If we want to reduce healthcare costs immediately, there should be a nationwide ban on public smoking. 47 percent less heart attacks in the whole country... that would save billions in healthcare costs immedately... right?

Can you imagine what would happen if they not only banned smoking but taxed the hell out of red meat? Heart disease would plummet.

/people who hate smoking but love big-macs tearing into me in 3...2....1....

@moore850: Wrong. You'd just create a new marijuana. People are going to use regardless, so it's better to keep it legal so that the use can be regulated.

@Darklighter: He's not saying it should be illegal in general, just no smoking allowed in public.

@mizike: How would banning red meat lower heart attacks for people who don't eat red meat?

@Darklighter: He's not eliminating it, just eliminating the public use.

@mizike: Nah, they'd just have to overdose on their cholesterol through other means. And trust me, there are plenty of other means.

@mizike: The person next to me eating a burger does not affect me the same way a person that is smoking does. In this case the "user" of cigarettes or meat would be left to only affect themselves at home.

@mizike: I eat read meat but don't smoke, so I don't know the answer to this question; what's a safe level of smoke that I can expose myself to before I start putting myself at risk?

I understand why the cigarette industry still exists and why smoking or selling commercial cigarettes at all hasn't just been banned outright, but I am at the same time completely perplexed by their continual existence in Western society.

High five for a smoker free continent!

If you don't like it, don't go where people smoke. Don't work where people smoke. This was supposed to be a free country.

This article explains why that study has no scientific merit [www.spiked-online.com]

@lawnmowerdeth: Yeah, it IS supposed to be a free country. I'm supposed to be free of smokers trying their best to kill me.

Here is an excerpt if you don't want to read the whole article:

"Flawed though it may have been, the Helena research was followed by several studies that displayed such a cavalier approach to the scientific process that they bordered on the comical. Researchers in Bowling Green, Ohio, for example, saw a large rise in heart attacks during the first year of the smoking ban. Side-stepping this awkward fact, they simply redefined year two of the ban as the 'real' post-ban period and, since that year followed an abnormal peak, there was naturally a decline in the heart attack rate. As a consequence, the researchers could triumphantly declare that the smoking ban had led to a 47 per cent reduction in heart attacks (6)."

@lawnmowerdeth: What are you supposed to do when smokers are everywhere? Not work? Not go out at all?

I just want to add that I 100% support these smoking bans, but throwing around false and misleading information only undermines the cause in the end. Sorry for all the posts.

@karmaghost: There is no safe level. Any amount of exposure is a potential risk. Slight exposures, however, are obviously much smaller risks than heavy exposure.

@lawnmowerdeth: You mean that because they moved my office at work to share that of a smoker (who continuously smells like smoke, which isn't exactly good for my allergies), that I should quit? Or that I shouldn't use the entrance to the building where I work because I have to walk through a cloud of smoke to get in? Please tell me what your brilliant plan to circumvent the only door to my building is.

@Oranges w/ Cheese wants it to be winter already: The brain's made (partly) of cholesterol. True story!

@lawnmowerdeth: My employer cannot tell people that they cannot smoke. He is not allowed to fire someone for smoking in their free time. This means that people come to work smelling of cigarette smoke. He also cannot control what happens outside our building. Since I have to get the mail, I have to walk past people who work at other companies who are outside on their breaks smoking. Should I quit my job just because people at other companies smoke? And what do I put on my next job application for "reason for leaving"?

What?? Consumerist.com is a consumer blog not a habit ban pusher?

Is this on someone's agenda to further the cause that won't be won?

@Darklighter: I don't think tobacco would be the new marijuana if banned. I doubt people would go through all that work to just score some tobacco. I bet most would quit.

@Wally East: By not allowing so many hormones in our water and by not requiring so many trucks on the road spewing out toxins to pick up cows, deliver cows, pick up cow parts, deliver cow parts, etc.

And you know that nice (to some) smokey char smell that emanates out of all McDonald's and other burger joints? Carcinogenic. Completely.

@lawnmowerdeth: As a person who doesn't smoke, I find smokers to be far less hysterical and bitchy than nonsmokers. You may find myriad cases in point in the responses to your post...and I'm assuming to my post.

OMG. SMOKERS ARE TRYING TO KILL ME WITH THEIR SMOKEY-SMELLING SHIRTS.

@samurailynn: Sure he can, if he's in a work at will state. He can fire people for whatever reason he wants, so long as it's not a legally prohibited reason.

However, most companies sensibly don't want to get into that, so they won't do it. But they could if they wanted.

