This is pure fetish and neurosis—not an actual physiological response.

For your information, there are plenty of asthmatics and sufferers from other respiratory conditions who really do suffer acute discomfort from the low concentrations of smoke you so airily dismiss as negligible. Tell one of them he’s just being hysterical and he might punch you in the nose- and it would serve you right.

But I agree about the private club- I don’t quite understand why the courts uphold such laws.

Have you not noticed how, upon the production of a single cigarette in a large, well-ventilated room these days, all sorts of people begin fidgeting and coughing and looking alarmed? This is pure fetish and neurosis—not an actual physiological response.

Also, surely we’ve crossed a line somewhere when it becomes illegal to smoke anywhere—even cigar rooms in private clubs in NYC are now illegal. Surely this is insane (says this ex-smoker).

What I’m criticizing is the inconsistency, the breath-taking hypocrisy and the general soup-nazi attitude of those in favor of a ban (activists and governments alike) when they are citing public health and welfare concerns as the prime reason for supporting such a measure, while they really don’t give damn about such things. Otherwise they (activists and governments alike) would be campaigning against alcohol abuse and advertising that facilitates it, against cars poisoning people in our cities and the industry that promotes it, against unsafe work conditions whatever they are caused by. But alas, they don’t, because that would mean actually rocking the boat a little, or, god forbid, altering their behavior and questioning the general consenus. As it stands, these laws are simply the expression of the majority getting their will over a sizeable minority, leaving no room for any compromise or civil arrangement between the two. That’s not the way things should be done in a democracy.

You’ve still done nothing to undermine the case against indoor smoking bans.

Indoor public smoking bans are simply regulation, not prohibition- just as there are various kinds of regulations to try to curb the ill effects of alchol. You can’t, for example, operate a motor vehicle with an open container of an alcholic beverage, even if you’re not actually drinking from it.

that’s utter BS, just look up a few statistics on violent assault, rape, domestic violence and you’ll find correlations that ar far from “incidental”; not to speak of the costs to society as a whole for policing, treatment, loss of productivity etc.; the fact that you don’t turn into a belligerent menace doesn’t say anything about the effects of alcohol consumption on society as a whole

P.S. not sure how one can still be under the limit after a couple of glasses of wine, but even small doses of alcohol significantly impair the reaction times of every driver, so while driving under the influence of alcohol you are always more or less consciously increasing the risk of causing bodily harm to yourself and others

On the off chance this was serious, I gotta ask—have you ever worn a protective mask? Not the little paper dust masks you use for, say, sanding drywall seams and whatnot, but the ones with the replaceable cartridges that have to be used when you’re dealing with hazardous stuff? Your nose and mouth are covered by very heavy rubber, of course, and the straps have to be secured really tightly in order to eliminate any air flow that doesn’t pass through the cartridges. Nevermind the typical restaraunt shift—they’re hard to tolerate for an hour or two.

Now loud music is more easily avoided than smoking, so maybe it will be sufficient to have laws against discouraging employees from wearing earplugs or maybe employers should be required to encourage earplug usage (i.e. a law that they must provide employees with earplugs). But bartenders may be discouraged from wearing earplugs because they will have hard time doing their job with them, especially in a loud music environment. If this is true then we may need laws requiring earplug use (i.e. to balance up the bartender’s weak bargaining position) or regulation on how load the music can be (the actual approach take).

As for masks, nobody wants them (well virtually nobody) so think up another safety option. I suggest smoking rooms that employees do not work in during opening hours.

All your arguments can be equally applied to the workers in places that play loud music, such as clubs and concert venues. Should loud music also be banned? After all, the damage to health from loud music is more clearly proven than the danmage to health from secondary smoke. I suspect though, that you are content to allow loud music so long as workers are (technically) allowed to wear ear protection.

I think what your post really is about is that a smoke free environment should be the choice of the employee and not forced upon all employers as a labour standard. So employees can have the option to work in a smoky bar with a gas mask or not at all, and the bar owner has the option to allow smoking or not. But bar owners have a strong economic incentive to allow smoking and little incentive to improve the working conditions of employees. Thus they also have an incentive to insist that employees not wear a mask (who wants to be served by someone in a mask), i.e. make this part of the conditions of employment. The employees are not skilled and easily replaceable and given conditions with enough unemployment a threat to replace an employee rather than meet possible ultimatums from employees for improved working conditions is credible. The employee, especially the unskilled worker, is in a much weaker bargaining position than the employer. This problem of unequal bargaining positions is why the state imposes labour standards. Following your logic all laws setting standards for safety conditions in the work place are unnecessary.