Just remember folks, when you start taking one right away....many will follow. So be careful what you wish for!! Your rights might be next!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
As an ex-smoker I know that smoking is not good for us but as a person who like his freedoms I say it's an individuals choice to smoke or not. Too many rights have been taken away from us already and too many useless laws are also crammed down our throats under the guise of protecting us from ourselves.
Public health and safety require tobacco-free parks
Having come to expect thoughtful and considered editorial opinions from the Gazette, the Sept. 28 editorial, “Park smoking ban goes too far,” was both a surprise and a disappointment. Park smoking bans are no more an infringement on individual rights than open container laws, public nudity or any other number of restrictions placed on personal behavior in certain contexts for the public good. The 2006 Surgeon General’s Report says “there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.” What the Gazette editorial reduces to a “snoot full of secondhand smoke” can, for some people, be enough to trigger a heart attack, asthma attack or other respiratory failure. Results from a Stanford University study indicate that “a person near an outdoor smoker might inhale a breath with 50 times more toxic material than in the surrounding unpolluted air.” That toxic material includes human carcinogens that can penetrate deep inside the lungs. Tobacco-free public parks are a matter of public health and safety. The concerns are magnified by the fact that parks are where our children play — on playgrounds and the sports fields; in the pools and the sprinklers. As a community, we should not only be protecting them from the toxic effects of secondhand smoke, but also from the normalization of tobacco use. Every year, nearly 25,000 New York youths begin to smoke. If they keep smoking, half of them will die. They deserve better. And so do we. THERESA ZUBRETSKY Troy The writer is project coordinator for the Capital District Tobacco-Free Coalition.
If this is really the case of smoke triggering a heart attack then we had better ban all wood burning stoves and furnaces immediately because they certainly put out more smoke than a cigarette does.
The 'cancer causing element' list could go on forever and ever. It yet amazes me how the government is banning smoking EVERYWHERE and taxing it to where people won't be able to afford to smoke. Now as good of an idea as it may be, this tax is suppose to be going to the 'child health care government program'. So I certainly hope that they have a 'tax back-up' when they achieve the goal of a smoke free country. Dimwits!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
The Oct. 1 AP article, “Smoking poor tapped to pay for health plan,” has it backward. It’s not the cigarette tax that’s regressive; it is the harm from smoking that is regressive. Higher rates of smoking among lower-income groups mean they suffer disproportionately from smoking-caused disease and disability as well as the financial costs of buying cigarettes. Raising the cost of cigarettes is a powerful incentive for lower-income smokers to quit or cut back and to keep adolescents from ever starting to smoke. Smokers with family incomes at or below the national median are four times as likely to quit when cigarette prices increase as those with higher incomes. A dollar increase in the cigarette tax would prevent 142,000 of New York children, alive today, from becoming smokers in the future and motivate up to 81,300 New York smokers to quit smoking — in the first year alone. Reinvesting revenue raised from cigarette tax increases into health care, education, tobacco cessation and prevention programs can be a further benefit of tax increases to low-income families and communities. According to the National Academy of Sciences, higher cigarette taxes are the single most direct and reliable way to reduce smoking by both encouraging cessation and reducing youth initiation. Better health, fewer deaths, and financial savings from fewer smokingrelated expenditures. That’s a win for everyone. JUDY RIGHTMYER Troy The writer is director of the Capital District Tobacco-Free Coalition.
I just finished reading your Sept. 28 editorial regarding a proposed smoking ban in outdoor public areas such as parks. I think banning smoking in any public area, outdoors or indoors, is a great idea. I have a 4-year-old, who has informed me on several occasions that she is going to smoke when she’s older because “Mommy does it.” I do not smoke, and although her mom and I are no longer together, I have done my part to educate her (as much as you can educate a 4-year-old about smoking) that it’s unhealthy and a bad habit. I still have a fear that she could take up the habit because she constantly makes comments about people in public smoking. I cannot imagine how people can’t understand that children are influenced by their surroundings, both at home and in public. She makes comments every single time she sees someone lighting up a cigarette — even people she doesn’t know. I believe smoking outdoors is akin to banning public drinking of alcoholic beverages. While it’s perfectly legal to drink alcohol if you are of age, society has decided that public consumption of alcohol should not be allowed for various reasons, including sheltering children from its effects. Bans were placed on alcohol advertising and consumption, and I feel that smoking should be no different. Smoking is probably more harmful than alcohol, and is far more invasive to the health of others. I, for one, am glad to surrender such a pointless freedom for the future of my child’s health. Seems like a small price to pay. DARYLE FLAGG Troy
Those are excellent points- I went to dinner last week with a young lady who smokes ( I dont ) . We sat in a smoking section. I am extreamly tolerant of smokers as many in my family smoke and I shined shoes in my grandfathers smokey barbershop.
