Smoking ban goes into effect in France

Source: AP

PARIS - France's most drastic measure to curb smoking went into effect Wednesday with a full ban on lighting up in cafes, restaurants and discotheques, a sea change for a country where the cigarette came to symbolize the French way of life.

snip...

Under the measure, those caught lighting up inside face a $93 fine, while owners who turn a blind eye to smoking in their establishments face a $198 fine.

About a quarter of France's 60 million people smoke. The Health Ministry said one in two regular smokers dies of a smoking-related illness here, and about 5,000 nonsmokers die each year from secondhand smoke.

Banning smoking everywhere but in private homes and in the streets is the latest measure in a progressive crackdown that began 15 years ago with the start of steady price hikes on cigarettes and a requirement that public places create nonsmoking areas — the first curb on smoking in cafes.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20080102/ap_tr_ge/travel_brief_france_smoking_ban_1

A ban on striped shirts, pointy moustaches, and/or carrying baguettes under your arm?

This is all a load of je ne sais quoi.

Killing others with secondhand smokes is not remotely connected to pointy mustaches, striped shirts, and baguettes. And those are just the most horrible stereotypes. I haven't seen a real French person ever wear that.

France existed as a nation for centuries before the use of the New World plant tobacco. If anything you should be using snuff tobacco like the kings of old or else your cultural outrage rings hollow.

they aren't banning smoking.

It used to be legal to smoke places where smoking wasn't allowed? To force it on people? I don't think so. They're telling private business owners what can and can't be allowed in their own businesses.

I do actually want to have a discussion and see the viewpoints of others - I can just be bull-headed myself, as you've seen. So, sorry if I got too harsh.... I do feel passionately about my position though.

No problem.

I think it is really stupid to play the game of banning smoking in certain locations. If we as a society feel smoking is so bad that we need to ban it from........ Government buildings, parks, businesss... the list goes on then..... MAKE THEM ILLEGAL!!!!!! Its is really a hypocrisy for the government to come and dictate laws BANNING smoking here and there but say it is still fine to smoke. The sad part is The government (dem or repub) doesn't want to make smoking illegal the tax money is too rich. Its too bad the the government likes to make these "FEEL GOOD" laws to ban smoking here and there but in reality will never want to make the product " cigarettes" illegal....

So, I'm just here for my winter holiday, but it still sucks. In a story I read about this, a woman said the French should now take "liberty" out of their motto of "liberty, equality, fraternity". I agree. These smoking bans are such complete shit.... no way should such a large minority be oppressed for just wanting to live their own lives as they see fit. If restaurant and bar owners didn't want smoking before, they didn't have to allow it - what kind of shit government tells a bar owner what they can and can't allow in their own damn business? Fucking bastards....

otherwise this wouldn't piss you off.

why is that so hard to understand?

Should they all leave and get a new job too?

and then switched. I think that would be wrong, but people know what they're getting themselves into. There's a club in LA that has a separate ventilated smoking area which has a bar in it. I don't know for sure, but I'd assume the bartenders who work their choose to. I don't want to make light of the health of wait and bar staff and these places, but if they really want to work at them, it is their choice. Many jobs have various risks, and second hand smoke is a very small risk to ones health compared to lots of other jobs.

Here in LA, bars get more people now than ever before, myself included, because I can now go to bars without choking whereas before, I wouldn't go to one because of the smoke. I guess it might be a wash economically here in health-conscious LA and a disaster in smoky France, though.

The bar in LA to which you refer does indeed have a glass walled portion where you can smoke and the bar staff go in and out of there all night, inhaling the extremely dense smoke inside. I would not work there, but hey, if they don't care about their health, I'm not going to stop them either. I'm a fan of smoking rooms, although I don't smoke and would never walk into one without pause, but I do think they should be better ventilated for the sake of the staff, at least. I sometimes walk into that place and hold my breath because it's often less busy than the main area, but it's hard to order and receive a drink without breathing some smoke in. It does help to keep me off smoking, though, as the contrast is quite astounding between the two areas.

In short, I think you should be able to smoke if you want do, and others should be able to breath free and clear of smoke if they want to. Perhaps there's a compromise somewhere that could be made available?