@Rey: I don't usually bitch about people that smoke. However, I take exception to his claim of "don't go where people smoke". Why should I have to avoid the outdoors simply because you (collective you, not you) are too weak willed to stop smoking. (I used to smoke, I stopped, and now the smoke bothers me quite a bit)

@Rey: I do think that we have trouble differentiating between "I can tell you exist in my perimeter in a way I don't like" (see "A fat person on a plane touched me!") and "My health is endangered by what you do." I think the problem, though, is we have difficulty talking about these things in etiquette terms, so we turn to rights and health.

But ultimately I think that there's not much beyond breathing that you can assume you're always entitled to do everywhere, and that smoking "bans" are actually a return to older customs of smoking being an activity that happened in certain places and times, not constantly.

@Harry Manback: That comment was mostly about bars that allow it.

A doctor once admitted to me that an occasional cigarette does not approach the damage inflicted by the amount of vehicle exhaust I inhale here in Chicago.

So can we pass a law limiting or banning driving, especially in the Loop? I don't smoke, but every time an Explorer belches past me I feel like the nonsmoking matters less and less.

@Darklighter: However even in this case, people would abuse tobacco much more sparingly - even if you reduced the number of cigarettes and average smoker consumed by 1 or 2 a day you would find a significant decrease in the way of smoking mortality (especially amongst men.)

Moreover, it would seriously curtail second hand smoke in public places. No one would walk down the street with a lit cigarette blowing toxins in everyone's face.

@lawnmowerdeth: Exactly it is a free country. So if smokers want to smoke, then "don't go where people don't smoke. Don't work where people don't smoke." (Fixed it for you.)

The point is that when people choosing to do a particular action that endangers people around them, the people choosing to do that action should rightfully be the ones who must curtail their activities in such a way that they don't harm others. It should not be the case that those who do not wish to be harmed must curtail their activities to avoid the harm.

Or more simply put: you have a right to swing your fist around, but that right ends if my face is where you happen to want to swing.

I don't think smoking should be banned outright. I do however think that smoking could be more effectively curtailed if it were legal in the same way that marijuana smoking is legal (in some states.)

Eventually make the purchase of tobacco dependent on having a recommendation for such from a physician. This would not be implementable from the start largely because it would penalize poor and disenfranchised smokers from the outset. So for the first year the law was operational, smokers (over 18) would be allowed to simply come to an agency and have their urine tested for nicotine metabolites. If it is positive, they are given a smoking card without cost. This would fairly well ensure that all smokers over 17 would be able to get a card free of cost that allows them to purchase up to 3 packs per day in perpetuity.

After that first year, all people who wish to have such a smoking card must get a form signed by a physician allowing it and stating precisely how many cigarettes the patient is allowed per day. This number could be maintained or it could be decreased gradually (much like methadone to abstinence or for maintenance.) Moreover the number could be increased as well at the discretion of the physician (for example a smoker has been smoking a friend's 'extras' and gets in over their head).

This would certainly not curtail the smoking of tobacco by current adult smokers, and it would even allow for people to make their consumption legal if they started on illicit tobacco. But it would mean that being a smoker would involve a greater cost (mostly in time and bother.)

This would vastly curtail youth (or 'replacement smokers' as the tobacco companies refer to them) taking up the addiction. It would also take away the counterculture appeal of tobacco. Kid would see smokers as addicts to be pitied rather than cool adults to be emulated. It would also help patients with quit attempts. For example a patient might be a 1.5 ppd smoker and want to quit, so as part of that plan they see their doctor and they both agree that the smoker's allotment would be decreased by 5 cigarettes per day for the first month, then 5 more, etc.

(By way of full disclosure I am a non-smoker with asthma and a physician who often does similar things for his patients that use marijuana.)

@Oranges w/ Cheese wants it to be winter already: Like cheese! Or delicious eggs. Or cream sauces. Mmmmmm lots of non-meat ways to be deliciously unhealthy. I don't eat meat, and I still eat lots of sinful high fat and high cholesterol foods. :-)

@moore850: What's public smoking? Sitting on my front porch having a cigarette? Driving in my car on some Interstate and having a cigarette? Standing out in the middle of a field and having a cigarette?

20% of Americans smoke. That's 60 million people. If Uncle Nanny wants to ban smoking, tomorrow it can ban red meat, or sugar, or alcohol. Oh wait, we tried that once and created organized crime and the Kennedy fortune.

@NickelMD: I truly believe that 50% of all physicians finished in the bottom half of their class in medical school. I won't accept a prescription from my doctors without researching the drug myself. Do you seriously think that I'm going to pee in some cup to have a cigarette? You'll be fortunate if I don't pee on your shoes...while smoking.

