Cigarette smoke

Chabenda · 2013-04-28T20:05:53+00:00

This weekend the Tetesticles played at a golf club in Zimbabwe. The area that we were in was quite cold (by Tete standards it was arctic) and nearly all of the windows were closed in the clubhouse. We are used to out door venues in Tete and haven't played indoors for a long while. What we were not prepared for was the number of people smoking inside the club house. My band mate smokes and I am an ex-smoker but still keep an ash tray in my office for smoking clients. I am not anti-cigarettes but very glad that I eventually managed to kick the addiction. By 9.30 we were feeling dizzy and my throat was raw. The air was toxic. When we finished up our clothes and gear stank. I woke up with an unjustified babelaas. The 'atmosphere' definitely had an effect on our ability to perform to our best. I would imagine that SA has some fairly rigid rules regarding smoking in public places. I must say, as harsh as it is for the smokers among us, the banning of smoking in such public places is of extreme benefit for all of us in terms of our health. I reckon that babelaas' of today are a lot milder due to this. I am happy to report that, from what we experienced, there are a number of great people, from all races, in Zim's smaller towns who get together and have a great time. Whilst there were police at least every ten kms along the road, we had no trouble and were treated very courteously when we were stopped. We were still very happy to get back to Moz!!

epictring

Some people cough because smoke makes them cough. Inhaling smoke being a non-smoker is unbearable, not to mention a health risk.

evolucian

^ I get that... it's like me smelling the cooking of vegetables. I know its satanic so i do my good deed to my moral self and walk away from it as quickly as possible so that I remain untainted.

deefstes

evolucian wrote "You know those things give you cancer right?"
"What? No I didn't... let me light another one to see if you're messing with me. By the way, you drove here right?"

I don't give a rat's sphincter whether or not you're getting cancer, so long as you're not relying on public health care and my taxes or the same medical scheme I contribute to. Other than that, you're more than welcome to hurry up and die. I am concerned however that your smoke is giving me cancer. That, and you stink, something I might have been prepared to overlooke if you were less arrogant about your filthy habit and substance dependency.

But it is amazing how public sentiment towards smoking has changed in the past 20 years. We all remember the time when it was perfectly acceptable to smoke on airplanes. Certain rows would be designated smoking rows while others would be designated non-smoking. Today that is unthinkable and thankfully so. I'm looking forward to see how things will change over the next 20 years. I wouldn't be surprised, and I certainly wouldn't mind, if another 20 years from now you wouldn't be allowed to smoke at all, or the prices of cigarettes will just be prohibitively high. I'll just grin and bear it until then because it does look like we're moving in the right direction.

evolucian

deefstes wrote I don't give a rat's sphincter whether or not you're getting cancer, so long as you're not relying on public health care and my taxes or the same medical scheme I contribute to. Other than that, you're more than welcome to hurry up and die. I am concerned however that your smoke is giving me cancer. That, and you stink, something I might have been prepared to overlooke if you were less arrogant about your filthy habit and substance dependency.

I don't mind getting cancer either. No need to worry bout public health care or your taxes... I don't use it. However, things giving you cancer won't be my cigarette smoke. Daily occurences without coming into contact with cigarette smoke could trigger your cancers anyway. If you are prone to having it in the first place.

The arrogance can be seen as two opposing views - yours... and mine. You are against it, I am for it - albeit for my own benefit just as your opposition towards it is for your benefit. I personally don't see it as arrogance, merely the other side of the coin to your views and other non smokers views. I can clearly see your hatred to my vice and I'm ok with it. We all have our vices, you are definitely no angel in this regard. As mentioned elsewhere, I am courteous to non smoking establishments and within a group of non smokers. I will smoke quite a distance away from that group - not out of guilt (as I have no idea what that is) but mere courtesy. But if I have moved my distance and some tossbag comes and gives me the speech similar to yours, it won't get me to kill it - and it definitely will not force me to stop my filthy habit of substance dependency.

Like I said in the opening part of that post you highlighted a teeny section of - courtesy is a two way street. Only one side being courteous is the other side expecting to be treated like royalty and everyone else must be subservient to said royalty... not in my vocabulary. Good luck to you

Bob-Dubery

If I set off for work in my car, as I do most mornings of the year, and somebody is driving on their right hand side of the road then I'm entitled to be cross and there's no debate to be had over courtesy. He's wrong.

Now, yes, driving on the left is a sort of arbitrary thing, but it's these arbitrary things that are the rules that allow things to happen smoothly.

So, sorry, it's not a matter of mutual courtesy. Like it or not, in this country I am entitled to assume that if I go to a restaurant or a pub or a live music venue or sit in a bus or on a train then nobody around will be smoking.