I just don't buy the health argument that seems to be, in short "big brother knows what's good for you". We all know that smoking is bad, but so are loads of other things. If we're thinking of the same place (spaceland is what I'm thinking of), I've never found the smoking room to be too smokey, but then I'm a smoker. I think having separate ventilated areas is a great idea, but I don't think it's fair to force small business owners to put them up out of their own pockets after working so long to make a viable business. If there was a better type of grandfather clause, I could possibly even live with that, but I don't think it would really be fair to make new business owners go by different rules than established places. I think Chicago has a slightly more sane policy, which is that smoking is prohibited in places where food is served, but not in bars that only serve drinks. Still, it's kind of silly. I remember going into a diner when the ban was first in effect and a waitress asking us if it was ok if she stepped outside for a smoke - my friends I was with went to this diner a lot, and everyone, obviously including the staff, knew what they were in for before the ban. I know that smoking isn't exactly good for the public health at large, but making it such a big issue is a red herring, drawing our attention away from more important things.

"I think having separate ventilated areas is a great idea"

They don't work. The stench from the smoking bigots gets everywhere!!!

Having NO SMOKING in any public space doesn't cost the "poor business owner" anything except lower expenses by lowering insurance rates, lower cleaning expenses and happier customers and staff.

Thank Dog, in my new state, they just banned smoking (attempted murder perpetrated by selfish idiots) in all public spaces just before I got here...

So, the truth finally comes out. People who don't like the smell of smoking want smoking bans to better smell their own fucking farts and BO - in other words, total fucking douche-bags.

Tell that to the bar owners in Lincoln, NE who went under just months after the ban was passed. But you demanding to attend their establishment how YOU want it overrides their right to cater to who they want. I just hope a bunch of hate mongering homophobes don't demand gay bars cater to heterosexuals, because you would be forced to support them.

just curious as to how it could be spun ;)

don't attempt to kill the people standing near them...

The hate exhibited in this thread comes from the nicotine addicts who are posting here. You're the single best argument for extending the policy of outlawing attempted murder by cigarette everywhere.

Attempted murder? Exaggerate much?

Bake

Now I am making plans!!!!!!!!!

By your mindless, fanatic, angry, defensive rant because most of us choose not to be subjected to your chosen form of attempted murder and do something about it...

Simple...

who want to cater to a certain. You can cater to gamblers, hicks, gays, drinkers, goth, dancers, etc. but apparently cannot invest tens of thousands of your OWN money to buy your OWN place of business and cater to whatever customers you want. Essentially, it boils down to non-smokers demanding I invest my money to cater to them. Arrogant and un-American (or, Un-French, as the case may be).

It is a violation of human rights as I see it. We're tip-toeing toward fascism, and it's being welcomed with open arms. Convincing the left-wing that smoking bans are a good thing has been a giant coup for those who would have the world made in their own image and deny any personal liberty which they don't want to exercise themselves.

with your outrage :P

Smokers are being oppressed?? That's a good one. Someone call Amnesty International!

The only time smoking was bad for me in France was on the train. Then you could not escape the smoke. I was a smoker back then. Personally I say smoke where you will. If I don't like it I'll go elsewhere. If they are going to mandate places that you can not smoke I think they should also mandate places that you must smoke. discuss.

Raebrek!!!

note: there is supposed to be some sarcasm there so don't beat me up to much.

It's a very important liberty indeed. :eyes:

I can't imagine the French not allowing people sitting outside to smoke.

The terrasse has become the refuge for the smoker. You can sit out on a terrasse and smoke to your heart's content. A lot of restaurant terrasses, at least in Paris, have these big heaters by the tables to keep you warm while you're eating, drinking, smoking.

They might as well just outlaw ham or Doritos in the US Midwest.

with all of those packs of Gauloise????

Having been to France (studied at a French University many summers ago), I cannot even fathom how the French, who smoke like chimneys, will deal with this ban. Oh well, c'est le guerre!

This ban helps no one, except for the self-righteous. It does, however, hurt loads of small business owners. And it pisses me off - and what's more important than making me happy?

second hand smoke? Self-righteous to demand my life, now?

People can't visit bars, cafes, and tabacs without smoking now? I've never smoked, and drink VERY rarely...and I visit bars, cafes, and restaurants all the time.

It's far more unhealthy than "second hand smoke."

When the guy at the next table downs a jumbo fries the fat seeps into my bloodstream?

The human being needs three things to sustain life, food, water, and air. Would you feel the same if I shit on your hamburger or pissed in your water and neither of those contain all the poisons that are contained in a cigarette. Talk about self-centered....You people that feel you have the right to pollute my life sustaining resource are beyond the pale. IMO I think all smoking in public should be banned period. If you want to smoke in your own home, fine but why do you insist upon forcing your pollution on me?

