No more smoking at RJ Reynolds...
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denverpilot
Tied Down
Hick says a lot of things and does exactly the opposite. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing but that there is one politician I wouldn't believe a word that comes out of his mouth.
denverpilot
Tied Down
We had a beer garden on the roof of the data center during the Dot Com boom. Free beer. Good beer. Bottled and on tap. Was quite interesting to see the social norms change if it was Monday or Friday and who still had meetings to go to on Friday afternoon.
I think by now sugar and obesity are killing more people than smoking.
Neal Howard
Cleared for Takeoff
My first job after college was a software company in the North Dallas area in the late 80's - mid 90's. Company policy was that ash trays were required in every office since the CEO was a chain smoker. The company also threw keg parties in the back parking lot every other Friday starting about 4pm in the afternoon and had a sober driver to give anyone a ride home in the company van if you got too sloshed.
Cigarette bans and restrictions on drinking make sense and I've never been a smoker but, man...
We sure do ban a lot of stuff for health & safety.
We sure do ban a lot of stuff for health & safety.
WoooPigSooie
Pre-Flight
I find it funny how anti-smokers can also be pro-pot. It's like a Catholic professing to be pro-abortion.
Mental gymnastics like that must hurt a person's head!
I'm fairly new here, so I apologize if I missed some obvious sarcasm, but this might be the dumbest thing I've read in a while. No offense.
Secondhand smoke from cigars contains the same carcinogens as cigarette smoke, the only dofference is that there are fewer chain-smokers.
I am a non-smoker and wont even stay at a hotel that has mixed rooms. But that is because I hate the smell, not because of health reasons. As pointed out above, anti smoking regulations exist because we hate smokers, not because of logical arguments. It is just another way for people In power to tell others what to do. The proof of that is the crusade against e-cigarettes. If smoking prohibitions were about protecting the bystanders, there wouldnt be an argument against e-cigs.
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Bob Noel
So, in your mind, being anti-smoking is about hating smokers?
seriously?
What about the people who believe that second-hand smoke is unhealthy but don't give a <****> if someone uses an e-cig?
timwinters
Ejection Handle Pulled
Am I smokin' dope (again) or did this thread's title change? I thought it was originally titled "he'll just froze over" or some such.
timwinters
Ejection Handle Pulled
I think his point is that most people and businesses don't make this distinction. All the office building that I regularly visit don't allow e-cig use either.
dell30rb
Final Approach
Guys I know who smoke cigars, do so about once or twice a month.
Cigarette smokers typically smoke several per day, at all hours.
Alexb2000
En-Route
I remember the cool kids in my High School all hung out in our school sanctioned smoking area. Your parents had to send a note saying it was OK for you to smoke (which many did). I imagine now they lock up a parent for that.
One of my former clients Miller Brewing allowed smoking (owned by RJR for a time). Nothing like having a meeting at 10am with a guy holding a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Great people though, hard working, and dedicated. I loved going there, as opposed to many of the enlightened companies that though having employees stand across the street in the rain to smoke was better.
Now I understand some employers are asking applicants if they smoke and screening them out if they answer yes. So what's next?
One of my former clients Miller Brewing allowed smoking (owned by RJR for a time). Nothing like having a meeting at 10am with a guy holding a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Great people though, hard working, and dedicated. I loved going there, as opposed to many of the enlightened companies that though having employees stand across the street in the rain to smoke was better.
Now I understand some employers are asking applicants if they smoke and screening them out if they answer yes. So what's next?
If no-smoking rules existed to protect the innocent bystanders from carcinogens, they wouldnt include e-cigs. There Is no exposure to carcinogens from someone vaping next to you on board of a commercial flight. They would also not include places like bars where people go to voluntarily engage in adult activities.
The rules exist because the temperance league who wants to tell others how to live won.
What is next ? Asking female applicants for their sterilization certificate. Not hiring smokers keeps down the cost in a self funded health plan. The same rationale can be made for not hiring fertile women.
Anthony
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Anthony
Bingo! The dangers of second hand smoke are also really overblown. Where I work, you can be FIRED for smoking in sight of someone in the buildings. So, even if you are off the property, it is still a violation.
I am not, nor have I ever been a smoker, btw.
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Bob Noel
strawman argument fallacy.
Given that no-smoking rules existed prior to e-cigs (to the best of my knowledge), you have to show the motivation for tacking e-cigs on.
wrt second-hand smoke, for sure and for certain second-hand smoke isn't healthy. I don't understand the people who claim there is no hazard or harm to second-hand smoke.
