doesn't, or where A doesn't happen and B does. That, my friend, is the nature of risk analysis: calculating what the likelihood of B happening is, when A does or does not happen. And the facts are that parental smoking IS a potent predictor of adolescent smoking. Is it the MOST potent predictor, or an absolute died-in-the-wool 100% predictor? Obviously not. But when the likelihood of A goes up significantly and reliably if B occurs, then it IS a predictor. I might remind you that plenty of folks get lung cancer without smoking, and plenty of folks smoke for 60 years and die of something entirely unrelated. But the link between smoking and risk of lung cancer is demonstrable. It is the overall pattern of outcomes that epidemiologists and public health experts make pronouncements about.

That tendency to mistake isolated cases as "proof" or disproof of a pattern is true of other sorts of human reasoning as well. Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky won a Nobel prize several years ago for their body of work in this area ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic ). More recently, that sort of error in reasoning has cropped up with respect to public perceptions of climate change. Tomorrow, it is estimated that it will be -39C here in Ottawa, with wind chill. Of course, there will be many who will infer from that chill that "global warming" is mere hogwash. The mistake they make is that "weather" and "climate" are two different things. Weather is a data point, while climate change is the total accumulation of all data points world-wide. People think about the shovelling they have to do in their driveway after a major snowfall, but it doesn't occur to them that the water in their driveway (in snow form) had to come from somewhere, and the place where it came from is likely experiencing drought because of steadily increasing temperatures over the years.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

GuitarsCanada said:


> ...We have Niagara College here as well as Brock and I can tell you the majority of the educated kids are not smoking.


I was really surprised at how many people in the UK still smoke, especially young people, and in universities too. 
I lived in Japan a long time, where smoking is still very much the norm -- the rate has dropped over the last 20 years or so to just over 50~60% of men smoke (when I first went, it seemed that _all_ men smoked, there was no non-smoking anything (coffee shops, restaurants, trains, buses...even hospitals had ashtrays...it was like Glasgow in the 60s). The rate is however rising among women...All this is not hampered any by the tendency for cushy jobs in the tobacco for retired politicians.
The marketing people are still managing to get the daring / tough / cool / individualistic thing across somehow (Holywood?).


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## screamingdaisy (Oct 14, 2008)

Due to the nature of my job (army) there's a constant stream of you 'kids' cycling through the door. I've noticed over the course of my career (12 years now) that the younger generation seems to smoke and drink less than my generation, and much less than the previous generation.

Of course, ten years ago we would spend the weekend getting shit faced at the bar while nowadays these guys are in their holed up in their rooms playing World of Warcraft....

Anyway, these are my very unscientific observations.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

devnulljp said:


> I was really surprised at how many people in the UK still smoke, especially young people, and in universities too.
> I lived in Japan a long time, where smoking is still very much the norm -- the rate has dropped over the last 20 years or so to just over 50~60% of men smoke (when I first went, it seemed that _all_ men smoked, there was no non-smoking anything (coffee shops, restaurants, trains, buses...even hospitals had ashtrays...it was like Glasgow in the 60s). The rate is however rising among women...All this is not hampered any by the tendency for cushy jobs in the tobacco for retired politicians.
> The marketing people are still managing to get the daring / tough / cool / individualistic thing across somehow (Holywood?).


Advertising is huge. I also assume that in Japan etc you still get tremendous advertising. But that is one great thing we have done in this country. Get rid of the advertising. I really believe that as time goes on we will make giant strides in the reduction of new smokers. It's just not cool anymore (for the most part) and in the young educated crowd you are a leper if you light up.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Does education "work" or is the only real answer legislation and enforcement?

Sadly, neither "work" in any dependable sense. But, frustratingly to both sides in any debate, they both work to some extent.

Insight, knowledge, education, or whatever you want to call it, has limited impact, no matter whether we're talking about smoking, overeating, gambling addiction, exam preparation, or any sort of desirable or undesirable behaviour. The chief problem is that any education too often occurs in one limited context, while the problem to be wrestled with occurs in a different one. The poster child for this is work-related off-site "retreats" that generate all sorts of team-building and insight up the wazoo, and then when people come back to the workplace, they slip into all the same old habits. Stuff learned in one context doesn't automatically transfer, full-strength, to other different contexts. It's actually a very fundamental aspect of how humans organize experience and knowledge (by where/when they acquired it), and most connectionists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectionism) would probably argue that transfer of acquired knowledge across contexts is a function of the likelihood of activating relevant knowledge.