The air? Don't go to places where smoking is allowed if you don't like it. Private homes - or at least mine - don't have secret capsules we breathe smoke in and then shoot into outer space. Any pollutant effect smoking has on the air is negligible, especially when compared to cars, power plants, etc. Guess what - people do piss in your water!! Or do you put piss in a space capsule?

I am sure others do it so that makes it okay, right??? I think you are one ignorant self centered SOB...Do you throw your butts out your car window? Others do so it must be okay...

What kind of world do you want to live in? I really mean that. What sort of society are we when a majority can hold such sway over a minority for their own self satisfaction? As for the car window question: I don't own a car. I don't drive. I walk to do my shopping, and I take buses, trains and jets to get places that I can't walk to. Do you drive? That's doing a hell of a lot more to pollute the world than 1,000 smokers.

has really sat down and thought about how much pollution is created by the food they eat or the beverages they drink. Whether you like it or not, when you buy that bottle of healthy spring water, I have to eat and breathe in all the pollution that was created by
-making the bottle you are drinking out of
-the gas used to transport it to the distribution center
-the gas used to bring it to the store you bought it from
-the toxins released into the environment when all that carbon-less paper is created to put inventories on
-the toxins released in makin all those pretty colored papers that indicate what copy of the inventory goes to whom.
-the pollution created so that you could have it nice and cold at the time you purchase the healthy bottle of spring water

Why are you forcing your pollution on me? Because it is systematic and you have no control over it? But you have control over whether or not you breathe in smoke at a restaurant, right? Nevermind that eating in a restaurant is possibly one of the most wastful things human beings do. Don't believe me? Work in a restaurant.

Anybody wanna help me out here?
(And DON'T even get me started on how much pollution comes from the meat industry)

so the ban isn't a "nanny state" protection of an individual. It's to protect the rights of OTHERS. If smoke wouldn't affect anyone else, I would be against the ban and would consider it a "nanny state" intrusion on our lives. But, since it does, it should be regulated, just like we would regulate murder or any other actions that would put others in danger. (like speed limits, or bans on cellphones while driving).

Understand?

that causes far more harmful pollution than smoking.

Doesn't driving contribute more to our culture than just pollution (ease of travel, ease of communication, getting to and from work, family, et.al.)? And aren't we indeed working to increase CAFE standards to address pollution from the automotive industry?

Now, applying that same standard to smokes-- do cigarettes contribute anything other than nicotine addiction to our culture?

I am an adult, and I started smoking as an adult. I enjoy it, and I don't want to quit. No tobacco company makes me smoke. I am desperately addicted to nicotine, and I don't mind - it's my choice. Smoking brings me pleasure. Who are we as a society when we limit the freedoms of other individuals based on our own desires? Would you allow other things that bring people pleasure to be ghettoized because you don't like them? Sure, we work to limit cafe standards, but would you argue that driving for pleasure, or when it isn't absolutely necessary (say, ambulances, postal delivery, etc.) should be outlawed? That would do a hell of a lot more to decrease pollution than increasing cafe standards would.

I don't buy this argument for a second - if you don't like other people smoking around you, don't go to places they smoke. Should be ban the use of personal motor vehicles because they cause pollution and harm people's health? I don't own a car. Because I don't own or use a car, does that mean it should be illegal for you to do so? No. I'm far more interested in Liberty for all than I am in creating the world in my image.

if you don't like that you can't smoke, don't smoke. I should change my locales because some asswipe can't live without his nicotine fix? Fuck him. My habits don't hurt him...but his hurt me. The onus of responsibility is on him to not harm others, not the other way around.

If you don't like smoking, why go to a place where people smoke? Why go somewhere you know you're not going to enjoy and then bitch about it? I do wonder if your habits of self-righteous indignation directed at smokers on political message boards may very well be causing me high blood-pressure - so there, mr. smarty pants!

or I wanted to hear the band that was playing.

Your arguments up and down this thread are so paper thin it's ridiculous.

Smokers need to face the facts: You're 20% of the population and dwindling (gee, I wonder why??). These laws are here to stay. That's life. You're not oppressed. You're not persecuted. You can buy cigarettes out in the open at any store and smoke to your heart's content; in your car, at your house, at your buddy's house that smokes, in the park, etc... Hell, most places go out of their way to accommodate smokers by setting up smoking areas.

