You know we've been in Senate too long when...

[greybeta]

"Personally, I'm allergic to cigarette smoke. I'm sure if you were allergic to peanuts, you would object to being forced to eat peanuts each time you have to pass through the doors of your dorm."
~A senator authoring a Fresh Air Initiative, which stamps out out smoking in front of the entrances of dorms and academic buildings

Comments

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'm allergic to cigarette smoke, too, and while I recognize that I'm not going to DIE from inhaling it (at least not unless I get lung cancer, but that's not an immediate thing) I will be sick for days if it's more than a single lungful. When I was staying in dorms, I'd have to hold my breath and -run- up the walk-of-smokers, and I never would have made it up the whole walk if I wasn't a trained singer.

I think the idea that smoking, which is not necessary for health and well-being, is some kind of god-given sacred protected right that supercedes the rights of athsmatics, people who are allergic, and the various miriad other people who have breathing conditions' right to health is ridiculous, but it's a "right" that smokers continue to defend indignantly, like we're telling them they're not allowed to eat or drink water anymore. It's extremely selfish, and it amazes me that they're not mocked for it more than they are.

[kimmaline.livejournal.com]

I am a smoker.


But, I am an EXTREMELY careful smoker. I ALWAYS make sure that I am somewhere very much out of the way, if I am smoking at school (which is about the only place outside of my own garage or car that I smoke). I make sure that I am not in people's pathways...and I would never sit down somewhere near someone and light up. If I DO happen to be near a pathway when I am smoking (as I was last week when it was pouring down rain) I make sure no one is around, or coming near. If someone is heading my way, I put it out or move with plenty of time for the smoke to dissipate.

The thing is, smokers have a RIGHT to smoke. Even when I was an adamant ex-smoker...I never believed that it should be outlawed. I think that there are stoopid smokers in this world, to be sure. And they make a bad name for everyone else. But I have a right to smoke...and I don't like it when people infringe on that because they are opposed to smoking.

Case in point. I was, YEARS ago, smoking at my school. I was no where near anyone...sitting in a small group in the middle of a HUGE grassy hill. We had about 50 yards of clearance on two sides, and a good 30 on the other two. And there was an AWFUL lot of hill left.

Two people came and sat 15' away, directly downwind. And then they asked us to put out our cigarettes. I mean, come on. They could have sat anywhere, there was no one around. But, it was plain to me and the others in the group that they thought they were justified because smoking isn't PC.


Believe me. Smokers are mocked enough.

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

And I thank you (as I am grateful for everyone else who take care to smoke out of the way). It's still a little bit of an inconvenience to smell the smoke on people, and I wouldn't get in your car, but I recognize that life is full of inconveniences and everyone goes through them, so it's not a big deal. (Similarly, the people who told you to put out your cigarette should recognize the same thing.)

Again, I agree that you have a right to smoke, but not in situations where it supercedes the right of people like me to be healthy. The idea that it's ridiculous to protest the clots of people who tend to cluster up in front of dorms smoking is just stupid, especially if you're someone who's violently allergic to cigarette smoke.

As an illustration, here is the other side of the coin: When I started college, I was put in a non-smoking dorm. However, several smokers who were placed in the same dorm claimed that they were told they'd be put in a smoking dorm. I suspect they may have lied on their application to prevent their parents from learning that they were smokers, because these were all girls who were 17 and 18, mostly 17. Regardless, the upshot was that they were petitioning to make the wing THAT I WAS LIVING IN a smoking wing. When I pointed out that I lived here too, I was athsmatic and also strongly allergic to smoke, they blew me off, and after I went to the powers that be pointing this out, I had to keep my door shut and locked for a month or so until they stopped being angry with me, even when I was in my room, because of threats that were being made.

To have that happen during my first month of college, when I was very unsure and trying to keep my head down, was very traumatic, and to have them dismiss my health the way they did shows a really ugly disregard for people who are not them.

(Another great story: My boyfriend and I got tickets for a concert from his dad. The singer was someone who my boyfriend liked, so we went. The concert was rife with people smoking pot, including several people who lit up nearby. Now, I take a medication that can have nasty effects with any kind of 'downers' -- drugs that make you sleepy or less amped up -- and thus a contact high could be very dangerous for me. I'm also very sensative to drugs, making it worse. And allergic to smoke, so worse still. But when we went to talk to security about it, they sneered at us and told us that people were gonna smoke pot and we could just deal. So we left. We hadn't paid for the tickets, so it wasn't a big deal, but I would have been PISSED if we had. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask security to keep people from doing something illegal at a concert, but the security staff sure as hell seemed to think it was.)

I recognize that people like you are out there, but I think that people like the girls I dealt with and the security at the concert (not to mention the pot smokers) are giving you a bad name and making people feel justified in demanding that you put your cigarettes out pretty much at random. And since the OP was addressing someone who was being blown off for a request that I think is very reasonable, I was specifically shining a spotlight on those sorts of people.

(That having been said, I still think it's pretty stupid to compare most smoke allergies to peanut allergies. There ARE people who are severely athsmatic who could probably draw a fair comparison (and maybe people with conditions like cystic fibrosis, I don't know), but people like me -- and I'll bet the person quoted in the OP -- really can't hold a candle to 'one tiny crumb and I could die'.)

[sarnath.livejournal.com]

Pardon me while I roll my eyes.

[thucyditron.livejournal.com]

People should lay off smokers.

[eyelashpeekie.livejournal.com]

Go whoever that senator is! I couldn't agree more. Smokers can protest all they want but they have the entire outdoor campus to smoke; they do NOT have to do it near entrances/exits where people who are allergic (I am yet another one of them) or just think it's disgusting are forced to walk right through it. If people want to smoke, I agree with the "it's my business" argument but only if they keep it their business instead of making it others' business by compromising their health in the form of smoking in an area that other people have to pass through. I can't stand the "poor me, I smoke, I'm oppressed" attitude of smokers any more than I can stand the smoke itself.

[exrandu.livejournal.com]

Smoking is Liberty!

Not that I do it myself. I hate smoking, but I don't think there should be laws against it. People should be free to make their own idiotic mistakes.