Of course, you can also try and present information in the typical context, but that information may end up not being accessed/activated due to the effects of repetition. Learning theorists refer to this as "habituation". Note that it pertains to essentially lower-level info that you don't think about deeply. In some respects, the warning labels on cigarettes are an instance of trying to "train"/educate people via low-level messages that they think about juuuust enough to elicit some emotion which is compatible with what you'd like them to do, and incompatible with what you don't want them to do. The idea is that people see the picture, go "Ewwwww!", and are just disgusted enough to wait a little longer before the next smoke, or ponder the possible outcome of continued smoking. A buddy of mine works at tobacco control at Health Canada and is part of the team of people who brought you those big disgusting warning labels with pictures. One day a few years ago, we're standing at the bus-stop and I ask "So, Murray, do people actually look at the labels and pictures?". Without missing a beat, he replies "Yeah, about 1.6 times a day for the average pack-a-day smoker. When our surveys indicate it dropping down to 1.2, we change the set of pictures." Clearly, not only do attempts to educate people need to fall on ears that accept the message as plausible, but they also need to fall on ears that are still paying attention. Otherwise, it's like Oscar Leroy on "Corner Gas", watching TV and absent-mindedly agreeing to everything without it registering. So, "education" CAN work, but it requires qualifications and favourable circumstances to "work".

Enforcement is not a sure-fire winner, either. Partly because people reject limits on their behaviour, and partly because there are finite limits on any society's capacity to enforce. No community would stand for its police force being allocated exclusively to assuring that cars do not contain cigarette smoke and children at the same time. They would not stand for spot checks at major intersection or on major thoroughfares. And quite frankly, while the cat is somewhere else, the mice will live it up. When attempts at trying to mimic rigid enforcement in automated fashion are used (cameras at red lights, instead of cops, or speed bumps), people resist.

As far as I'm concerned, one needs to use a balanced carrot and stick approach. You can't rely on education or enforcement exclusively. You need to use them in complementary fashion. And if you want to minimize the impact of tobacco use on public health, you attack the problem at both the adult and child level.


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

Hmm... seems to me it is apples and oranges. I know of all the "studies" over the past ooooo 40 something years... but I also know from all them "educational" tv commercials that what is in a cigarette is things like rat poison and 200 something elses added to it and not grown from the ground.

So, ok, this thing full of rat poison + 200 things AND tobacco will kill you over the course of 20 to 70 or so years...

Cigarettes changed behaviours. Instead of a quiet pipe that was contemplated over (and often contemplated over long enough it would go out and need constand relighting), or a cigar at the weeks end, smoking became something that could be done by anyone any time they felt like it. Pipe's and Cigars have been around for many thousands of years without killing off the human creature. However, it seems that cigarettes are doing just that. I simply question if it is the actual tobacco or the 200+ claimed compounds added to the tobacco that is causing the actual damage to people to the extent claimed, both respiratorily, and gonadotorially (made that second word up, no idea what sperm damage is called.... and the first word too but hey).

Ultimately the government should develope the ghouliewackers to simply make tobacco products illegal across Canada, both to make and to sell (no selling to Zimbabwe for 300 billion dollars a pack of 25). In terms of the intelectual discussion though, I would have to say that I have some concerns about the claims.


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## screamingdaisy (Oct 14, 2008)

keeperofthegood said:


> Ultimately the government should develope the ghouliewackers to simply make tobacco products illegal across Canada


I don't think that would be either fair or compassionate to those who are addicted to nicotine, particularly since they became addicted while the drug was legal and the government profited from it's sale.

It would also cause a whole lot of otherwise law abiding citizens to seek black market sources and thus become criminals subject to prosecution.

Besides, look at how well prohibition has worked against pot, acid, mushrooms, cocaine, ecstasy, etc, etc, etc...