God, talk about whiny.

Years ago (if I recall correctly) California went to no-smoking status. I saw an anti-smoking ad in which one of the spokespersons, a young guy, said that 80% of those who go clubbing don't smoke (this would certainly go along with your statistic). I wondered then, why make 100% of the clubs "no smoking?" Why not make 80% of the clubs "no smoking" and allow 20% to be "smoking?"

Perhaps issuing licenses for smoking establishments, much the same as liquor licenses, based on these statistics would assure that both the smokers and non-smokers would have a place to go.

To my knowledge there has never been a law that states that a private business owner must allow smoking in their business. This is government control over business of a sort that I strongly oppose.

.... they should change other aspects of their business to cater to YOU? And you think my arguments are thin... geez. But, as you said, smokers are a minority and people like you will bully us because of it - because you can - then you have the gall to say it's not persecution.

Please explain how your desire to taste the food is greater than the owner’s desire to cater to a crowd that he wants.

So, your argument is:

“The owner HAS to want as many people as possible. Thus, since you are a non-smoker, he should be required to cater you.”

That is an awfully arrogant view. Many people open different business for different reasons. Additionally, they realize that NO product will attract 100% of the population (some can’t afford it, some don’t like the type of food, some don’t like the atmosphere they are catering to).

In short, your posting makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE!

I stopped smoking nearly 40 years ago, right after the warnings came out. I had a very unpleasant time de-addicting myself; it took about 5 years of cold-turkey, iirc, before I lost the craving. I hope I'm healthier for it, since that was my motivation, but only time will tell.

One of the reasons many on the left think poorly of self-proclaimed liberals is how often liberals have self-centered and illiberal attitudes toward other people's choices. I don't want to maybe get shot = you cannot own a gun. I don't want to maybe get lung cancer = you cannot smoke anywhere that I might choose to go. I know who the best candidate is = you're a purist if you vote for anyone to the left of him/her. And the beat goes on.

You have the choice not to read a post if you believe different opinions are unhealthy to you. In many cases, an innocent has no choice to avoid our second hand smoke...

Because the damn selfish clods will bring their fucking killer smoke anywhere they fucking feel like until you ban that deadly activity altogether.

Smoking bans are the ONLY reasonable reaction to folks determined to defend their addiction at all costs and to subject others to their deadly insanity...

...to open a law abiding business where s/he wants to cater to a certain crowd (in this case, smokers), explain how you are anything but whiney, arrogant and demanding to tell him/her they are only allowed to cater to you. You have NO “right” to go to his/her bar or restaurant.

business people are just falling all over themselves to open their businesses as havens for the idiots who still insist on their "right" to try to kill themselves and others with their poisonous smoke.

I'm just certain that people who want to open up a restaurant are just chomping at the bit to include the crowd that will make sure that their efforts to create and serve good, tasty food will be negated by the stench of a minority exercising their "right" to destroy the experience for the majority.

Oh, they are just lining up to pay higher insurance rates, cleaning expenses, jeopardize their employee's health and their own because they just can't wait to cater to that dwindling demographic.


Yeah, right. :sarcasm:

You are far less likely to become ill from a whiff of a cigarette than you are from the ubiquitous pollutants in the air and water from factories, auto exhaust, etc. And you will more likely be harmed by the additives in your food or by the chemicals in your neighbor's lawn...

But it seems to me that your "Self righteous intolerance" comes more from us smokers justifying why we should be able to light up at out convenience, rather than from the non-smokers who care about health than we do...

As curbs on smoking have increased. First were workplace laws (we were fine with that).
Then were additional taxes (within reason, we were fine with that).

Government buildings? Understood.
Airplanes? Transcontinental flights sucked when you had a jones, but it was understood.
Smoking sections in restaurants? Understood.

Adding still more taxes while adding still more restrictions, and now you've got people at a breaking point.

While those of us in states watched Cali and NY enact ever and ever more restrictive laws, the rest of us shook our heads and figured 'won't happen here.' Well it's happening, and people are getting pissed.

We see some govs trying to enact laws that ban people from smoking in their own homes, in their own cars, in outdoor parks while at the same time hiking up taxes sky-high - to pay for programs that have nothing to do with the ills of cigarette smoke and say enough.

What on earth makes the sanctimonious anti-smoking militant crusaders think they shit apple butter?