Yes, but it reduces liabilities in the defined benefit pension plan!
In the early 2000s I worked for a European company (major financial group) that permitted smoking in individual offices. If meetings involved all smokers (which I was, at the time) we would meet in a dedicated smoking room. A few years later I worked for a brewing conglomerate that gave out free beer from 5-7 plus a case of your choice each month, and provided an indoor smoking area adjacent to the bar. It wasn't really abused - I suspect people knew better than to get a reputation for taking advantage of it every day.
TangoWhiskey
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I only smoke when I think too hard. My bride will walk past and say "your ears are smoking again". Brain gets hot, I guess.
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Scott@KTYR
My first plane (Piper 140) had ash trays in the arm rest. I cannot imagine being in small 4 seat airplane with a smoker.
The fact that e-cigs are being tacked on and that one-man bar enterprises were forced to impose non-smoking rules despite the fact that they had no employees to protect demonstrates that the arguments used to impose smoking bans were a pretense.
Sure, second hand smoke is harmful. There is no second hand smoke with e-cigs.
Anthony
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Anthony
I know several people who weened themselves off of cigarettes, and stopped smoking altogether using E-cigs.
In many european companies you can buy wine or beer in the cafeteria, sometimes even in vending machines. The alcoholics won't buy their beer in the cafeteria as it is too expensive and those who enjoy a drink with lunch have the opportunity to do so.
German brewers traditionally paid (and many still do) a daily beer allowance as part of the wage structure. It is taxed as a cash-value benefit and shows up on the W2 equivalent. In the old days, they would take their beer home in a growler at the end of the shift, nowadays you have a 'beer account' and you can pick up about one case every week at one of their distributors. In reality, few brewery workers drink that much beer, so they will often save up 50 or 100liters and pick up a keg if one of their buddies has a garden party.
Patches, chewing gum, e-cigs I dont care how. I dont have an issue with e-cigs. I have an issue with hypocrites who tell me that this is about second hand smoke and not about telling others what to do.
Rigged4Flight
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Rigged4Flight
Not the same at all.I find it funny how anti-smokers can also be pro-pot. It's like a Catholic professing to be pro-abortion.
Mental gymnastics like that must hurt a person's head!
Cigarette smoking was so universal a few years ago that you literally couldn't exist in the business world without coming home at the end of the day smelling like crap.
I don't see pot smoking ever being that prevalent. And even if it became as popular as cigarettes, it would most likely have even more restrictions than the current smoking rules, so it's even less of an issue for non-smokers/tokers.
Classic German efficiency. I have to convert my W-2 wages to beer in a separate step, getting double-taxed into the bargain.
The nanny-state's immediate extension of smoking bans to e-cigs just proves that the "reasons" for the ban (second-hand smoke effects, particularly on business employees) were highly distilled bnllsnit. E-cigs have none of the same third party effects, but were banned all the same; even easier because of the precedent from the prior ban. The reason for the tobacco ban, and its immediate extension to e-cigs, was to "de-normalize" smoking; because the elites said so. The left doesn't care what you do, so long as its mandatory.
I come at this from a somewhat unique perspective. I like to play poker. Every major poker room in the US had gone non-smoking long before such bans were commonly implemented. Those that did not traded on being the "smoking poker room" alternative. All this happened for only one reason: its the way the majority of the players wanted it. Too bad every person and business can't have that freedom.
It's paternalistic for sure, but I think the dig at 'the left' is gratuitous given the diverse legislatures that have passed full or partial bans. Most of the remaining state holdouts are certainly right-leaning, but several are also tobacco producers.
steingar
Taxi to Parking
Freedom my six! There is nothing more stupid that you can do with your money than buy cigarettes. Nothing. Throwing your money on a fire is more useful, you'll get some heat out of the deal and you won't POISON YOURSELF.
I don't like government overreach any more than even the most die-hard conservatives here, but second hand smoke is really bad for you. If you want you can label that "settled science" and diatribe away, but it is science that has a long and very experimental background supporting it. If you don't believe it you can go join the Flat Earth society, I don't give a rat's six. The other guy's "freedom" stops when he starts poisoning me.
Vaping is just trading one addiction for another. Even so, I dislike bans on the activity since it doesn't harm me. That said, I cannot tell you the number of times I've heard friends and colleagues dismissively talk about E-cigarrette users as pathetic addicts, and how low-rent they are. Why anyone would want to subject themselves to that is beyond me.
