quittin' smoking

[Jeremy David]

I agree. Obesity is soon to be the #1 cause of preventable death in
the U.S. It should be overtaking the current #1 cause of preventable
death, which is smoking, sometime soon.

Obesity hopefully will never be this kind of a civic issue though,
because I can't make you fat. I can however make you sick from
smelling my noxious cigarettes. If you're fat, it shouldn't be the
problem that the city government needs to deal with. Smoking, however,
affects people other than the smoker, so it is a legitimate public
health issue.

On 3/14/06, Chris Rapier <rapier1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/14/06, Brian J. Parker <brian.j.parker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What you'll end up with, I fear, is many bars and clubs reopening as
> > "private clubs" in the same workaround many already use to circumvent
> > more restrictive liquor laws (and often to hide illicit poker
> > machines).  Do bar/club owners have the right to say that their
> > establishment is not a "public place"?
>
> Damn fine question. All in all its probably a lot better to just
> convince places to be non-smoking establishments (and non smoking bars
> do exist in pittsburgh - True being an example. Its actually kind of
> nice going there and not have anyone smoking).
>
> > I don't ahve a strong opinion on the public smoking subject, but I
> > feel it's hypocritical that we even keep smoking tobacco (and drinking
> > alcohol) legal at all when much safer drugs are not.
>
> Its mostly a matter of risk perception and depth to which its been
> integrated into the culture. At this point the risk perception of
> smoking is swinging very forcefully and mostly out of line with the
> real risks. This perception is overcoming the cultural integration in
> *some* areas. Personally, I think people should be far more concerned
> about how fat they are and how little exercise they get rather than
> the risk of occasional incidental exposure to smoke.
> _______________________________________________
> pgh-goth-list mailing list
> pgh-goth-list at listless.org
> http://www.listless.org/mailman/listinfo/pgh-goth-list
>