Cigarettes?

Just for the record, I was mostly replying to his previous paragraph.

They tried outlawing alcohol but it didn't work. And the war on drugs isn't working either. I'd be in favor of outlawing alcohol, drugs, tobacco if someone could figure out how to make it work. I think a better idea is to treat addiction as a medical problem, find out why people use drugs and try to help them stop.

stupid call-out threads get stupid posts,

But I still don't understand why people worry so much about swhat other people do.

They're talking about encroachment

Having been a smoker myself years ago ( cigarettes, a pipe & cigars tho not at the same time lol ) I find that smokers don't bother me as long as they stay in the designated areas. I understand the need that some people have for a puff even tho I'm lucky enough to have quit a long time ago ( kids, please do not start smoking ).

My wife is a heart and lung patient... if we are eating in a designated
area for NON-smoking... and someone lights up..in THAT area... THEN.."the WHAT other people DO".. does... worry me... bothers me... and I will politely do something about it :)

I agree with your comment.

"There are over 190,000 deaths per year due to medical mistakes in the USA. Essentially, those are deaths at the hands of medical professionals. One can throw out all these scary statistics to get people angry, I can play that game too.

I don't need to face the "child that has lung cancer because their parents smoke" but those parents sure do. I don't smoke. I don't advocate smoking. I think you took my comment "a drop in the bucket" out of context by your following statement which assumes I don't care about the loss of life. In fact, it's quite the opposite, I care greatly about life, that is why I mentioned all those other toxins which are poisoning us on a much larger scale than second hand smoke. I guess you are one of those people that think the solution to pollution is dilution. I think the solution is elimination. How long will those toxins remain "severely dilluted?" The earth's atmosphere is a closed system.

I still hold my position that compared to all of the pollution in our environment, second hand smoke is a drop in the bucket."

Those deaths are at the hands of medical professionals? I hardly think that it is purely the surgeon's fault that a patient during surgery decides to go into cardiac arrest. Surgery saves millions of lives worldwide. If some of those surgeries have unforseen complications, it is a tragedy but not grounds to attack the medical profession. 

Did i suggest that the solution to pollution was dillution? I also did not suggest that the earth was a closed system, in case you haven't noticed it's a pretty big place. That's not to say that the pollution is widespread and in the same amount, but to get rid of all the toxins given off by factories is not an instantaneous solution.

Machines that give off greenhouses gases or toxins have saved far more people than they will ever kill with their emissions. That was the whole cause of the Green Revolution, which has saved countless lives. Am I advocating we disregard the environment entirely? Certainly not. But I am saying that prevention is a slow process, and it takes years of technological development. Smoking, however, causes more immediate damage to those around them. A person that is in the presence of second hand smoke for 5 minutes will probably absorb more toxins than the air can carry in a day, depending on where they live. 

Thank you for your response, it is thought provoking. While I agree with some of your arguments, I disagree with others. I guess it will be up to the people to decide what they will tolerate concerning second hand smoke and pollution.

I agree that second hand smoke seems like a more immediate and tangible problem to be dealt with, however, it's still a complicated issue. I believe a person has the right to smoke, and I believe a person has the right to not be inhaling second hand smoke. Like I said, In my mind it's a complicated issue. I think there is still some disagreement about the true correlations of cardiovascular/pulmonary diseases and second hand smoke. Afterall, correlation is not necessarily causation.

I was the one who said the earth was a closed system, notwithstanding the sun, of course.

To be precise, you said the earth's atmosphere is a closed system.

I do not believe this is correct (nor do I think the earth is a closed system, for that matter).

Yes, I am really hung up on this minor point. 

Astronomically speaking, the earth is not a closed system because material from space lands on our planet every day :). This can often be ignored however, and the earth AND sun is a roughly closed system. He did say excluding the sun though.

Yes, that was added on later.

If we revert back to the original statement that the earth's atmosphere is a closed system, I see even more problems.

On the lower side it freely mixes with the ocean and the continents. Evaporation, dust storms, all kinds of things.

On the upper edge, there isn't even a clear boundary between the atmosphere and space. It just kind of gradually turns into nothing.

Then we have meteors, etc.

The only perspective I can see the earth being considered a closed system from is biological (unless you believe in the more scandalous tales of aliens ).

life on earth sends gas, liquids and solids into space.

True.

I meant more along the lines of no species on earth come from outer space. 

I know but did the statement earlier suggest that nothing leaves the envelope..closed...dunno maybe i read it wrong

Ah, I see.

Yep, that would be part of closed. Nothing enters, nothing leaves.

I believe that we were all deliberately put here by a superior species of alien beings because they want to harvest our DNA. 

Or maybe they wanted to harvest our tobacco, and they all died of cancer.

I think we're all forgetting the main problem here: Smoking kills.

OOOOHHHH, YOU'RE LITTERING!!! Doesn't matter if you're DEAD

And "You gotta die somehow" is always the response. Which is a fair point.

What stops me from ever smoking is not that it kills but it degrades your life. A relative who smoked got to the point where she couldn't laugh without nearly asphyxiating. Think about not being able to go up a flight of stairs without stopping for breath, always having to worry about when you will get your next puff, having to stand outside in the freezing cold just to get your fix. It's silly to choose that life but the young and stupid don't see it coming, they just do whatever the hell feels good like a kid in a candy store.