Public Smoking Bans

[lizrbit 0]

well....

I dont subscribe to your logic here was, and we usually see eye to eye about most things...

but on this one i will agree to disagree with your logic here.

I do agree with you that fingerwagging doesnt help a smoker quit. I dont care if smokers quit or not, i really dont..i addressed that...but if they think they are only hurting themselves, they are WRONG.

as i was WRONG for 23 years. DEAD wrong, and my middle son paid the price.

IF you smoke and your a NURSE....thats tragic.

stop it.

[lizrbit 0]

i was pulling you a bit at the end there, and i hope its taken in fun.

(even tho your hit to my mom was uncalled for)

but im a great example how ex smokers are the loudest preachers. Im just grateful i have the wind to preach it and im glad to.

IM VERY GLAD there is a ban in the entire state of maine from smoking in public. Its made the place a much better place to live.

[green 6]

i was pulling you a bit at the end there, and i hope its taken in fun.

(even tho your hit to my mom was uncalled for)

but im a great example how ex smokers are the loudest preachers. Im just grateful i have the wind to preach it and im glad to.

IM VERY GLAD there is a ban in the entire state of maine from smoking in public. Its made the place a much better place to live.

While I am very pleased for you that you did manage to quit smoking, please don't preach to me about my smoking habit. It only makes me ornery. I certainly needed the assistance of the band in order to lose weight and it would seem that I am going to need some outside assistance in order to quit this habit, too! Seems that I am the addictive type.:cry

Now, as it happens I do make a point of not smoking around non-smokers and I expect that they make a point of not preaching around me! :tired It's only polite.

[Carlene 12]

No, my point was that the lectures, grocery list of health issues, and finger wagging don't do ANYTHING to get smokers to stop smoking.

You are absolutely right. For years people told me I should quit: my mother, my children, my doctor - to name a few. It went in one ear and right out the other.

Everyone who quits has some kind of wake up call, just like with the weight. My wake up call was when someone I dearly loved was diagnosed with lung cancer. I watched her die for 18 long months. She left 5 children and a husband behind.

She, of course, quit the day she was diagnosed. I just kept thinking, if she'd only quit 5 years ago, none of this would be happening. I didn't want that to be me. I always said I would quit "someday". I finally realized that my someday might be one year or one month - maybe even one day - too late. It's been 12 years and God willing, I hope I dodged that bullet. If so, I owe it all to someone else's untimely death. How sad. RIP, dear Mary....and thank you for sparing me (and my family) the agony of lung cancer, which spread and became brain cancer, bone cancer, etc.

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

i was pulling you a bit at the end there, and i hope its taken in fun.

(even tho your hit to my mom was uncalled for)

but im a great example how ex smokers are the loudest preachers. Im just grateful i have the wind to preach it and im glad to.

IM VERY GLAD there is a ban in the entire state of maine from smoking in public. Its made the place a much better place to live.

Sorry, I really didn't mean it as a hit, I meant it literally. You previously gave some examples of her (what I call) nagging. Did it help? Did you lose weight? Or did it just make you feel worse? If not Mom than anyone. Has ANY person's nagging helped you to lose weight?

I think smoking is exactly like obesity. I need a band so I CAN'T eat the kinds of foods I used to. I don't have a choice. I could, and did, live on burgers. I got fat. I can't have burgers now, I'm losing weight. It wasn't done through sheer will power.

Honestly, I didn't mean the "mom" thing as a slam, I really didn't.

[musicalmomma 1]

Now, as it happens I do make a point of not smoking around non-smokers and I expect that they make a point of not preaching around me! :tired It's only polite.

This is a great point!! And several other have made similar points...no one lost weight because of nagging and insults, no one will quit smoking or any other habit through those means.

Question to smokers who've tried to quit...OK, it was easy for me to break that habit (lord know's I can't seem to break any other bad habit!)

....anyway...smokers, how would you rate the "quit helps" like the patch, gum, lozenges, etc in effectiveness for actually quitting smoking? Did they help at all? Not at all? Only for a time?

I just wonder because I think smoking can be closely similar to over eating. I know diet pills (prescrip or otc) only help in the short term and dieting only works in the short term...mainly because of our emotional and social attachment to eating. Would you say that's accurate for smokers as well?

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

....anyway...smokers, how would you rate the "quit helps" like the patch, gum, lozenges, etc in effectiveness for actually quitting smoking? Did they help at all? Not at all? Only for a time?

Patch-crap

Gum-crap

Lozenges-crap and they give me instant and severe heartburn

Fake cigs-crap

Candy-fat

Drugs-GREAT! Wellbutrin made a world of difference but at the time I didn't believe it would work and I didn't want to quit. So I quit taking the drug. (Same thing as Zyban) The problem now is that I can't swallow that size tablet anymore, it is extended release so I can't break/crush it, and it does not come in a liquid.

The odd thing about that particular drug is that although it comes in a short acting tablet that I *could* crush, the short acting does not work for smoking issues. Even if you take it more often, the short acting tablet does not work. It MUST be extended release and I can't swallow those tablets.

[Kat817 19]

As far as the taxes issue----back when they pulled the ads from TV there was a big outcry that both the stations, and the cigarette companies would suffer----didn't happen. It may cause a shift, but I myself doubt any of us would feel a change.

