Beaches & Buttheads: Don't bother packing your smokes.

Since it appears to be filtered cigarette butts that you seem to find so offensive, why can't the ban be limited to just those products? Do people who smoke unfiltered cigarettes, cigars and pipes must also be banned? Why can't people who litter just be issued a summons by the beach patrol or sanitation police?

I'd say ban all smoking on the beach. But provide a close-by place for smokers, who are mostly junkies for cigarettes, to conveniently feed their jones.

Now, let's negotiate. Let's talk about marijuana laws.

Smoking, outside of your personal air space, it is an unlawful seizure of the air of thise around you and should be constrained by force, if necessary. Am I being at all unclear?

Do you mean you want the government to ban all outdoor smoking? What about the emissions of engines, especially diesel?

Now, let's negotiate. Let's talk about marijuana laws.

As a practical matter, I believe all prohibitions fail. They just generate more police, more corruption and less freedom.

"It is a property rights issue. I have no obligation to prove to you that a substance you are injecting into my air harms me, or even that I can smell it. If I can see it or smell it I should be able to choose not to breathe it. The limit to this principle is a practical one, not a legal or moral one."

Therefore, I can use the government to enforce bbq bans against my neighbors. How about I use government force to ensure that no one can use lawn mowers. If I can smell it or see the smoke from these activities then we should ban them!

The biggest problem with your "public" property argument is that the revenue generated from the activity being banned adds weight to the smokers argument. The taxes are constantly being raised to make up for budget shortfalls, then the very people carrying more than their weight are banned from participating in the legal activity supporting the governments.

Why not just enforce current littering laws?

I would be able to accept smoking bans on public beaches if that government agency was willing to forego all revenues from tobacco.

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