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

Well there is the rub too. People do not become addicted to nicotine gums or patches. Certainly there are no citizen groups out there trying to make work "patch free". Is it indeed the nicotine that is the addicting compound? Or is it again, more misdirection on the part of other people? Is it really the tobacco people are addicted to, or is it the 200+?

In terms of the slow removal from society approach, why has no one managed to force cigarette makers to produce organic tobacco only? No compounds added, no chemicals from the seed to the stick. Seems to me that would be a smart move, removing a lot of known toxins would only benefit health. It would really be funny if the reported rate of addiction also dropped XD

However, yes, if the government made smoking illegal, lots of people will have a rough few weeks to a few months. People going off cigs have got to go on a diet >.< I gained 80 pounds, while eating half what I did when I was a smoker, and did so in 4 months. I thought I was being smart in no longer drinking regular pop or eating McD's or BK 7 days a week, and instead eating green leafy salads etc... >,< metabolism shift is rough! 

As to honest citizens... I don't believe there is such a thing, but that would be another thread entirely.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

keeperofthegood said:


> Cigarettes changed behaviours. Instead of a quiet pipe that was contemplated over (and often contemplated over long enough it would go out and need constand relighting), or a cigar at the weeks end, smoking became something that could be done by anyone any time they felt like it. Pipe's and Cigars have been around for many thousands of years without killing off the human creature. However, it seems that cigarettes are doing just that. I simply question if it is the actual tobacco or the 200+ claimed compounds added to the tobacco that is causing the actual damage to people to the extent claimed, both respiratorily, and gonadotorially (made that second word up, no idea what sperm damage is called.... and the first word too but hey).


Excellent points. Indeed, it is not the tobacco itself, but the stuff that comes along with it, the mode of administration, and the frequency of usage, that really constitutes the problem.

I don't know how much any of you folks know about this stuff, but to some extent, the addictive aspects of controlled substances can be partly predicted by certain characteristics of the the route of ingestion. In particular, the more "punctate" and predictable the consequences of taking in the substance, the more likely one is to develop a tolerance and subsequent addiction. That is, if the chemical effects of the substance are experienced in a more highly-defined now-its-on-now-its-off form, and the contrast between nondrug and drug state is highly pronounced, the drug is generally more addictive. That's one of the principal reasons why crack is more addictive than other modes of ingesting cocaine, and why slow-release oral morphine is not nearly as addictive as injected morphine. 

It is also the case that when a "ritual"/procedure for taking the substance reliably predicts the physical consequences or drug state, and the number of pairings of that ritual and drug state are increased, the drug-taker (and here we include not only junkies, but smokers, coffee-drinkers, and whole whack of other things you wouldn't expect) quickly develops a "conditioned tolerance" for the substance ( http://www.google.ca/search?client=...e+model+of+addiction&meta=&btnG=Google+Search ).

The basic principle is this: when the nervous system can reliably anticipate a change in physical state that veers away from the normal balance, it attempts to compensate for the divergent state by doing something that is the opposite. Nicotine is a chemical stimulant, and so is caffeine, but after repeated pairings of cigarette/coffee-taste with the stimulant state shortly thereafter, people start to experience a relaxed state upon smoking or drinking coffee. That initial relaxed state is the body's attempt to compensate for what it "knows" (and here I am not implying any consciousness) is coming down the pipes any minute now. The extent to which the body/brain can "know" this is a function of there being a clear predictive relationship between antecedent and physical consequence. If I chew a tablet and then over the space of 4 hours some feelings creeps over me then slowly fade away, that won't do it. If I take a drag, feel the zing, take a drag, feel the zing, take another drag, feel another zing, THAT will do it. So, as Keeper implies, the shift to cigarettes is precisely what created the social problem of tobacco, because it creates circumstances which are optimal to forming conditioned tolerances to the effects of quick bursts of nicotine. Person smokes and feels stimulant effects a short time later. After a modest number of exposures, the body now reacts to the anticipated stimulant effects with relaxation. The kicker is that once the relaxation subsides and the *actual* chemical effects of the nicotine start up, the person reaches for a smoke to relax. The irony is that the relaxation they experience is the outcome of their own body trying to do what it can to counteract the very thing they are ingesting, yet they need the ingestion ritual to provoke that bodily compensatory response.