Of course that doesn't help NOW, in the cold months. I think part of the plan is to drive the tabacs and mom&pop cafes out, as it clears the real estate for big biz - chains etc. Very disheartening...

Man, a few years ago I was at a coffee shop in manhattan, at tables outside, and was told that that was still no-smoking, I think, because it was too close to open doors and windows of the cafe.... *sigh* I highly doubt the French would be that extreme though. In California people can still smoke at outdoor bars and cafes.

but the stench permeates the atmosphere for yards around it.

It's disgusting, deadly and (thankfully becoming) a deviant occupation.

cunts would sacrifice the personal liberties of others to make the world just a little more picture-perfect like in their imaginations.

breathe the smoke.

Whats so bad about making it so smokers have to deal with their own smoke and find a place, instead of force it on others. Oh wait... people against this don't care about others.

If you go to a bar where smoking is allowed, no one's fucking forcing it on you. There were restaurants in France before the ban that were non-smoking by choice. It's not as if people would go to these places, smoke and refuse to leave. Where is your logic on this one? That's like if I said exhaust fumes were forced on me at a nascar race. Why go somewhere you don't want to be and then complain about it not being what you'd like? That's like saying you're forced to eat cheese if you order a cheeseburger.

argument you can simply leave and smoke somewhere else. That's certianly what you expect the 75% of the population who don't smoke to do.

Deal with it.

There is no choice for a business owner to allow smoking anymore - what don't you get about that?!?! They could always have a non-smoking business before, if they wanted it, or the customers demanded it.

I noticed your profile said UK.

This was from an episode of a show where the bar resisted a smoking ban by "Going America on your ass" and decided that total freedom would dictate the bar's atmosphere. The end result was that the father of the people shown in that scene turns the bar into a russian roulette parlor just like that in The Deer Hunter.

Deer Hunter shown here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uBbx4jlFS8

ok, that is something that I think should be illegal. I guess I'm a hypocrite.

They're intolerant and self righteous don't you know. Oh, and don't forget "fascists". LOL.

of smoking bans. It is almost paradise.

That this will disrupt a cornerstone of French cafe society. I see it as another sign of people being pacified and infantilized by their governments. I have the visual image of the millions who turned out in every major European city to protest the oncoming invasion or Iraq, and see those millions disappearing in favor of pliable zombies. Just like most of the US.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/smoking/Story/0,,2234426,00.html

Paris fumes over France's smoking ban


Angelique Chrisafis
Thursday January 3, 2008
The Guardian

Like Asterix's village holding out against the Romans, for years France proudly resisted the global craze for smoking bans. It held out longer than Britain, Spain or Italy, but on Tuesday it finally bid au revoir to cigarettes in bars, cafes, restaurants and clubs.

This was not a decision taken lightly. Magazines ran nostalgic photo-spreads reminding us that French people look seriously cool with a fag in their mouth - as illustrated by Charles de Gaulle, Brigitte Bardot and the ambassador for nicotine-enhanced thinking, Jean-Paul Sartre. Even president Nicolas Sarkozy, painfully image-conscious, posed for Paris Match wrestling with a fat cigar.

Article continues
But yesterday, on the Left Bank where Sartre once lit Simone de Beauvoir's fags with impunity, France's traditional "café-clope" - morning coffee and cigarette - was now only possible by braving freezing temperatures or pavement heaters that singe your hair off.

"This is imbecilic," said Jean-Yves Oussedik, a historian, puffing his pipe outside the literary cafe Les Deux Magots. "A complete ban is ridiculous." Outside Café de Flore, once the smoke-filled retreat of existentialists, advertising student Sonia Bourezma, 27, wondered if all this non-smoking stuff wasn't just a touch too American. "But in reality people will do what they're told."

Banning smoking might be American, but judging by the public's positive response - studies before the ban showed 70% support - it will be just one more US trend embraced by French society. Even among the diehard smokers in tiny tabacs, no one wants to risk a fine.

Surprisingly high, but makes sense. There's a reason your body coughs to rid you of substances that are irritating the air passages.

It's protecting you from being poisoned.

People who say this is about public health are either bullies who know they're lying or seriously misinformed. Shit man.... the Flore still exists? I've never been, but that's also where Ralph Rumney spent his days when he was making some of his greatest paintings. Sure, Rumney died a relatively early death, likely because of his smoking, but it was sure his choice. I can't believe when supposed free-thinking people go along with supporting these smoking bans - this is truly evil shit.

