Harrison Ford Critically Injured in Plane Crash

[Capetan Mihali]

Smoking's a lot more pleasurable than people give it credit for, it must be said.

And the effects of secondhand smoke have to be put into context.  Working 30 years in an office where everyone is smoking without ventilation, yes there is an increased chance of harm; occasionally smelling someone having a cigarette two benches down in a public park, or spending 8 seconds walking past smokers outside a building, is just not an appreciable health hazard at any level.

[sbr]

Smoking's a lot more pleasurable than people give it credit for, it must be said.

7 years after quitting there are usually 3-4 times a year I really want a smoke.  Not a craving for nicotine, but actually want to smoke a cigarette.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

I am reading the updated version of Kate Fox's watching the English. She noted that Americans make up the one citizenship she knows who still judge people for smoking e-cigarettes, even after any mistaken assumptions that it is a real cigarette.

One of the cities here recently attached e-cigs to their smoking ordinances, effectively treating them as the equivalent of real cigs.

Just to poke Seedy, this was about a year after passing a popular referendum to permit liquor stores.

[Valmy]

One of the cities here recently attached e-cigs to their smoking ordinances, effectively treating them as the equivalent of real cigs.

I know UT also declared this.  Which blew me away.  I mean just come out and say you are legislating everybody to stop smoking.

[garbon]

Does anyone hide the fact that they want to ban smoking entirely?

[alfred russel]

ER beds are ER beds.  Note my parenthetical, smokers actually aren't a strain on the medical system: they die earlier and cheaper than healthier non-smokers who have countless interventions for things in their 80s, etc.  And drug users requiring ER care are a very small number of people, who've usually OD'd and can be resuscitated with a single injection or have abscesses that are easily lanced.  Unlike complex orthopedic problems from skiing accidents or private plane crashes.

I find it incredibly interesting that I am applying to medical systems that are no longer hiring smokers, are conducting pre-employment screening for nicotine and smoking-cessation aids,  and are conducting random testing for nicotine products as a condition of employment--particularly since in all my travels I've never once seen an accident victim peeled out of a windshield and zipped into a body bag from smoking, never locked up or bailed out anybody for beating the shit out of the family due to smoking, or tripped over a doctor passed out in a hospital stairwell from being drunk on cigarettes.

You can't have that celebratory cigar at your best friend's wedding over the weekend and keep your job if you're tested--but you can suck down a fifth of Jack Daniels like it's nobody's fucking business, beat the shit out of your kid and keep your job.

The hypocrisy is positively staggering.

Two reason it isn't hypocrisy:
1) Not hiring smokers is a plausible way to reduce the cost of medical benefits,
2) Someone in the medical industry may not want to have employees visibly smoking and undermining the industry's health messaging while on duty. I think they assume that it is understood that getting blitzed on Jack Daniels while at work will also disqualify you from continued employment.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Does anyone hide the fact that they want to ban smoking entirely?

I think you mean ban tobacco and nicotine entirely.  Yes, the advocates of these changes are still hiding behind specific, somewhat tangential issues.  Universities claim they are "protecting students in their formative years".  E-cig bans are justified because "nobody knows what is in the vapor" and "it makes actual smokers harder to spot when enforcing smoking bans".  I have not heard anyone outside of fringe elements suggest total prohibition.

I'm still waiting for the inevitable clash between the anti-tobacco and pro-marijuana camps.

[Tonitrus]

Why smoke mary jane when you can get the same effect from a tasty brownie?

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Two reason it isn't hypocrisy:
1) Not hiring smokers is a plausible way to reduce the cost of medical benefits,
2) Someone in the medical industry may not want to have employees visibly smoking and undermining the industry's health messaging while on duty. I think they assume that it is understood that getting blitzed on Jack Daniels while at work will also disqualify you from continued employment.

First point applies to alcohol as well, albeit to a lesser degree.

Second point explains the smoke-free medical campuses, but does not explain the demand for total abstinence.  Your patients don't see you having a cigar and scotch on your back patio on Saturday.

Plus, in Seedy's defense, drinkers provide other externalities to a business that smokers don't.  A smoker won't get himself on the news for wrapping his Mercedes around a telephone pole, for instance.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Why smoke mary jane when you can get the same effect from a tasty brownie?

The anti-tobacco crowd doesn't give a shit how you get your nicotine, why will they give a shit how you get your weed?

[Admiral Yi]

Why smoke mary jane when you can get the same effect from a tasty brownie?

I think uptake is slower with the bakery products.  At least that's been my experience.

[garbon]

Why smoke mary jane when you can get the same effect from a tasty brownie?

The anti-tobacco crowd doesn't give a shit how you get your nicotine, why will they give a shit how you get your weed?

I'm anti-tobacco, I'm not anti-weed.

[garbon]

Why smoke mary jane when you can get the same effect from a tasty brownie?

I think uptake is slower with the bakery products.  At least that's been my experience.

Yeah.

[dps]

Politicians don't want to ban tobacco, they want to tax it.  There's your hypocrisy--they'll pass laws putting more and more restrictions on where and when people can smoke, but they don't really want everyone to stop, because that'll cause a fairly substantial revenue stream to dry up.

[Kleves]

Plus having people die sooner rather than later saves the States a ton of money.