This is, in fact, a very basic Pavlovian principle. It is why you drool in anticipation of food. It is why you sneeze when you see pictures of ragweed (if you have allergies to it). It is why the taste of artificial sweeteners makes your liver behave as if you've just taken in a load of sugar. I'm proud to say a lot of the key work in the area was conducted at McMaster.

Ultimately, what needs controlling is cigarettes, not tobacco. The same way that what needs controlling is not coca leaves, but cocaine. Some routes of administration simply increase whatever risks the substance may hold by several orders of magnitude.

Incidentally, as far as my tobacco control buddy is concerned, one of the worst aspects of marijuana is that people smoke it in the worst possible way. so as to do the greatest possible lung damage.


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## screamingdaisy (Oct 14, 2008)

mhammer said:


> Incidentally, as far as my tobacco control buddy is concerned, one of the worst aspects of marijuana is that people smoke it in the worst possible way. so as to do the greatest possible lung damage.


I preferred the water cooled tobacco pipe (bong) myself. Not sure where that fits in the grand scheme of things, but it was certainly easier on the lungs than a joint or pipe.


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## violation (Aug 20, 2006)

guitarman2 said:


> I don't believe that. My wife and I have never smoked and so far 2 out of 3 of our children do. I just hope my 17 year old daughter doesn't take up the bad habit.


Both my mom and step dad smoke and I've never, and will never, smoke... that shit is totally disgusting (in my opinion). Anytime I'm near them and they want to smoke, I make them smoke outside. Getcha' nasty habit away from me.

I've always wondered what benefits smokers get by smoking. I get to spend hard earned money to negatively affect my health, YES!


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## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

violation said:


> Both my mom and step dad smoke and I've never, and will never, smoke... that shit is totally disgusting (in my opinion). Anytime I'm near them and they want to smoke, I make them smoke outside. Getcha' nasty habit away from me.
> 
> I've always wondered what benefits smokers get by smoking. I get to spend hard earned money to negatively affect my health, YES!


Well unfortunately for alot of women, it's an appetite suppressant. Young girls see all those super skinny supermodels and actress who smoke and want to be just like them. When I was a little kid we snatched smokes cause we knew we shouldn't. I smoked until 4 years ago. Never a heavy smoker (less than 1/2 pk per day) but I ALWAYS HATED IT. Filthy disgusting habit. I don't critize those who do, but really I still can't believe I did that!

You have to remember that the cigarette is just an effective delivery system for nicotine. Cigarette makers were sued when it was found that they added fibreglass to the filters. See when you inhaled the fibregalss irritated your throat (wee little cuts if you will) and the nicotine got in directly. Now, if they would stoop to something like that what else might they do?

Cheers!
Lisa


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

When I was 13, a friend and I snuck out to the basement of a nearby house under construction and each smoked a Players Plain (no filter, green package) until it was about the size of a roach. That pretty much cured me for life.

Some years ago, there was a project going on at Concordia University where the smoking-cessation treatment being explored was timed smoking of a Gitanes cigarette. These are the more intense variety of "European" cigarettes. The person would be in a room with a timer and the psychologist/counsellor. They would be obliged to take a haul whenever the timer went off, whether they wanted it or not. The timer was set for a much shorter interval than they would usually wait between successive drags. I gather the objective was to forge negative associations with the physical act of smoking; in essence a phobia acquired for a behaviour that *used to* lead to pleasure. Not sure what the outcome of the project was.


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

mhammer said:


> That tendency to mistake isolated cases as "proof" or disproof of a pattern is true of other sorts of human reasoning as well. Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky won a Nobel prize several years ago for their body of work in this area ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic ). More recently, that sort of error in reasoning has cropped up with respect to public perceptions of climate change. Tomorrow, it is estimated that it will be -39C here in Ottawa, with wind chill. Of course, there will be many who will infer from that chill that "global warming" is mere hogwash. The mistake they make is that "weather" and "climate" are two different things. Weather is a data point, while climate change is the total accumulation of all data points world-wide. People think about the shovelling they have to do in their driveway after a major snowfall, but it doesn't occur to them that the water in their driveway (in snow form) had to come from somewhere, and the place where it came from is likely experiencing drought because of steadily increasing temperatures over the years.