If you choose to possibily die a relatively early death because of X, Y, and Z actions, can that be allowed while we attempt to provide everything for everyone? If you die too early, that's less tax money, that's less consumption. That might be one less text book, or one less job.

Is this quote, "In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first", accurate?

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1911taylor.html

Putting the system first dumbs down humans. It de-skills us, it steals flexibility from us in the quest to make the system more efficient.

I guess if the goal is to eventually create a catastrophic circumstance that takes out huge portions of the population, yes, the system must be first.

and you forgot "one less choice". What a great democratic society we live in. What a free market. What bull.

Dude, I don't think that it's tobacco that you're smoking!

It hasn't hurt them at all.

I'll be damned if I die because of someone else's dirty habit. Screw smokers. There is no right to kill others. But if you want, you can always shoot up the nicotine in an injection. I wouldn't mind that smokers kill themselves, if they wouldn't take us innocents with them.

Do you really think others smoking hurts you? No way - no proof. Are you a waiter in a smoking section of a restaurant? If so, try to change the restaurants policy, if they won't, quit. Otherwise, stop bitching and let others live their lives.

We did.

We got laws passed to ban smoking in public spaces...

It's the democratic way.

You got something against democracy? :shrug:

You go to your bar, I'll go to my bar. Why can't you live with that?

the EU guidelines because in Spain they have done this ban also.

DH is French, and I absolutely detest indoor smoke. When we travel there, it's sometimes hard to eat inside because people will smoke even in non-smoking areas. I didn't mind if they kept to the smoking areas, which were nicer parts of the restautant actually, but people would just light up in the non-smoking areas. The tables are quite close together so it's hard to eat when smoke is in your face.

I used to smoke, but always outside. I hope they allow it on sidewalk cafes...it's nice there. Or, if they would at least enforce non-smoking areas inside.

DH has never smoked, BTW, so it's not like EVERY French person smokes. The only one who does in his family (they still live there) is his mom.

I see Europe's progressivism is still ahead of the U.S.

This particular smoker wishes the same would be done in the U.S. "About 5,000 nonsmokers die each year from secondhand smoke." That's 5000 too many simply so I can feed my addiction at a time and place convenient to me.

Heck, ban them everywhere but our homes. Despite the righteous cries of false indignation from most of my smoking brethren, I think it would result in an absolute good.

"Oooh-- but it's my right to exacerbate asthma attacks in other people. How dare your nanny state try to take away my God given right to pollute my body and my environment! The state should have NOTHING to do with health and the environment-- except for universal health care and the environment... oops!"

The difference is most likely that I don't try to justify or defend my habit to nicotine and realize it for what it is-- nothing good.

I for one don't like loud music. I hate it when I go to bars and cafes and they're playing loud music. It really does hurt my ears, and my hearing is important to me, because I'm a musician. The thing is, if it's too loud, I get up and leave. I really don't see how this is any different.

We implemented the same ban in 1998, and there were no economic implosions, no riots in the streets, and no suffering smokers suffering through withdrawal smasms during the workdays. We do get to occasionally see them suffering in the rain, but that's the price of your addiction.

Poor Johnny Depp and David Sedaris (both of whom say they live in France at least part time because they can smoke their heads off!).

But I'm looking forward to my next trip to France without the coughin' of the coffin-nail consumers.

and then ban that substance, then the least it can do is help those citizens quit smoking for FREE. That goes for the US too.

gets forced to breathe it.

You right here, trying to force it on others.

It got banned for a reason. Now take your toxic waste dump outside and quit trying to force it down peoples throats. At this point since it's not going to be legal, you ARE trying to FORCE it on people.

:eyes: You're not even using the term correctly.

Fascism is the union of government and business. Business is not out there screaming for non-smoking laws. Governments are doing it in response to pressure from the public.

and what services private businesses can offer.

Whether businesses can have dangerous environments? Health and Safety laws are desirable.

This is telling a business, one which may have existed for decades, that they can no longer serve their customers as they and the customers desire. That's complete bull. Was prohibition about health and safety, or was it a violation of personal liberty?

Drinking and driving is, of course, also banned, for health and safety reasons - it injures or kills people apart from the drinker. Similarly, this is designed to stop killing people with second-hand smoke. Prohibition, however, banned all drinking - not just the drinking that affected other people. So it's not a good comparison.

