Wharfinger, I draw your attention to the case of well-loved
British TV personality
Roy Castle, who died a few years back from
lung cancer. A
life-long non-smoker, he had spent many years doing stand-up and the like in
clubs, as a consequence of which he inhaled sufficient quantities of
second-hand smoke to kill him. And of course, this is only a well-publicised case. The statistics are left as an exercise for the reader.
And if you feel you have a right to poison people with
tobacco smoke, why draw the line there? Heck, let's just break out the
asbestos dust and various other environmental contaminants.
Curiously enough, the world does not exist solely for your personal gratification. And passive smoking kills people all over the
world, so take your rant against the
American government somewhere where people will care.
Wharfinger: Thank you for taking the time out to rubbish my opinion. If we're going to talk about anecdotal evidence, how about this: your initial paragraph consists entirely of
hyperbole and
ad hominem comments. I had intended principally to highlight one case, one well-documented case, in which a person had died from lung cancer which was, in his case, almost indubitably caused by
passive smoking. I strongly resent your use of the term '
religious dogma' to describe my views - indeed, it is my impression that this is intended to be
ad hominem as well. And I did notice that you were talking about American society as a whole, but it seemed to be the
government's health warning you objected to, because (shock! horror!) obeying it might lead you to be more considerate to others, so I made my reference to the government explicitly. After all, in
the oldest democracy in the world, isn't the government merely a symptom of society?
And your quip about the rest of the world is simply crass, and arguably racist, joke or no joke.
Ahab: I take your point that the issue is not clear cut. However, the example I initially cited shows that there is a
certain amount of evidence for my case. And in any case, smoking in public
is both offensive and damaging to the health of others - even if only slightly.