Ah Mark, but don't you realize that you have made the same assumption yourself? You've accepted the premise that global warming is true. You're stating that if people want to discount it without sufficient data points then they are wrong, but there is a respected school of thought (in many scientific circles, at least) that it is NOT true, and that people who experience a summer heat wave and attribute it to global warming are making the same mistake.

I'm opening a can of worms here, of course. Many people accept global warming as absolute gospel. Witness how many scientists, no matter how respected, who disagree are labeled as "deniers". That's hardly a scientific term but rather a political ad hominem one.

The National Post featured many articles from such scientists, under the label 'Deniers'. I believe it is still available at their website. I was struck by the credentials of many of the authors.

Mind you, I'm not saying for sure who's right and who's wrong, just that some folks have an unfortunate tendency to get kinda righteous, accepting global warming as some kind of religious or political cause, wanting to burn the heretics.

Echoes of Galileo...

:food-smiley-004:


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## Jeff Flowerday (Jan 23, 2006)

*Keep the topic on the smoking ban!!!*

*We don't need another derailed thread.*


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

keeperofthegood said:


> Ultimately the government should develope the ghouliewackers to simply make tobacco products illegal across Canada, both to make and to sell (no selling to Zimbabwe for 300 billion dollars a pack of 25).


Oh, I do hope that it's the party I DON'T like that takes such action! The consequences next election would kill them! Even those against tobacco would be appalled at all the smuggling and crime that would result, far greater than the level we have now.

The thing with politics is that on hot button issues there's a games theory problem. Those citizens who don't really care about an issue won't likely change their vote to you because of it. However, those who DO care would likely vote against you as a bloc!

So most non-smokers would keep voting for their favourites but you'd lose ALL the smokers! The numbers are still too high for any politician to risk that.

It's always the numbers.

:food-smiley-004:


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## MaxWedge (Feb 24, 2006)

*Why?*

Why hasn't Health Canada mandated the tobacco 'industry' to market at least one product in their product line that is without the additive substances included. There is no secret that this 'industry' has been manipulating nicotine levels for fifty years. Seems to me Health Canada is no more righteous than those who profit from the needless suffering brought on by the tobacco 'industry'.


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

Wild Bill said:


> Oh, I do hope that it's the party I DON'T like that takes such action! The consequences next election would kill them! Even those against tobacco would be appalled at all the smuggling and crime that would result, far greater than the level we have now.
> 
> The thing with politics is that on hot button issues there's a games theory problem. Those citizens who don't really care about an issue won't likely change their vote to you because of it. However, those who DO care would likely vote against you as a bloc!
> 
> ...


hwopv I do know it XDDD, but eventually it does have to be said. If it is a mass human killing machine, then a responcible government should ban it. Reminds me of a woman in Alberta some years ago. She used ceder wood balls to deoderise and demotherise a closet, her child found one, chewed it, and died from ceder oils poisoning. She got 10 years for homicide, the "allowing a condition to exist where in someone died as a result". 

I am reasonable about it all though, and do realise that government is abouve being charged with homicide and also not about to "cold turkey" the country.

However, my other option is one that probably should be followed, and I am surprised for all the lobby people on both sides of the issue it has not been explored and really is very much good for discussion here in this thread. That the tobacco in cigarettes not be allowed to be altered in any unnatural way. Organically grown, harvested, dried, shredded, and rolled. I really do question the origins of the damage caused by cigarettes; but I do not question that the compounds used to adulterate cig's are simply bad to gawd awful.

Of course, cig smoke is not the only toxic product a child can-be/is exposed to around vehicals: http://www.johnsonfdn.org/conferences/precautionary/schet.html and for me, I never sat in traffic congestion. All that exhaust makes me gag too, so I was always happy to take the first off ramp and an extra round about way of going where I wanted to go. I do pitty the kids that have to sit in their parents car behind the transports and their deisle smoke and the poorly maintained hatchbacks and their grey smoke and breath all that in


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

MaxWedge said:


> Why hasn't Health Canada mandated the tobacco 'industry' to market at least one product in their product line that is without the additive substances included. There is no secret that this 'industry' has been manipulating nicotine levels for fifty years. Seems to me Health Canada is no more righteous than those who profit from the needless suffering brought on by the tobacco 'industry'.