If I drive down the road towards you on the wrong side and you object, would you accept a lecture on mutual courtesy from me? Would you think that I have any argument on my side at all? If you object are you asking to be treated like royalty and trying to put me in a position of subservience to you?

chris77

Wow Evo, are you serious? ???

Ray

There are some places where music is played and there always has been smoking there and if the regulars and the owners have their way there always will be. So, you say that if you decide hey I'm going to go and get a piece of that music so everybody must stop smoking in there? You're likely to leave without the teeth hey.

All i'm saying is that if a place wants it to be like that then you choose not to go there. Or if you go then you must resolve to cope with it. How can the be legislation that you cant do a legal thing on your own premises?

epictring

Ray wrote There are some places where music is played and there always has been smoking there and if the regulars and the owners have their way there always will be. So, you say that if you decide hey I'm going to go and get a piece of that music so everybody must stop smoking in there? You're likely to leave without the teeth hey.

All i'm saying is that if a place wants it to be like that then you choose not to go there. Or if you go then you must resolve to cope with it. How can the be legislation that you cant do a legal thing on your own premises?

Yes if the owners decide that then it is fine, but if they lose my attendance its their loss. I'll just go somewhere else.

X-rated Bob wrote If I set off for work in my car, as I do most mornings of the year, and somebody is driving on their right hand side of the road then I'm entitled to be cross and there's no debate to be had over courtesy. He's wrong.

Now, yes, driving on the left is a sort of arbitrary thing, but it's these arbitrary things that are the rules that allow things to happen smoothly.

So, sorry, it's not a matter of mutual courtesy. Like it or not, in this country I am entitled to assume that if I go to a restaurant or a pub or a live music venue or sit in a bus or on a train then nobody around will be smoking.

If I drive down the road towards you on the wrong side and you object, would you accept a lecture on mutual courtesy from me? Would you think that I have any argument on my side at all? If you object are you asking to be treated like royalty and trying to put me in a position of subservience to you?

+1 Smokes are drugs, they kill. Evo you are offending those who have had first hand experience with the loss of close ones due to secondhand smoking.

Smokers can smoke, but take it outside so non-smokers can get fresh oxygen. Decency goes a long way

Bob-Dubery

epictring wrote
Ray wrote There are some places where music is played and there always has been smoking there and if the regulars and the owners have their way there always will be. So, you say that if you decide hey I'm going to go and get a piece of that music so everybody must stop smoking in there? You're likely to leave without the teeth hey.

All i'm saying is that if a place wants it to be like that then you choose not to go there. Or if you go then you must resolve to cope with it. How can the be legislation that you cant do a legal thing on your own premises?
Yes if the owners decide that then it is fine, but if they lose my attendance its their loss. I'll just go somewhere else.

No it's not fine. It would be fine, as I said earlier, if they advertised and warned that their venue is a smoking venue (and if they disclosed that to the performers who, let's face it, also have an interest here). But they DON'T do that. I've had incidents before where I make a booking and then you get to the venue and everybody around you is smoking and you ask the management what's going on and they just shrug or they say they can't do anything about it. It's not good enough, and they don't offer you a concession or apologise for letting you come all this way and finding a situation that you are entitled to assume you would not find.

The presumption here is not on the side of those who don't smoke and don't want to be exposed to smoke. The presumption is all on the other side.

I can understand that the owner of a venue might decide that he'll do better financially if he decides that he will allow unrestricted smoking, but then he should make it very clear that that's what the situation is, before he accepts your booking and your money and before the artists enter into an agreement to perform at his venue.

Bob-Dubery

Ray wrote There are some places where music is played and there always has been smoking there and if the regulars and the owners have their way there always will be. So, you say that if you decide hey I'm going to go and get a piece of that music so everybody must stop smoking in there? You're likely to leave without the teeth hey.

All i'm saying is that if a place wants it to be like that then you choose not to go there. Or if you go then you must resolve to cope with it. How can the be legislation that you cant do a legal thing on your own premises?

Because it's not legal. The fact that there is legislation says that it is not legal.

Things are legal in some contexts and not in others. There are things that I may do in the privacy of my own home that I can be arrested for if I do them down at the local.

IceCreamMan

Interesting article about smoking by chris moerdyk this week or last....since the prohibition on advertsing ciggy smoking has actually increased amongst the youth year on year...not only in za but around the world it appears.....

Tonight i am going out to a 80's jol ,no doubt there will be smoking there and i understand and accept that. It is my choice to attend or not..... I would prefer legislation that caters for adults and not the lowest common denominator....and by all accounts the legislation enacted to curtail smoking has actually been ineffective ...horribly so it appears

Bob-Dubery

It's nothing to do with being adult rather than one of the lowest common denominator. We don't have some automatic right to do what we want to do when we feel like it.

