Sabre wrote:LFC2007 wrote:destro wrote:As far as the difference between Cannabis and Cigs people will argue that it is less harmless than cigs but it is in fact just as much of a health risk as it has a higher tar content than a cig, so smoking cannabis brings the same health problems like bronchitis, emphysema and lung cancer etc,etc
Plus, Cannabis has a history of causing psychosis, resulting in Schizophrenia and other mental disorders. That is the key difference.
Alcohol is bad for the liver, it leads to cirrhosis.
When I addressed the comparison between alcohol and tobacco, you answered that it's the combination of a numpty person and alcohol. At the end of the day, I don't see why that must be an attenuating factor to defend alcohol.
Smoking is harmful for oneself. Smoking can be harmful to others and might result in serious ilness, true. So you have a substance, that as a result of entering a man's body can produce that. That's a fact.
Alcohol? the same thing. When it enters a man's body it messes with the nervous system and the mind, and as aresult it may provoke a violent attack that end up in the killing of a wife or a multiple accident. Then again, you have a substance that when contacting a man it influenciates it. And as a result you have a dead woman -- for instance. If it's not mentioned that the risk of getting a lung cancer being a passive smoker depends on how cancer prone is the patient, then it should not be mentioned that it's the combination of alcohol and violent people the combination that makes the disaster.
So I don't see how the fact of being this men numpty or aggressive per se is attenuating, because statistically you'll have people like that always in the society and statistically aswell it provokes deads, which is the thing that anti tobacco people use most to talk against it. It's a matter of a substance, it's effects on people, and it's consequences. But in one case it's attacked, and in the other isn't.
I can understand your point, but I have a slight different view.
Sorry to be redundant to explain my points LFC2007, but as I don't find the accurate words, I have to go in circles of words to say what I mean.
Don't get we wrong, I agree many anti-tobacco laws. Not smoking in closed rooms is common sense to me. I'm just against the hostility I can sense against us, smokers, sometimes they treat smokers as if they had the leprosy.
Sabre, with all due respect to your post I think it may be the language but you are missing my point completely.
"Don't get we wrong, I agree many anti-tobacco laws. Not smoking in closed rooms is common sense to me. I'm just against the hostility I can sense against us, smokers, sometimes they treat smokers as if they had the leprosy."
This is the part of your post that we agree on, the rest is misplaced since I never questioned the health effects of excessive drinking - that is a given.
The issue is not whether alcohol is a dangerous substance, the issue is whether tobacco products should be allowed to be used in public places.
Drinking in moderation does not harm the individual (unless you have an alcohol intolerance).
Smoking in moderation harms the individual regardless, it also harms others around that individual in public places like bars (the issue).
Drinking in moderation, and doing so responsibly can be healthy for the individual and healthy for society.
Smoking in the presence of others in moderation harms others around you, smoking in excess ALSO harms others around you even more since the concentration of smoke is greater.
Lung Cancer is one form of illness that you can contract from passive smoking, the susceptibility of the individual to cancer is largely irrelevent since the exposure to the individual significantly increases the risk they will get ANY form of cancer - tobacco is carcinogenic.
The issue of excessive drinking is a cultural issue, it is not something you can legislate against (with the obvious exceptions of under age drinking etc.) because in moderation it is not a dangerous substance to people around you.
There are plenty of other substances, legal drugs, that when taken in excess can also cause death by dangerous driving when taken in excess.
The only issue here is that smoking causes death passively within the BOUNDARIES OF THE LAW, drinking does not cause death WITHIN THE BOUNDARIES of the law.
Attacking someone physically due to intoxication is OUTSIDE of the boundaries of the law.
You can harm someone just as much by smoking in the presence of others and it is considered WITHIN the boundaries of the law - that is the KEY difference Sabre.
That is why people pose the question, "is it fair that WITHIN the boundaries of law that people can be harmed just as much as a drunken thug through passive smoking?".
Before Dawson or Saint pounce, the issue of having segregated pubs is a different issue that we've gone over a billion times and I can't be fecked to go over it again, just look back a few pages and you can find my opinion.