Finally...

[mothwing]

Yay! Sense!

Well, sense in installments.

Seems as though our dearest Länder have finally been able to agree on most (!) parts of a country-wide smoking ban in public places such as bars, discos, schools, kindergartens (?! WTF? That was ALLOWED??), etc. No word on universities, though. TYPICAL! I am about just to hang up No Smoking signs surreptitiously and then see what happens.
However, smokers will still be allowed to smoke in designated smoking rooms. And those bars not able to provide their guests with a smoking room will be allow smoking in their bars, but there will be a sign with a large "R" on those.

The idiocy... What on earth is so difficult about understanding that if something is dangerous for the person addicted AND others it should not be done in the presence of those it can be harmful for as well? The whole debate is absolutely ridiculous, and there are absolutely no pro-arguments whatsoever on the pro-smoking side.
Most people engaging in the debates did not manage to support their points, and how would they, because there ARE no arguments for it. There are smoking bans in other countries and those are working fine, WHY does it have to be Germany, as always, in which there is a huge, long, wordy debate about everything, in which the most brain dead things are being said in support of a insupportable argument?

It was sooo aggravating to be forced to see so clearly that some of the people in charge of my country have so little in their heads. I cringed at some of those arguments, seriously. They all boiled down to, "Well, it has always been done this way, there is no reason to change it", or to "Well, it is part of a good culture to smoke while drinking wine, it would do damage to our culture if we banned smoking in restaurants", or to "It is a discrimination of addicted people if we exclude them from society!", or even to: "Well, seems as though one of our most reliable institutes had shown us significant evidence supporting the theory that passive smoking indeed does lead to lung cancer, but it could STILL be wrong!"

... but those are MY LUNGS! Ahem. It really started hurting after a while.

Comments

[dstroyrofworlds.livejournal.com]

Being a goth...WHATEVER!
I would be sooo glad if smoking was not allowed in discos.
Gothic discos are often full of fake mist, that's okay, I guess.
Any many goths either smoke or try to kill themselves by smoking but it certainly doesn't meant that they are allowed to kill me too.

Perhaps it is my age, my generation. I'll have to rescue the world from my own folks for being so stupid to think that environmentalism can wait. And I will have to build a whole new believe because the old one proved to be stupid and dangerous: doing something unhealthy or fobidden is cool.
No. It is not. And I seriously hope we will, now, be able to change the world. Being healthy is cool. Being sensible is cool. Being nice is cool (and it should have always been). I know it sounds stupid in that row of things I mentioned, but we should not forget that being mortal is not uncool either. As well as getting old.

I hope one day smoking will be forbidden, completely.
Or even better: If one day it won't be necessary anymore to forbide it.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Absolutely! I keep having discussions on that with teenagers. "Blah, blah, we will all be dead one day, therefore I need not take care of my health today, because I feel teh payne! We live and decay!" SO immature and stupid! But of course I have to take them seriously and not tell them that that's adolescent nonsense.

There was this really entertaining discussion on Sabine Christiansen once where they told one of the biggest pro-smoking lobbyists about just how much smoke was in the air in the average disco - and asked him whether he was not concerned about the safety of his daughter. He was genuinely shocked and admitted he had not known that it was SO bad. Mwehehee. He had been going on about how it would do terrible things to our "Esskultur" if they'd go and forbid smoking in restaurants. It's forbidden in Italy, now their culture clearly suffered. So idiotic.

Honestly, I wish they'd outlaw it. I never really... GOT smoking, as a drug. I got alcohol, people use it to free themselves from themselves, I got weed, that's another kind of chemical escape route, but what on earth do you inhale nicotine for??

[dstroyrofworlds.livejournal.com]

I, too, wish they'd just all...stop it. Forbid it. Erase it from earth.

I smoked some cigarettes in my life, I liked sitting with my friends smoking the water pipe but I stoped that, too. At that time I liked the taste of it but it never did any good to my body so I stoped it alltogether.
I never got either what it gives the smokers except for yellow teeth and fingers, bad breath and psychological dependence.

