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I know what you're saying fatty. Both smoking and overweight is unhealthy, and could kill you! But its feedom of choice. I smoke because I am totally addicted. Have tryed several attempts to give up, but at the end of day, its will power. Which I havent got much of, and yes smoking does age you, which does explain my wrinkles And yes if smoking was banned, I would go to a smoking establishment. But there has to be a balance, and not all one sided. Alchohol is the biggest financial strain on healthcare, policing, drunkards tend to become aggressive and abusive, alchohol can also kill you, would you like alchohol to be banned too?

All and more of the tax money from cigarettes goes into the medical system. Before smoking, lung cancer was almost unknown, now its right up there as one of the most common.

Unless you have documented proof in hand of the govt putting all the tax money into the med system, don't be too sure. Our govt lies about things like that all the time.

i believe the wise and just Wu-Tang said it best.

Cash Rules Everything Around Me.











dolla dolla bill y'all.

It's almost hilarious to hear people say they want smoke free air. You know we all drive fossil fuel vehicles right?

I don't think anyone can or is trying to say that smoking is not an unhealthy, disgusting activity(it is in no way a 'habit'...), it is. We all know it, but it's not like stopping biting your nails.

And yes it is destructive to the human body, but it didn't create lung cancer. That's always been around, but if bleeding and leeches didn't cure it, they wrote 'consumption' or 'dropsy' on the death certificate.

The chemicals we all breath from off-gassing of materials, various local industries, vehicles, cowfarts, smoking, perfume, hairspray, cleaning products, andonandonandon are going to cause cancer, asthma, tumors and early senitly in a growing number of people every year. Banning one sourse is going to do nothing to stop that. Banning one of the few that rakes in huge gobs of revenue is just going to burden some government program into non-existance....... I'm guessing healthcare will take an even bigger dive than it has already. And then where will you go when you get cancer from some untaxable source?

You forgot the part about your 98 year old grandma who smoked 4 packs a day all her life, who finally died in a sky diving accident, which had nothing to do with her smoking addiction.

Toronto has just gone smoke free in public establishments and restaraunteurs are up in arms, saying it will kill thier business, people will stay home, etc.

I can't say I agree with that particular argument, at least in the Southern Ontario region (attitudes of course differ from region to region). Mississauga, which is a city just outside of Toronto, went smoke free years ago. At first, there was a difference, but this didn't last very long -- most restaraunteurs there will say it hasn't meant much in the long term except a healthier work enviornment.

Alcohol abuse does suck, and other people do die from your actions if you don't drink responsibly, though (and I haven't got stats in front of me, so don't ask) I'll go out on a limb and guess that more people contract a disease from second hand smoke over a period of time. In particular, I am thinking of the people that work in those establishments. It's far too easy to say that they can work elsewhere -- perhaps they can't for whatever reason. And I don't know about many of the United States, but up here, there's regulations in place governing a healthy work enviornment, and for the longest time, smoking in restaraunts pretty much violated them.

Yes, pollutants that cause cancer and other illnesses are everywhere -- after all, we ride and are pretty much sucking tailpipe all the time. But this is intermittent and dispersed by the winds in the atmosphere, whereas smoke within a confined area is not.

Up here, there's also the socialist argument (Canada is a socialist-democratic nation). We have 'free' health care paid for by everyone's tax dollars. Smoking is the number one most preventable cause of death, and sucks a ton of those tax dollars. Therefore, why not try and minimize the amount of people who will need health care due to smoking by minimizing those exposed to second hand smoke? Now before I hear about how they should then seek to minimize the amount of people drinking; this too isn't healthy, but again, smoking related health care costs are far greater.

One thing that does suck about how Toronto has handled it:

5 years ago or so, they gave restaraunts the option to go smoke free OR seal off a part of thier establishment for smokers, and have a separate ventilation system for that room. MANY businesses did that, some to the tune of 15 or 20 grand. Now, that renovation isn't good enough. They should have announced their long term intent to completely eliminate the smoking, rather than leave these businesses with 20 grand down the tubes.

I smoked for about 12 years, pretty hardcore at 2 packs a day or so. If you want to smoke, I don't have a problem with that. Hell, I miss smoking every day. I don't smoke anymore because I was going to die sooner than I'd like -- plain and simple. Now we can die at any moment from any number of things -- but that's a chance risk situation. With smoking, it's pretty much a lock that you're killing yourself early.

Again -- I'm not nagging the smokers. But even when I smoked, I always thought it was kind of crappy to want the right to pollute a confined space where there's all kinds of people who don't want to suck used fumes.

Here in UK its alchohol thats the biggest finacial drain on taxpayers, smoking is second place. But then over the years we pay National insurance, this money is supposed to be for our health care, have paid thousands of pounds in National insurance, not to mention the astronomical amount of tax on a packet of ciggys. So if I get ill I have more than paid for my healthcare. Its the government that dont use the money properly where it is supposed to go.

Just curious, Barmy.

How much does a pack of smokes cost you over there?

In Ontario, it's around 6.50-7.00 CAD$.

That's 2.90-3.12GBP