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Assignment America: Smoke screens/One of the best articles I have read!
United Press International ^ | 22 August 2002 | John Bloom

Posted on 08/23/2002 5:39:18 PM PDT by SheLion

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To: Jaidyn
Well, I know I was a lot more productive when they allowed me to smoke at my desk - I never left it!

However, I liked the designated areas because I got to meet a lot of wonderful people!

161 posted on 08/23/2002 9:17:57 PM PDT by fellowpatriot
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To: pittsburgh gop guy
Guess the truth hurts sometimes.

And lies always do. I'm sure SOME fires have been started by careless smokers, there are probably even SOME deaths that are not caused as much by alcohol use as by cigarette smoking, but I have to wonder how that smoker fell asleep on the couch with a cigarette and killed a person upstairs but not himself. Must be magic, much like the numbers anti-smokers create from thin air to justify their demonization of smokers. According to FEMA, alcohol is present in nearly 90% of all smoking-related fires. How come you're not screeching about drinking?

162 posted on 08/23/2002 9:18:52 PM PDT by Max McGarrity
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To: Jaidyn
Exactly!!!!!

If there was even the smallest iota of truth about being smoke-free being so good for business there would be a proliferation of non-smoking bars and restaruants, but particularly bars all over the place. The fact that there are very few is the proof there is not much call for it.

As a bar owner I am sure if the majority of your regulars starting requesting you go no-smoking you would seriously consider it. It's a business decision.

163 posted on 08/23/2002 9:20:02 PM PDT by Gabz
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To: Gabz
Maybe a compromise but that will never happen. If, that big IF word, it were to happen, Pat would compromise or cave in since he is not a smoker. I will have to stand outside my own place of business. But this would be a result of customer demands, not government, so I see no real conflict.
164 posted on 08/23/2002 9:23:49 PM PDT by Jaidyn
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To: pittsburgh gop guy
"To me it is just another disgusting vice. ...That's your opinion. Not ours." No, that is a FACT

>Hey, hey, hey!! Who made YOU the arbiter of what is and is not "disgusting"? I don't recall voting for you and don't think anyone else did either. And I KNOW you're not King around here; JimRob holds that title. So, it is just your opinion, an opinion shared with several other nico-Nazi control freak nannies, but an opinion nevertheless. And everyone knows about opinions.

To those smokers with kids, have the kids ever (or even you accidentally) knocked over the ashtray? Yeah - clean up that mess and tell me it's not disgusting.

No more "disgusting" than changing diapers or cleaning up after a new puppy. Some of us have one of them new-fangled machines that just sucks it up, like some here should do.

165 posted on 08/23/2002 9:29:03 PM PDT by Max McGarrity
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To: Lester Moore
How do you handle it when somebody doesn't have medical problems but just doesn't want to be around it?

Wouldn't that depend on the circumstances?

166 posted on 08/23/2002 9:32:30 PM PDT by Max McGarrity
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To: Max McGarrity
I clean ashtrays, pick up beer cans and even the kids hide food in the couch. Offensive? Naw, but aggravating at times, especially when the the cans sit all night with beer left in them. I just light up a Winston to calm down and all is fine with the world for me. In other words, I get over the little inconveniences of life that seems to put some folks over the edge.
167 posted on 08/23/2002 9:33:44 PM PDT by Jaidyn
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To: Jaidyn
As long as it is customer demand I will respect the dcision of the busines owner - it's the government mandates that I despise.

The manager of one of the very popular sports Bars here was quoted in the paper as looking forward to the statewide ban because he felt it would be good for business. I've been trying to question the guy for months about if he thinks no-smoking is good why he just didn't go that way on his own, or at least do it now before the ban goes into effect in November.

He won't return my phone calls and is either not in or unavailable anytime I go in.

I was informed the other night he is panic stricken about the ban - most of his customers smoke and are mighty ticked off at him about that comment in the paper. He's lost a bunch of business already - including me and my husband.

We now only go to anothe place where the owners, who are non-smokers are working their butts off to see what they can do about changing the situation. And I am helping them in anyway I can.

168 posted on 08/23/2002 9:34:12 PM PDT by Gabz
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To: Max McGarrity
You have such a way with words at times, my friend!!!!!!

Aren't those new fangled things called vacuum cleaners???

BTW - didn't I say something like goodnight to you a couple hours ago??? - I wish I would follow through with somethings I say I'm going to do - like go to bed at a reasonable hour!!!!

169 posted on 08/23/2002 9:37:30 PM PDT by Gabz
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To: Gabz
You can help by giving the owners some of these threads. They are informative and show the pros and cons. I suppose the owners would rather have smokers who have good temperaments than nico-Nazis who will drive him nuts. These people are only against smoking because they need a feel-good issue. Once we all quit, they will take on a new issue until we have no freedoms left. Then, they will be out front fighting for the freedoms they fought to get rid of in the first place. A vicious cycle but it makes them feel like they are productive.
170 posted on 08/23/2002 9:39:26 PM PDT by Jaidyn
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To: Max McGarrity
"I have to wonder how that smoker fell asleep on the couch with a cigarette and killed a person upstairs but not himself."