When I mentioned something about I like the smell of cigar smoke- well she went on and on - she HATES the smell of cigars- go figure.
Hey, sombody, I'd like to be there when you tell her this...
"OK, so you don't like cigars, but you smoke (and obviously like) cigarettes. Do you know where the word cigarette comes from? It means little (ette) CIGAR. You ARE smoking cigars, just not the big fat stogies."
I guess it's just better when it takes 10 of something to do as much damage as 1 of something else.
Smoke doesn't bothers me. There are other things AND people that I find much more offensive that stress me out, which is probably more harmful to my health.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Don’t rely on tobacco industry’s help to stop teens from smoking MEG DOHERTY Gansevoort
I’m discouraged to see the recent appearance of Phillip Morris U.S.A. Quit Assist materials throughout Fulton and Montgomery counties. Tobacco industry-sponsored youth prevention programs show no evidence that they prevent kids from smoking or help smokers quit! In fact, among 10thand 12th-graders, higher exposure to the parent-targeted ads was associated with lower perceived harm of smoking, stronger approval of smoking, stronger intentions to smoke in the future, and a greater likelihood of having smoked in the past 30 days (Wakefield, M., American Journal of Public Health, December 2006). The net effect is the continuation of the tobacco industry’s pattern of attracting millions of new smokers each year to their deadly products. I ask that agencies instead consider the New York State Smokers’ Quitline materials to be distributed throughout your organization. Please call 1-866-NY-QUITS or 1-866-697-8487 for free patches, gum, or lozenges (if you qualify, and most smokers do) serving as a reliable source of information on smoking prevention and cessation. Your local tobacco-free coalition, Project Action-Tobacco Free Coalition, is available to supply you with a variety of materials the Quitline has to offer. Please contact Sue Arminio at 841-7288 or arminiosu@smha.org, and please visit http://www.nysmokefree.com for further information.
Don’t rely on tobacco industry’s help to stop teens from smoking
And don't rely on McDonalds/Burger King from helping to stop teens from eating their junk. However, we CAN rely on the government from stopping teens from getting pregnant. There are schools that hand out birth control pills to 11 year olds like they were candy. And we can also rely on the government to allow our little girls to obtain abortions without their parents consent.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
I am proud to announce that several schools in Fulton and Montgomery counties participating in the Tobacco-Free Schools Policy Program have recently passed an updated districtwide tobaccofree schools policies. Congratulations go out to Gloversville, Mayfield and Broadalbin-Perth for reviewing, revising and now implementing their new tobacco-free school policy. The Tobacco-Free School Policy Program works to increase the number of schools that implement effective tobacco-free schools policies in compliance with state and federal law, and to establish a minimum standard where a variety of comprehensive standards are implemented. These schools passed policies that are meant as a starting point for behavioral and attitudinal change related to tobacco use on school campuses among students, their families, staff and members of the community. This policy will play a key role in supporting non-use of any and all tobacco products on all school grounds at all times as a way to prevent initial use of tobacco, or to interrupt habituated use among youth. The policy gives youth and adults an opportunity to live a more healthy life while complying with the law. The enforcement of this policy is applicable to everyone on the school campus at any time, and includes (but is not limited to) visitors, staff, students, faculty, bus drivers, maintenance and construction personnel. This proactive approach to health will make a difference to schools, students, staff and visitors. DENISE BENTON Johnstown The writer is a Tobacco-Free Healthy Schools policy coordinator for Catholic Charities of Fulton and Montgomery counties.
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