I don't like government overreach any more than even the most die-hard conservatives here, but second hand smoke is really bad for you. If you want you can label that "settled science" and diatribe away, but it is science that has a long and very experimental background supporting it. If you don't believe it you can go join the Flat Earth society, I don't give a rat's six. The other guy's "freedom" stops when he starts poisoning me.
Vaping is just trading one addiction for another. Even so, I dislike bans on the activity since it doesn't harm me. That said, I cannot tell you the number of times I've heard friends and colleagues dismissively talk about E-cigarrette users as pathetic addicts, and how low-rent they are. Why anyone would want to subject themselves to that is beyond me.
Jay Honeck
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Sorry, why's that?
And what bad habits might steingar have that others might find deplorable?
Ghery
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Ghery Pettit
Thinking back to the 1980s...
The company I worked for basically shut down at 4 pm every Friday for beer bust. Beer, soft drinks, munchies. People would ask how we could afford to stop working at 4 every Friday. Who said anything about stopping work? It was amazing the engineering problems you could solve over a beer on Friday afternoon. The president of the company was dumb like a fox. And we loved him.
Now, I can take credit for that same company going smoke free. I was in charge of building a new lab (10 meter RF semi-anechoic chamber). The lab was equipped with a fire suppression system that would trigger on smoke. Very little smoke. So I banned smoking in the lab to prevent false triggering of the fire suppression system. Our director thought that was such a good idea that he banned smoking in the entire building. High management thought that was such a good idea that they banned smoking indoors company wide. So, it was all my fault that Tandem Computers went smoke free indoors in late 1989 / early 1990.
The company I worked for basically shut down at 4 pm every Friday for beer bust. Beer, soft drinks, munchies. People would ask how we could afford to stop working at 4 every Friday. Who said anything about stopping work? It was amazing the engineering problems you could solve over a beer on Friday afternoon. The president of the company was dumb like a fox. And we loved him.
Now, I can take credit for that same company going smoke free. I was in charge of building a new lab (10 meter RF semi-anechoic chamber). The lab was equipped with a fire suppression system that would trigger on smoke. Very little smoke. So I banned smoking in the lab to prevent false triggering of the fire suppression system. Our director thought that was such a good idea that he banned smoking in the entire building. High management thought that was such a good idea that they banned smoking indoors company wide. So, it was all my fault that Tandem Computers went smoke free indoors in late 1989 / early 1990.
Well, there is a difference in how the smoke smells. Those clove cigarettes are bloody awful. But that's beside the point. Far more common in my experience are "smoking" areas that exclude cigar & pipe smokers. I've never seen a smokers' lounge exclude cigarettes.
WoooPigSooie
Pre-Flight
Just because you're "pro-pot" doesn't mean you're a smoker of pot. There are countless ways to ingest THC, whereas cigarettes have to be smoked to be ingested. In fact, you can be pro-pot, and hate any and all types of smoke. See how that works?
There are also many people who are pro-pot (and not even users) because of the cost of criminalization to the citizens both financially and socially. Currently the US spends $10 Billion/year criminalizing marijuana, and yearly arrests are more than murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault combined. It's beyond goofy that it's classified as a Sched. 1 drug. What's a Sched. 1 drug? "The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical treatment use in the U.S." Ha.
So it doesn't take a mental giant (to borrow from you) to easily see how one could be pro-pot and anti-cigarette.
Well reasoned. Might even be correct, occasionally, on a limited and case-by-case basis.
All the same, if I'm playing the odds, or need to characterize the movement as a whole, the stoner in California with a 'prescription' for 'medical' marijuana is indistinguishable from a recreational user, and is no stranger to smoking as their THC delivery method.
ChrisK
En-Route
Actually, you can refuse to hire people who smoke, drink, ski, or play water polo on their own time. There are in fact still freedoms in this country, including deciding whom one hires.
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Drake the Outlaw
Anti smoking regs exist because it isn't right for a smoker to subject others to second hand smoke. That's why we have anti-smoking regulations in public parks, schools, etc. On private property (like restaurants or shopping centers), I don't see why capitalism and consumer choice aren't allowed to make the decision. Personally, I won't go to a place of business that allows smoking, and there are plenty of others like me. But if a bar owner wants to cater to a different crowd, I say let him.
That was the situation before bans became widespread. The market spoke, and there were very few 100% non-smoking bars.