Do you really think that that's what this is about? 90% of the posts I've seen about this are from people who don't like to go to smoky bars or restaurants, plan and simple. I have yet to hear of a single person say they've become ill from voluntarily going to a place where people are smoking. Is it healthy to be around smokers all of the time? Probably not, but it really is incredibly small potatoes compared to real health risks. Whether or not people go to establishments that allow smoking is voluntary, so how is this helping anyone? I can't repeat that enough.

Yes, it will keep people alive. Employees in the bars and restaurants can now work in an industry less likely to kill them.

and the business owners go bankrupt?

In fact, most people find that not smoking means they can taste things better. A few addicts will decide to stay at home to smoke, but most can manage to spend an hour of 2 without it. The effect, if any, seems to vary according to country.

The GOVERNMENT is pressuring the public. Many non-smokers are against smoking bans in bars. The government, insurance companies, developers, et al, are all part of this, so according to your definition it is fascist.

France is giving small grants to citizens to buy nicotine patches, etc. But I WANT to smoke. *sigh*

and I am not suggesting you do, I just feel it's unfair that governments can ban a substance, regardless of where and expect those citizens to pay once again. Governments allowed the substance to be sold to you and I, and if they want us to quit they better help us to do so. I was a smoker for 17 years and understand its addiction.(I haven't smoked for about 4 years) I'd be pissed if I were you as well.

When I moved to Chicago (where I went to college) in the late '90s, a pack of cigarettes was about $4, when I was there to visit last year, it was over $8. They're gouging the poor with these taxes (it's largely the poor who smoke) and driving them out of visibility with these bans. I'm still a US citizen, so I couldn't get the French money - I'm just in France a lot because my gf lives here.

feel good about these new laws.

I know a guy in the UK who's retired, never smoked in his life, but doesn't like the smoking ban there. He lived in Africa (Kenya, I think) for many years and moved back to England in retirement. He says that the government control and regulation completely went overboard in the 20 or 30 years he was away and doesn't like it one bit. I'm really not bothered by this just because I am a smoke - I feel the same way about many other civil liberties, even those which I personally detest.

by eliminating smoking, their health care cost will decrease. It will remedy a majority of the illnesses associated with it.

I've been hoping to visit for the first time this spring, now the trip will be that much sweeter.

more & more laws with stupid pseudo-medical reasons. Dying from second hand smoking ??? Gimme a break. This is a blatant lie, they're talking epidemiology, statistics, like say: being in a smoking bar increases your chances to have a cancer by 10%. In stupid people's minds, the kind of fascist, control-freaks who don't support the advantages & the disavantages of living in a community, that means that if they inhale some smoke of your cigarette, you're killing them !!! We're lucky here in France to not have the judiciary excesses of US, otherwise they will sue for no reason. Fuck them, fuck France, these fucking whiners will not show up in the bars, the clubs & the restaurants they claim to have left because of the smoke. A lot of businesses will go bk. It's the end of the typical french "bistrot" where you can have a little café or demi with a cigarette. It's Starbucks era, bans & fines everywhere (go crictic Iran or China after that), shit industrial food, hygienist stupid politics, i hate this world.

That beside being Stupid OR Control Freak, the people supporting this law ARE OF THE MOST BORING KIND !!! The kind of fuckers who complain about too much smoke, too much partying, too much alcohol, too much drugs, too much FUN, but these fuckers keep going to these places. I wonder why? They like the company and the "dirty" atmosphere of the places, it's a cheap way of being rock n roll. I'll leave them these places, let them get BORED TO DEATH, you know IT IS SO FUCKING IMPORTANT TO DIE HEALTHY, BORED, DEPRESSED (on official sponsored drugs) BUT PLEASE SAVE US FROM THE TRUE EVIL : SECOND HAND SMOKING !!!!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3124492


..."Those who know whats best for us-

must rise and save us from ourselves..."
;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gHKNwpny9o&feature=related

Now I can go back to Paris without some fucking idiot blowing smoke in my face while I'm trying to eat!!!

Very Cool!!!!

:woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:

NT!