I see that the Pleasure Police uses what ever venue is available to further their invective. I knew that The Consumerist was aligned with the left (the Hummer/ticket post proved it) but I had no idea how far they would go in their never ending quest to piss people off until this piece.

@Wally East: No one is trying to kill you - maybe if you lay off the burritos at Taco Bell you stand a better chance of increasing carbon emissions by continuing to breathe.

@gemetzel: Ack. How about a Prius free continent?

@H3ion: I'm not a cigarette smoker. However, I will support anyone that wants to smoke because we're supposed to live in a free country. I'm sick to death of the morality police trying to legislate what I can or cannot do.

@Julia789: @mizike: Honestly, how does someone eating red meat affect everyone else?

Cons: @Rey, yeah cuts down on hormone useage and sewage that can contaminate groundwater, especially during heavy rains or snowmelt: [www.nytimes.com]
Also, cows release a lot of methane, which affects us all, including those too poor for a Big Mac. And consume a lot of feed and water, which is a big or small deal depending on if you want food prices to go up or down. Water is more scarce some places compared to others, i.e. Southern California vs. Western Washington.
Cows serve as a source of cross-communication (as any domesticated animal, including my beloved cat) of disease. We probably received measles (in cattle it's called rinderpest), tuberculosis and smallpox (cowpox) from the our bovine servants (source: Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, in the aptly named chapter, "Lethal Gift of Livestock".

Pros: Cows are so damned cute. Especially the little ones.
Leather.
Meat is an excellent source of fuel if a person wishes to utilize it as such. When we hike, we pack pre-cooked sausages as a source of protein and fat in our bear canisters, and when eaten with pasta or potatoes provides very sustaining fuel for the next day. Meat is of practical value to those who have physically demanding jobs or exercise heavily. Now, similar benefits can be had by combining starches, legumes and peanuts, so it's not essential.
Dairy products - good for the bones.
It's a livelihood for a segment of the population.
The aurochs (the ancestor of the modern cow) is one of the primary reasons we have civilization today, right up there with wheat.

@samurailynn: And what do I put on my next job application for "reason for leaving"?

How about that you're an anal retentive whiner that doesn't play well with others?

@FrugalFreak: The Consumerist frequently takes on issues that are not necessarily consumer-related. It furthers the agenda of the far left and forgets about the rights of the American citizen to do as they wish. Chris Walters took on an issue early in his tenure that was clearly leftist and he was summarily pilloried for his opinion.

The more The Consumerist takes on these NPR-type lifestyle personal attacks - the more The Consumerist is taken less seriously for consumerist issues.

@gemetzel: And as long as you can score The Chronic you're cool, amiright, dude?

@jmurphy42: Specious comment at best. Cite references (and include timely pics) or it's all crap.

FWIW, I started smoking at a time when smoking was not only allowed, it was encouraged. Smoking was permitted on buses, in theaters, ball parks, on airplanes (why do you think there were ash trays built into the seat handles), subways and even in elevators. I was taught that one shouldn't smoke where it bothered other people, so I didn't.

Now, I don't smoke in my office or in my house (but I do smoke outside which reduces my efficiency by about 45 minutes per day, 15 minutes per cigarette), I smoke in my car when I don't have passengers and I smoke outdoors, although not in a crowd.

Now if the government wants to make smoking illegal, or tax it out of existence, that's fine but I wonder where the tax dollars are going to come from to replace the taxes 60 million Americans pay when they buy cigarettes. I also wonder what's going to happen when 60 million Americans are told they have to quit, and a substantial number can't without other adverse effects. Are we going to have cigarettes being passed in alleys? Are we going to have shootings over whose territory it is where one can sell or buy cigarettes?

This is one of those "be careful what you wish for" issues. You don't want to smoke? Fine. Don't. You want to smoke? Go for it as long as you're not invading others with your smoke. It's not complicated. It's just good manners.

@NewsMuncher: Oh, Jesus. You tree-hugging Druids need to get a life.

@Harry Manback: I smoked cigarettes for 18 years - haven't had one since Thanksgiving Day, 1996. I don't like cigarette smoke, or having it come through my air conditioner in my car on a hot day, but I don't bitch about it or try to infringe on the rights of others.

Seriously, you people need to put on your big boy pants and get over it.

@Rey: And you know that nice (to some) smokey char smell that emanates out of all McDonald's and other burger joints? Carcinogenic. Completely.

How do you know that? Did you read it somewhere, are you going by anecdotal evidence, or are you just making it up?