Two answers to that:

1) Nicotine levels ARE manipulated. Cigarettes aimed at women tend to have lower nicotine levels because women normally get a stronger (and thus less pleasant) response to nicotine. But I don't think it is possible to have "nicotine-free" tobacco, the way you'd have caffeine-free coffee, though. It is also not clear that any manufacturer would develop such a product, because no one would buy it. And if no one would buy it, who the hell would grow it?

2) Health Canada does not have the mandate or legal right to do what you suggest. Hell, they don't even have the budget to do the anti-smoking advertising they'd *like* to do on bus-stops and TV. The very reason why the warning labels are on packs of smokes is because they lack that budget and need to pass the advertising cost onto tobacco companies, who simply make it part of their package-printing costs.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

My Dad use to smoke in the car when I was a kid. That was a long time ago as I'm now 54 but now that we know so much more about the harm caused by second hand smoke, how could any parent do it now and say they are a loving parent?

If a law could be enacted to make people love their kids and to use common sense it would cover not only this but many other laws too.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

FlipFlopFly said:


> My Dad use to smoke in the car when I was a kid. That was a long time ago as I'm now 54 but now that we know so much more about the harm caused by second hand smoke, how could any parent do it now and say they are a loving parent?
> 
> If a law could be enacted to make people love their kids and to use common sense it would cover not only this but many other laws too.


Both my parents smoked a lot in the car with all 5 of us kids. It was torture, and decades later, after they both quit, there were profuse apologies and pleas for forgiveness. They were otherwise great parents, intelligent, well informed, caring, tolerant, and understanding. They were blinded by their addiction for many years, but saw the light in time to save themselves (they both died of other causes) but who knows about lasting latent effects on others? I forgave them, but that has nothing to do with my already stated belief that tobacco should be outlawed. 

Second hand smoke caused extreme shortness of breath when I was young, cut short my bar gig days in the early '80s, caused no shortage of friction between myself and day job employers, and still irritates me. It's unnatural.

Peace, Mooh.


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## Guest (Jan 15, 2009)

suttree said:


> meh. i think anti-smoking lobbyists are becoming more and more sactimonious by the day.
> 
> if someone wants to kill themselves, what business is it of mine? now, i understand that a third party is involved here, and so at first blush i support the idea of this law, but then i realize that the proverbial "slippery slope" is being walked on. we're becoming a nation that feels it has the right to legislate fully the actions of others, and i think we're losing something far more important than a few lungs in the process.
> 
> ...


Right on!


If you're too dumb to figure out that smoking in an enclosed place with a child is unhealthy, then there's probably not much hope for you anyway. Can't legislate stupidity away.

Ban Ban Ban Ban Ban.........is NOT the answer to every stupid human foible.
If it was, all we'd be allowed to do is sit quietly in a straight backed chair with our hands folded neatly in our laps.

Bah!!


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## nitehawk55 (Sep 19, 2007)

And while they are at it ban some of these smoking cars that burn oil and make you choke if you follow them !


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

Paul said:


> I don't disagree, but it is getting better. The poorly managed Drive Clean system has forced a lot of K cars off the road in the past 5 years.


Here's a quote from the Ministry's Drive Clean site:

_"Light-duty vehicles that are are five years of age or older based on their model year and of the 1988 model year or newer require testing to renew the registrations every two years. Vehicles of the 1987 or older model year do not require emissions tests. Vehicles that are even model years require a test for registration renewal in odd calendar years and odd model year vehicles require a test for registration renewal in even calendar years."_

So cars older than 1987 don't need a test. I guess they consider them antiques or collectibles.

The K cars, as I remember, came out in the late 70's under Lee Iococca's program to save Chrysler. To be honest, I can't remember if they were gone by 1987.