I don't have a car, don't drive, and get around just fine. Drivers do a hell of a lot more to hurt us all than smokers ever could. Should driving in public (oh, you could still drive a car in your house) be banned, because I don't drive and don't think others should? What crap.

the rights of corporations that pollute the air and cause cancer are upheld, your nose, your lungs and cellular integrity be damned. It's not as if you didn't know a restaurant you went to didn't have a smoking section before you sat down for your meal. I like to have a cigarette with a cocktail before a meal, or with an espresso afterwards. Still, I sometimes go to non-smoking restaurants because I want the service you have to offer. As a smoker I've never violated a no smoking policy anywhere. If someone lit up a cigarette in a non-smoking restaurant, then you'd have a point, but I suspect that person would be speedily ejected. This is about government telling business owners who they can serve and how. In France when smoking was allowed in restaurants, there were non-smoking restaurants - I've been to them. This is all about the choices of business owners and consumers to do what they want.

you will be expected to pay for the socialized medical care of their lungs that were damaged by "big corporqations" that never warned them against the hazards of smoking ;)

tobacco.... who knew the american indians would speak with forked tongue about the health benefits of the wonder weed :) lol

And your alcoholic friends' livers, and for the injuries your kid sustains due to talking on cellphones while driving. Everyone impacts everyone else.

to see middle age on that stuff.
They should have been told "Just say no" by their parents or learned it while growing up

Yet I have to pay for other people's kids' education and much more-- get it yet? Everyone is a burden on everyone else if you choose to look at it like that.

Cigarette tax of $10 a pack should force the tobacco lobby out of buisness in DC.
The state can use the taxes to put lung machines in hospitals for those that paid dearly for them all those years. ;)

yes,
I smoked two packs a day and went cold turkey Feb 1st,2003 .
it's been four years now so don't say I am cold heartless,clueless bastard with no opinion.

Look at the prices people pay for marijuana or cocaine. When you're suffering through the cold sweats of withdrawals, spending a paltry $20 to make them go away for a day doesn't seem like such a bad proposition. Driving prices up won't stop the hardcore addicts from smoking, and will simply drive them to poverty.

You're better off banning it completely, or at least removing smokers from places where they negatively impact society (like restaurants).

Actually,marijuana is cheap. Cocaine really isn't that expensive considering life expectancy is going to be reduced as compared to tobacco.Tobacco is strong but people have the will power to quit if they really wanted to.

A nasty drug is meth. Despite what "experts" may say about recovery, there is no cure but that is a drug that runs it's course in only a few years once the user hits skid row....

I was paying $6.50 a pack at a pack, a pack and a half a day.

I used to buy them (15 years ago) at the Reservation outside of Lewiston NY for $7.00 a carton.

Price doesn't make a difference to an addict. If it did - women and men wouldn't prostitute themselves for crack and heroin.

If that's what the French want to do - they may. I don't pay taxes there, I don't live there, I don't work there . . . that's like them getting upset because we 'ban' women going topless on public beaches. It's stupid (I go to St. Tropez every year on vacay so . . .)that we're hung up on naked breasts - and when my two female (French) friends were here and I went down the shore with them to the beach - they rolled and bounced with our rules. Though I agree with them - that's just bullshit we can't go topless here at public beaches that we all pay taxes for.

Most who have posted to this so far as I know are Americans. Really - as draconian and backwards as the current Presidential Administration is, as worthless as we've become in terms of not only taking care of our own, but what image we project to the world, as big a 'bully' as we've become to the rest of the world . . .

We should be real careful about 'picking on laws' made in other Democratic countries - one that it's important to note - Has a socialized health care system. This is good for EVERYONE there that 'pays into the system' if they have fewer illnesses due to smoking.

You know, this is the country whose previous President (Chirac) agreed with the majority of the Left in America (the war in Iraq was bullshit and stupid) and their current UMP President (Sarkozy) came to Washington and reiterated AGAIN - he'll be friends with us in the future. When we pull out of Iraq. And urged us to take a leadership role on the environment.

When we find out they're holding people in secret prisons, aren't giving people their day in court, torturing prisoners, controlling their press, and moving towards fascism - let's get a debate go -

Wait - we can't even do that. We do all those things. We better be careful who we pick on here.

*Disclaimer - my boyfriend is a French Man born, raised, and living in Lyon - so I have a bit of a soft spot for those French Folks! :-) I'm more than a little 'French' myself.

We are sympathizing with them, horrified that their system apparantly has become as fascist as ours. I am quite a Francophile myself, as have spent many months in France over a period of many years. Tres difficile to see freedoms taken away, here and abroad. Can't even escape the insanity here by going to France as the expats did in the 20s...

if a ban because of a health problem is your definition of it?