Discussion on:

Do smoking bans signal economic progress?

If SMOKING bans are an indicator of growing wealth then WHY arent tobacco products banned in the USofA the wealthiest country around. Sending cigarettes to China, India and Japan for low prices sale there might solve some of our trade deficit problems.

The Pols here have taxed the tobacco companies by court order and are using the funds from that, not for public health but for anything they want. That is dishonest, but then Posa are basically dishonest.

I really hated smoking and looked positively on smoking bans. Now I see them as an early step to removing all our freedoms.

In the Frankfurt airport, you can see some glass walled rooms reserved for smokers. So, we do not remove their rights of killing themselves, but we also respect the rights of those like me that do not want to share the sub-product of their rights assurance.
There is this old joke about beer and smoking. Both of them generates sub-products... and the question is, why should one want to share their sub-products???
Do you want another five cents? In Madrid, one of every three citizens smokes. So, walking in the streets you breathe the smoke, and you step over the leftovers of their cigarettes. Who should be in charge of cleaning after themselves?
Of course I agree with assuring rights... in fact, it is insulting that I have to chose the side of the restaurant I will seat, because someone thinks their smoking is welcome to the others. Yes, I am on for assuring rights for a clean world.

...we call them "smoker aquariums". You'll never question the addictive nature of nicotine if you've ever seen people flee off a plane and then desperately run through an airport looking for one.

The sad part is watching entire families in them; helpless children choking in the fog as their parents puff away feeding their addiction.

Clearly, I offended some smokers. Too bad, for them.

A good ground provides good tobacco. And in Western mind worlds al kind of other stuff can be added. So it all depents on what you smoke and how much dosis you need.... If you live in a city you have a high dosis of exhaust to inhale.... Weak people will get incidents easier than stronger people.... What do you inhale? We need nature animals and plants to live on when their is no good food for us we smoke a plant.......exhale... I smoke some times, likely the good stuff... Quality can matter .

Banning the use of a legal product.

This is just another form of government control over the individual.

Whatever happened to not legislating morality... or Keep Your Laws Off Of My Body?

I hate smoking. I also hate smoking bans in private places. If you want to smoke, that's your business.

FuzzyIce, I didn't realize that having to choose a table in a restaurant is such a stressful, insulting, and intimidating matter. "Where would you like to sit, sir? Next to smokers, or where the air is fresh and clean?" doesn't sound like an insult to me.

Hate is a form of evil that mindless people copy from each other, pushed to them by people who spread hate and fear. Couldnot help to have met with people who hate me, while God should like me for what I do good. Clean air is not the real world today on my earth. My sky is full of poison and toxic, concentrated by so called clean Humans with crude rude gasoline pipes.... Start making oceans, earth & sky a healty place for the generations to come and live here and give me a break... ....Plastic and oil can be very bad in the quantities used today and this coming year... succes kids..

The general playground rule for civilized humans is, "Do what you want, but don't harm others or yourself". The toxic smoke of tobacco breaks that basic rule (six million people dead per year), as does vehicle exhaust particulates (3 million dead per year).

The Wall Street Journal just did a report on per capita cigarette consumption by country (to get around the paywall for a few days, try http://www.emailthis.clickability.com/et/emailThis?clickMap=viewThis&etMailToID=1318917395 ). As a baseline, the US smokes 1028 cigarettes per capita per year. The highest country is Serbia, at 2861. Other Eastern European countries have similar rates. But some other countries with a high rate of cigarette consumption are South Korea (1958), Japan (1841), Spain (1757), Switzerland (1722), China (1711), Austria (1650), Italy (1475), Belgium (1455), Denmark (1413), and Germany (1045). As the above article says, very poor countries have very low rates of cigarette consumption: Haiti (100), Chad (86), and Ethiopia (42).

The truth is that the growth markets for tobacco are second world economies. But the habit is still firmly entrenched in many first world countries as well.

In third world countries or the developing countries cigareestes make great havoc it is really fact that discount cigareetes offered by the monopolyist and it creates fatal diseases.