As for its effectiveness for getting such cars off the road, here;s a link to a University of Guelph study:

http://www.uoguelph.ca/news/2007/06/drive_clean_pro.html

Very early on they state that the Program fails fewer than 10% of the cars. I didn't read far enough to see how many of those who failed passed a second test after some minor repairs.

Here's another interesting statement:

_"After examining results from the first three years of Ontario’s Drive Clean Program starting in 1999, Livernois and Moghadam found the province can achieve 70 per cent of emission reduction at one fifth the current cost if it limits testing to vehicles between six and 15 years old."_

Just my .02

:food-smiley-004:


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## dwagar (Mar 6, 2006)

As of Jan 1st in Alberta, you cannot buy cigarettes in a Drug store, or any store that has a Pharmacy, ie grocery stores with pharmacies.

The drug stores make sense to me, grocery stores not so much.

Watch how costs of smoking increase here now (you're shopping at 7-11). Maybe that's not so bad. As smokers we get hooped by the big taxes because we're 'bad'.

But, what crossed my mind as odd, many of these stores still have their own liquor stores here, and all of them sell the shit out of lottery tickets.

So, smoking=bad, drinking=good, gambling=good

It's really, really hard to wean a government off of huge tax windfalls, like gambling.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

dwagar said:


> As of Jan 1st in Alberta, you cannot buy cigarettes in a Drug store, or any store that has a Pharmacy, ie grocery stores with pharmacies.
> 
> The drug stores make sense to me, grocery stores not so much.
> 
> ...


Drug stores here in Ontario have been clear of smokes for years now. All the corner stores now have the white walls so that you cannot actually see the smokes. Living close to the Casino in Niagara Falls you hear the horror stories all the time. A lot of broken marriages and families... lost jobs and homes. There is nothing in it for the politicians so they just look the other way.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

GuitarsCanada said:


> Drug stores here in Ontario have been clear of smokes for years now. All the corner stores now have the white walls so that you cannot actually see the smokes. Living close to the Casino in Niagara Falls you hear the horror stories all the time. A lot of broken marriages and families... lost jobs and homes. There is nothing in it for the politicians so they just look the other way.


I live in Brantford. Our casino's parking lot is full 24-7. My home is about 2km from the place and I've never been in the building.

I really must be wired differently than people who enjoy gambling. I mean, who goes to a casino at 7:00 AM?

Same goes for smoking I guess. The appeal is a complete mystery.


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## nitehawk55 (Sep 19, 2007)

I've been in a casino for a short while a couple times and dropped $20-40 in the slots and had absolutely no enjoyment from it , in fact it made me feel stupid . 
I do buy lotto tickets sometimes and probably the only form of gambling I do enjoy is putting $2 bets on horses , but that's an evening out for the wife and I and we do own a couple horses for riding , one which is a retired race horse .

Guess we are getting off topic a bit . I will say I think smoking in cars should be by choice and parents with children should know better . As far as inforcing it......goood luck ! Hell , the cops hardly enforce the speeders and aggresive drivers so I'm sure they will be getting right on the smokers in their cars plus people using cell phones


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I've been in a casino once, a few months back, when a departing work colleague decided she wanted her going-away luncheon at a restaurant there. The restaurant was on a second level, which allowed us to sidestep the casino, but when we came out, the 2nd level allowed you to survey the entire casino floor.

I have to say, it looked just like.....a factory. There was row upon row of people seated in front of screens, pulling things, and focussed intently, as if the shop foreman was gonna come down their row and notice they weren't doing anything. And the noise was also exactly like a factory. I suppose if you're on the floor itself, it probably sounds more like an arcade, but viewed from above, where you see all rows at once, it was just depressing.


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

nitehawk55 said:


> Guess we are getting off topic a bit . I will say I think smoking in cars should be by choice and parents with children should know better . As far as inforcing it......goood luck ! Hell , the cops hardly enforce the speeders and aggresive drivers so I'm sure they will be getting right on the smokers in their cars plus people using cell phones


Ain't it the truth, Mark!

Passing these lifestyle laws is easy. That's what politicians are paid to do, after all. They get the brownie points, the photo op and hopefully for them they get the votes from those citizens who think that's all there is to it.

