No, I certainly think smokers are still let off easy, and their constant defensiveness whenever challenged is something I find endlessly annoying. I have NO tolerance for smoking and I'm not shy about letting you know it- if you smoke near me I will pointedly move away from you.
And I am SO SICK of smokers defending themselves with the same meaningless and irrelevent arguments they keep spamming out any time someone dares question their right to poison the world and everyone around them. "Cars and industrial pollution do far more damage than cigarette smoke" they whine. "Cars and industry are necessary evils of modern day human existence," I counter "while cigarettes are a meaningless, totally optional and thoroughly disgusting luxury product. There's a huge difference between shooting wild animals and destroying their habitats to make an area of land safe to live in and farm wheat on, and shooting wild animals and destroying their habitats to make fur coats and farm cannibis."
cameron196789 said:
I also think people are a bit too harsh on the smokers, while I do not support smokers, I do not believe they should so publicly hated. People argue that they are killing themselves, but are people drinking alcohol and eating fast food not killing themselves, yet I don't see people being as harsh on these people as they do on smokers. I think that the media also has a large role in effecting how people view the topic as well.
The problem ISN'T that they're killing themselves. Hell, personally I couldn't care less if they're killing themselves- that's their choice, just like people who drink themselves blind or stuff themselves with crap until they need bigger pants. The problem with smoking is that it's invasive and toxic and to make matters worse it breeds an inherent self-centredness in the people who do it. While alcohol can start fights, cause accidents, or be responsible for domestic abuse, at least this varies from person to person and only results from a considerable excessive
misuse of it. I drink a little, but I've NEVER been drunk in my life and have NEVER done something I've regretted because of alcohol. But even normal use of tobacco is unavoidably harmful (tobacco is literally nothing less than a poison) which affects not only the smoker but
everyone around them. The smoke drifts around in a wide area around the smoker to be inhaled by people who wouldn't smoke a cigarette at gunpoint and they don't even get the benefit of inhaling it through the filter first! And when it comes to parents who smoke around their children or even
while pregnant... well, sometimes I wonder why we don't need a license to breed.
And then there's the thing that enrages me the most- WAY too many smokers (not all of them, but the vast majority that I've seen) are dirty, self-centred and lazy. Even if they're not smoking near another person, their poison still drifts into the air and, even worse, their litter end up on th ground or eventually in the water- and they act like it simply doesn't matter. When I see a smoker casually flick a cigarette butt onto the ground and walk away without even bothering to stub it out with their foot when they're
standing less than 10 feet away from an ashtray or garbage bin then I have to restrain the urge to chase them down, grab them by the scruff of the neck and scream at them "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!". Fortunately I've managed to control this urge by channelling my rage into a new habit I have, where I pick up the smoking butt, sneak up behind them and drop it into either the open top of any bag they're carrying or, if they don't have one, down the back of their shirt or jacket and beat it before they notice. I think that's what we call "poetic justice".
Necrofudge said:
Yeah, I never really understood it either. So they smoke? What right does anyone have to tell them otherwise.
It's the 21st century. OF COURSE THEY KNOW IT'S BAD FOR THEM. They just don't care. In a way, I admire them for that.
It's bad for
everyone else as well and they don't care about that either. So someone drinks? What right does anyone have to tell them they can't drive a car? Oh wait...