He droped the cig and fell asleep. Cig started a fire - he woke up with the couch and area around it on fire. He got out of the house. The fire spread quickly and the smoke got much worse. When we pulled up the fire was blowing out the front door and window - one of the hottest fires I have ever experienced. After knock-down we found the woman at the top of the steps - she was trying to get out but the fire had rolled up the staircase and prevented her egress. While she was burned - she died of smoke inhalation. So much for cigarettes being good for ya.

And while cigarettes were responsible for only 5.2% (21,200) of residential fires between 1994-1998; they were the number one cause of civilian deaths (non-firefighter) and killed 798 people (22.8% of all the civilian deaths).
Source: NFPA, Fire Analysis and Research Division
Go here and click on: See more information about the leading causes of fires (PDF)
http://www.nfpa.org/Research/OneStopDataShop/OneStopDataShop.asp#leading

171 posted on 08/23/2002 9:45:22 PM PDT by pittsburgh gop guy
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To: pittsburgh gop guy
Banning cigarettes is not going to stop fires any more than banning guns will stop fatal shootings.

Cigarettes don't light themselves!

172 posted on 08/23/2002 9:47:05 PM PDT by fellowpatriot
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To: Max McGarrity; pittsburgh gop guy
My friends' father was the fire marshall around here. He said the number 1 cause of fires is.........coffee pots. People leave the house and don't turn them off. He's seen so many fires caused by them that it's become his paranoia. He's never once mentioned a fire started by smoking.
173 posted on 08/23/2002 9:47:37 PM PDT by DJ MacWoW
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To: Gabz
About 15 years ago, in Dearborn Michigan, some idiot opened a non-smoking bar and was out of business in less than six months.
174 posted on 08/23/2002 9:49:45 PM PDT by fellowpatriot
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To: Lester Moore
The burden of smokers longterm healthcare costs on our social safety nets is costing me money. That makes it my business.

That old crock has been debunked so many times it's due for an oil change. If that's the only reason you think what others do is any of your business, you'd better start looking for a new hobby.

"After the Clinton administration proposed a fairly substantial increase in the cigarette tax as a way of funding health care reform, my colleague Dennis Zimmerman and I wrote a paper entitled "Cigarette Taxes to Fund Health Care Reform and Economic Analysis." (CRS, Library of Congress, #94214 E ) The part of the paper I'd like to talk about is the justifications for increasing the cigarette tax.

"I'm an economist, so I start with the presumptions that people have subjective preferences about what they like to do and how they spend their money and that, in general, we want to allow people to enjoy their lifetime resources in accord with those preferences. We would intervene in those decisions only under certain kinds of circumstances that we try to delineate and measure.

"When you buy a pack of cigarettes, you pay the price of the cigarettes. You also assume some implicit costs that you know about if you are aware of the health effects of smoking. But there might be another part of the cost that you don't pay, the cost that smokers impose on other people. That is the kind of cost that we were trying to examine. When we looked at the study done by health economist Ray Manning and several associates (funded by the RAND Corporation) we found that the spillover effect per pack of cigarettes was 33 cents. At the time (1994), the sum of federal, state, and local cigarette taxes was about 50 cents per pack. So the cigarette tax was already higher than the spillover cost."--Jane Gravelle, economist, Congressional Research Service.

"The lifetime health cost for a smoking man is $72,700 and $94,700 for a smoking woman. For nonsmokers, the cost is $83,400 for a man; $111,000 for a woman.

"If people stopped smoking today, there would be a savings in health care costs, but only in the short term. Eventually, smoking cessation would lead to increased health care costs." --New England Journal of Medicine,1997;337:1052-7.

175 posted on 08/23/2002 9:51:48 PM PDT by Max McGarrity
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To: DJ MacWoW
I thought kitchen grease fires were the main cause. I have (had) the bad habit of forgetting to turn the fire off on the stove. I did have a fire and used flour to put it out. UGH! It cooked all over my stove and under the burners. It ruined the paint so I had to repaint so my kids wouldn't find out. They would have a hissy fit!
176 posted on 08/23/2002 9:52:55 PM PDT by Jaidyn
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To: DJ MacWoW
Cooking equipment #1 cause of fire (#5 for deaths) - cigarettes #1 cause of fire fatalities.

And if he "never once mentioned a fire started by smoking" - all you probably have to do is ask, and if his experience is like most firefighters, he should have many stories.

And the killer irony is that many firefighters smoke. We would joke after a job when we were back at the station cleaning the gear (and they were smoking) that the products of combustion from most fires are not as lethal as cigarette smoke.
177 posted on 08/23/2002 9:54:22 PM PDT by pittsburgh gop guy
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To: Jaidyn
The owners have been getting these threads and anything else I get my hands on for as long as I've been involved in this issue - and that dates back to many, many years before I ever heard of the internet!!!

I do like your attitude!!!!

178 posted on 08/23/2002 9:57:41 PM PDT by Gabz
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To: timydnuc
I'll fight the charlatans, I guess, I've got no choice, I've done it all my life.

And thank goodness there are some left like you out there, timydnuc. You're just about the only chance we have left to keep what's important in this mad rush to socialism.

179 posted on 08/23/2002 9:58:29 PM PDT by Max McGarrity
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To: fellowpatriot
sort of proves the point - doesn't it????
180 posted on 08/23/2002 10:01:17 PM PDT by Gabz
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