Of course, to make a new law work requires cops to enforce it. Cops cost money. Few police forces are in a hiring mode these days.

Same old smoke and mirrors. You hear the sizzle but you never get a steak.

:food-smiley-004:


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Milkman said:


> I live in Brantford. Our casino's parking lot is full 24-7. My home is about 2km from the place and I've never been in the building.
> 
> I really must be wired differently than people who enjoy gambling. I mean, who goes to a casino at 7:00 AM?
> 
> Same goes for smoking I guess. The appeal is a complete mystery.


Me too. I used to have a job that demanded I go to Windsor at least monthly. My colleagues all migrated to the casino, but I either went back to the hotel (and my guitar) or did the 3 1/2 hour drive home. I don't get it. Just as well, I'd probably stink at anything involving odds.

Peace, Mooh.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

...and I don't even think the pun was intended.kqoct


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Paul said:


> That's the funniest thing I've read this year!


Thanks, being an indigent has its rewards.

Peace, Mooh.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

mhammer said:


> ...and I don't even think the pun was intended.kqoct


Come on, that's low, give a guy some credit.

Peace, Mooh.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

Paul said:


> I'm pretty sure that giving the indigent credit is how the US got into the housing crisis in the first place.


http://www.instantrimshot.com/


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Paul said:


> I'm pretty sure that giving the indigent credit is how the US got into the housing crisis in the first place.


Good one! hahaha

Peace, Mooh.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

This is great...this thread had drifted into this:








While a thread with the same subject on _another_ board quickly turned into a silverback pissing contest with guns drawn and lines drawn in sand. 









:smilie_flagge17:


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## Gene Machine (Sep 22, 2007)

mrmatt1972 said:


> IAs I see it:
> 1. An adult person in a democracy has the RIGHT to injure themselves however they see fit.
> 
> 2. Children are the responsibility of their adults.
> ...


1. OK, but you loose your right to free health care.
2. yup
3.yup
4. perhaps, but you are still putting your children in harms way for your own pleasure. This is wrong on many levels. Your children's safety should come before your own.

I remember this happening to me one day when i was about 10. My friends dad was driving me home, in the front seat of a dodge pickup truck (no seat belts of course) and it was him, me, my friend and her two brothers. This clown we chain smoking MacDonald Menthol cigarrettes with the windows up. I was nautious and stunk like cigarettes when I got home.

Of course this was about 28 years ago.

Great law. Love it. It's about time.


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## ronmac (Sep 22, 2006)

Gene Machine said:


> 1. OK, but you loose your right to free health care.
> 2. yup
> 3.yup
> 4. perhaps, but you are still putting your children in harms way for your own pleasure. This is wrong on many levels. Your children's safety should come before your own.
> ...


Living in a democracy comes with responsibilities, and doesn't mean that any individual can do what they please. In a Democracy if the majority of folks feel that your individual "right" is detrimental or burdensome to the majority of that society then the majority have the "right" to enact a law that protects the "rights" of the majority.

Canada has a Bill of Rights that, AFAIK, doesn't include the right to harm oneself.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Mooh said:


> Come on, that's low, give a guy some credit.
> 
> Peace, Mooh.


Well if it WAS intended, then I think you deserve *double* credit, because it was so excellent a turn of phrase that you convinced me it was unintentional!

Daddy LIKE!:bow:


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

devnulljp said:


> http://www.instantrimshot.com/


Great site!

Some 15 years ago, I was finishing up a 2-yr teaching contract at a small university. For my final lecture - perhaps not as inspiring as Randy Pausch - I brought in a drum machine and my amp. Anytime *I* thought I had something even remotely humorous to say, I'd end it with a preprogrammed rimshot. Let me tell you, lecturing with a drummer is the ONLY way to fly!

One of the students could not make it for that class, so she asked me to tape it for her. Of course, when I agreed, neither of us had any idea I'd be doing this. That poor girl. I wonder what she thought when she picked up the cassette from the office, and here is this otherwise serious lecture on clinical disorders, punctuated by rimshots.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Of all the...I can't believe I just bookmarked a rimshot website. Now, now, folks, mind your manners.

Peace, Mooh.


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