I used to catch a lot of busses. One day I got on my usual bus and a lady sat down stairs, opposite me and lit up. I objected. Smoking was allowed upstairs on busses, if they were double deckers, and not allowed at all on single deckers. If she wanted to smoke then there was an area reserved so that those who could smoke could sit in the area in which that was allowed and those who didn't want to be exposed to smoke could sit in area that was free of that. This was about 1984 or so. She took the line I see being adopted in this thread, she's an adult and she'll do what she wants.

The next morning we both got on the same bus and she took out a cigarette. I announced, in a voice loud enough that she could hear, that I felt like masturbating. She objected. I said that we can both take the attitude that we're adults and we can do what we want when we want or we can do things in places in which it is appropriate or, at least, not bothersome to others.

Ray

X-rated Bob wrote No it's not fine. It would be fine, as I said earlier, if they advertised and warned that their venue is a smoking venue (and if they disclosed that to the performers who, let's face it, also have an interest here). But they DON'T do that.

And they wont Bob. Because it's illegal. So you gonna have to cope.

Bob-Dubery

Ray wrote
X-rated Bob wrote No it's not fine. It would be fine, as I said earlier, if they advertised and warned that their venue is a smoking venue (and if they disclosed that to the performers who, let's face it, also have an interest here). But they DON'T do that.
And they wont Bob. Because it's illegal. So you gonna have to cope.

Exactly Ray. Which brings us back to the earlier point. They are not allowing something that is legal. And I do have the right to protest.

Ray

But it used to be legal. Why did it change? There wasnt a referendum or something was there?

IceCreamMan

X-rated Bob wrote It's nothing to do with being adult rather than one of the lowest common denominator. We don't have some automatic right to do what we want to do when we feel like it.

I used to catch a lot of busses. One day I got on my usual bus and a lady sat down stairs, opposite me and lit up. I objected. Smoking was allowed upstairs on busses, if they were double deckers, and not allowed at all on single deckers. If she wanted to smoke then there was an area reserved so that those who could smoke could sit in the area in which that was allowed and those who didn't want to be exposed to smoke could sit in area that was free of that. This was about 1984 or so. She took the line I see being adopted in this thread, she's an adult and she'll do what she wants.

The next morning we both got on the same bus and she took out a cigarette. I announced, in a voice loud enough that she could hear, that I felt like masturbating. She objected. I said that we can both take the attitude that we're adults and we can do what we want when we want or we can do things in places in which it is appropriate or, at least, not bothersome to others.

Riding abus to work and having a wank is not quite the same as going to a pub and having ppl smoke in it.... While i see yr point and i am certainly not for masturbation on busses having a wank in a pub should be permitted i reckon esp if pub is allowed to alow it and not the current draconian legislation which takes away the authority from the publican and me as acitizen...

Bob-Dubery

Ray wrote But it used to be legal. Why did it change? There wasnt a referendum or something was there?

A law was passed. Parliament considered the information presented to it, voted on a law change and the majority vote prevailed.

That's what happens in parliamentary democracies.

Arguing that there should have been a referendum is silly. If parliament had to hold a referendum before any law or a change to a law was passed nobody would get anything done because we'd be so busy voting in referendums.

Why anybody is acting surprised is beyond me. Nobody can argue that smoking is a healthy pursuit or that it endangers only those actively participating.

Yes, it used to be allowed. Laws change, and have done for centuries. If laws never changed we'd all be singing God Save the Queen, our wives wouldn't have the vote, we could buy and sell slaves, shops would be closed on Sundays and many other things.

IceCreamMan

Ray wrote But it used to be legal. Why did it change? There wasnt a referendum or something was there?

The do gooders decided it would result in a cut in smoking numbers ,the reality has been different....did we not learn from the prohibition days?

So , lets make it above the line again....lets see the ads with ppl living the good life on some jet set island, the cowboy rustling up the strays....the racing drivers and the like for advertising increases smoking....naaaaaa not really but govt will have u believe that

Ray

X-rated Bob wrote

Yes, it used to be allowed. Laws change, and have done for centuries. If laws never changed we'd all be singing God Save the Queen, our wives wouldn't have the vote, we could buy and sell slaves, shops would be closed on Sundays and many other things.

Maybe a little different when a right is removed from so many millions.

IceCreamMan

X-rated Bob wrote
Ray wrote But it used to be legal. Why did it change? There wasnt a referendum or something was there?
A law was passed. Parliament considered the information presented to it, voted on a law change and the majority vote

Yes, it used to be allowed. Laws change, and have done for centuries. If laws never changed we'd all be singing God Save the Queen, our wives wouldn't have the vote

I get the impression u saying this as though it were a good thing

The law was changed by a very very small minority of the population allegedly acting on the mandate of the general population with incorrect information for which evidence already existed does not work...it certainly was not representative f the population at large....dont even try that one ....also the anc votes as a block...in deviation reosults in Disciplinary action

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