The biggest difference in overeating, and quitting smoking for me, is this....when I quit smoking, I quit cold turkey. That was it, I made the decision, I felt empowered by making it, and I followed through on that. I did not have to smoke a safe cigarette 3 times a day.....when I faced the eating issues, I could not simply go cold turkey. I had to decide what was safe (healthy) to eat. How much to eat etc. I couldn't just walk away from food. It makes a difference in the mind set. It would be just as unsuccessful for me, to have quit smoking, while having 3 cigs a day. It would have simply led to more.

Comparing the 2 is not a fair comparison---compare it to quitting drinking or other drugs, not a necessity of life.

My best friend recently ( a month ago) got a Rx for Chantix. So far the only thing it has been successful at helping her do, is a place for her make up bag to sit! She has not so much as opened the box since shelling out her $100.00+ for it! Why? her nagging husband! If he would quit bugging her, she would do it, she just refuses to let him think she is quitting for him. He wants to think that so rags on her all the time----at this rate she will never get to prove to herself she can quit. And she knows she can---she now only smokes at home. She commutes a total of 3 hours a day, and is working in another state where she can smoke outside, but she doesn't....at all! She smokes at home to show she can. It has moved to a battle of the wills, not an addiction issue. I would bet many smokers feel the same.

Kat

[anonemouse 1]

I think smoking is exactly like obesity. I need a band so I CAN'T eat the kinds of foods I used to. I don't have a choice. I could, and did, live on burgers. I got fat. I can't have burgers now, I'm losing weight. It wasn't done through sheer will power.

Smoking is not like obesity. You eating Whoppers or Big Macs around other people every day will not make the people around you fat or give them heart disease. You smoking aroung them, on the other hand, can give them lung cancer.

I am a firm supporter of smoking bans. If people want to go around and kill themselves, they can feel free. But their smoking in public doesn't just harm themselves. It harms the other patrons around them, it harms the servers or other workers, it harms everyone. People's rights (even though smoking isn't a right) end when they start to impact other people. That's why you can't drink and drive. It's perfectly legal to go out and get drunk, but once you make the decision to put others in danger, you are crossing the line. IMO, smoking bans are a matter of public safety.

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

Smoking is not like obesity. You eating Whoppers or Big Macs around other people every day will not make the people around you fat or give them heart disease. You smoking aroung them, on the other hand, can give them lung cancer.

We disagree. I have been referring to the addictive process and I think you know that.

I am a firm supporter of smoking bans. If people want to go around and kill themselves, they can feel free. But their smoking in public doesn't just harm themselves. It harms the other patrons around them, it harms the servers or other workers, it harms everyone. People's rights (even though smoking isn't a right) end when they start to impact other people. That's why you can't drink and drive. It's perfectly legal to go out and get drunk, but once you make the decision to put others in danger, you are crossing the line. IMO, smoking bans are a matter of public safety.

You keep debating this point. Have I disagreed with you? I have said that in my personal opinion I disagree with businesses not being able to do any damn thing they want. Big Bro steps in again. Some people want lots of gov't control, some don't. I personally don't care because I tend to not smoke in public a great deal.

What are we debating regarding bans? I'm talking about addiction and you keep going back to bans. Okay, I hear you. Honest... I do. What does that have to do with the addiction of obesity and smoking?

[anonemouse 1]

I would never preach about what smoking will do to a smoker's health. I really don't care. I figure that smokers know full well what they are doing. If they want to kill themselves, they can feel free to do so without any preaching from me. Their effect on MY health, on the other hand, is fair game.

My university enacted a smoking ban that started at the beginning of this past fall semester. Well, sort of. It banned smoking in front of buildings and on walkways. They built little glass huts all over campus for the smokers. I was SO happy. I could actually walk into a building without walking through clouds of smoke. (For the most part. There were still some asses that stood right next to the "No Smoking Within 25 Feet of Entrance" signs and lit up. My county recently passed a county-wide smoke ban for all public places. That, IMO, was incredible. I can't wait until the 2-month preparation period is over. I can finally go to a club or bar without spending the next few days hacking and coughing (I have asthma)!

[anonemouse 1]

You keep debating this point. Have I disagreed with you? I have said that in my personal opinion I disagree with businesses not being able to do any damn thing they want. Big Bro steps in again. Some people want lots of gov't control, some don't. I personally don't care because I tend to not smoke in public a great deal.

What are we debating regarding bans? I'm talking about addiction and you keep going back to bans. Okay, I hear you. Honest... I do. What does that have to do with the addiction of obesity and smoking?

Um, Bubble.... This is the first time I've posted in this thread.

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

Sorry, I must have been confusing you with someone else.

[anonemouse 1]

We disagree. I have been referring to the addictive process and I think you know that.

And you are still wrong, IMO. There isn't any comparison between obesity and smoking. You can't just choose not to eat. Like Kat said, you can't choose to smoke healthily.

[anonemouse 1]

But I don't understand why smoking people are getting all the laws. I mean would you all be saying the same thing if a law was passed that us overweight people shouldn't be allowed in a restaurant to eat with our families because someone seeing us eat could make them sick or speed up their addiction.

No, I wouldn't, because someone eating does not actually make someone sick. If someone has anorexia or bulimia, it is not the actions of fat people making them sick. They are already sick. A smoker, on the other hand, is putting the health of everyone they are around at risk. No one (and no law) is saying that a smoker can't go anywhere they wish. They can go anywhere, as long as they don't smoke. I really do think that smoking is akin to drunk driving, at least in terms of smoking bans. No one prevents you from drinking as much as you want to. The moment you sit behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, though, your actions have repercussions on the people around you. It's the same with smoking. You can smoke as much as you want to, but the moment you light up in public, your actions have repercussions on the people around you.