I love the "Esskultur" but I never, ever saw SMOKING as a part of it.
That's the thing with me. Of course I knew that some people need their cigarette after having a big meal but I always pictured them going outside for smoking.
I always only saw smoking as "interfering" with the Esskultur, not being part of it.

I really must have missed something and am quite glad about it.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

The Esskultur thing disturbed me, too. I mean, I know that my father likes smoking in restaurants, but only because he HAS to smoke, anyway. He doesn't like it as part of the meal, but as a convenience - he would hate having to go outside.

I mean, at school and in certain work places there is a huuuuge social component - if you are not willing to go out smoking with the smokers you just miss out on all the important decisions and developments within the groups. I'd get that as a status thing, but couldn't they have picked something less harmful? Chewing gum?

[dstroyrofworlds.livejournal.com]

I think we should work on getting rid of smoking alltogether.
It's no good for the environment and for one's health. I know, I know, I am also a bad person for saying that because of all the people (e.g. in Greece and Cuba) who bring the bacon home by planting and selling tobaco and also because of the huge amount of money it brings to the general world economy every years.
Still. I don't know what else to say but: still. It should be stoped. Completely.

Having the smokers go outside is already a good step but if I have a look at the ozon layer and its holes, not enough. And if you asked the health care programms of any country, they'd say the same.

Luckily, at my former school they had programs against smoking. They tried to tell the people that it is certainly not cool to smoke. This is where the social aspect comes in.
I bet, if we'd just get rid of the idea of smoking as something cool and social, belonging to the Esskultur (What a sick thought, I still don't get it) and also the myth that it makes people losing weight (and if so in no healthy way at all), then there would be less smokers. I guess this is where "the rabbit is burried" (roflol* Sorry, I just had to do that).

For me personally, I'd already be happy - for the moment being - if it was forbidden either in any public building, if not even in ANY building.

[duckygirlrocks.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, as a smoker myself, I know the pains of being told "hey, you can't smoke here". But I also sympathise with anyone who doesn't want this in their air. I have always supported seperate smoking facilities, and I don't think it's a bad thing to keep everyone seperated who does or doesn't want to smoke. After all, smoking or not is a choice, why shouldn't the exposure to such also be a choice?

Good luck on making it work out! I admit that my city was speaking of such a ban as well, but I'm hoping that they'll compromise with seperate smoking facilities.

I'm just a sinful lung polluter, guys. Sorry that I'm one of the masses of idiots! :)

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

*HUGS* Oooh, you're not, you're not! After all, you DO think that it should be a choice to be exposed to smoke. :)

After all, smoking or not is a choice, why shouldn't the exposure to such also be a choice?
Our pro-smoking people argue that it IS a choice to be where smokers are. :D After all, I don't HAVE to go out, or go to university. :P

I think it'd be best if smokers were only allowed to smoke outside. Most smokers I know aren't particularly fond of smoky rooms, either, so maybe that'd be the best solution?
Separate smoking facilities are probably the best solution for now, though.

[duckygirlrocks.livejournal.com]

Ooo, outside is good for me, too! I love excuses to be outside on nice days. But I was thinking indoor facilities as well because you never know what the weather will do.

What's wrong with the pro choice smokers?? You don't have to go to university...what kind of guff is that??

Well sweets, I'm behind you! There CAN be a balance, and one that doesn't expose those who don't want it.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Now that sounds good. :) It really depends on where those indoor facilities are, too. I guess the people in charge of my uni would argue that in the building I'm in most of the time there ARE "separate smoking facilities", of a fashion. Smoking is prohibited on the corridors upstairs, but not in the entrance hall and the student cafes. Which means that you have to wade through thick blue mists whenever you enter the building. Bah. Really separate smoking facilities would be perrrrfectly fine by me. :)