Smokers and Democrats

(a) Actually, marijuana was not banned "just because"; it was banned because the hemp plant was found to be a much cheaper source of paper than trees and the Hearst dynasty bought a few politicians because they, the Hearsts, didn't want to lose their investment in all those South American trees they had just bought up real cheap.

(b) Who's going to ban tobacco? The Democrats (whether for good, bad, or indifferent) are in the minority and so cannot do much of anything. The Republicans: (a) are in the majority in both houses of Congress; (b) occupy the White House; and (c) have a majority on the Supreme Court. So they can (whether for good, bad, or indifferent) do whatever they want. The problem here, Molly Mayfield, is that neither the President nor the Southern Republicans in Congress want to throw away the Republican Party's Solid South base. Besides, the Republicans wouldn't want to take on Big Tobacco because it would be perceived as an anti-business move on their part, which would further anger their party base.

 

News flash

The constitution is a document between the government and the people.

This entire story is about a private employer emposing his will on his workers. WalMart does this every day by slaving their $5.15 an hour drones (without benefits). What this employer is stating is a policy. Much like the policy I agreed to when I signed the acceptance letter at the company I work for. In exchange for a pretty good paycheck, I agree not to engage in unlawful or lawful drug use that would inhibit my ability to function at work. (mainly because I work around highly toxic chemicals).

You can either take it or leave it.

I have an IQ of 142 (according to my cousin who used me as a subject in her Phd thesis). That is not surprising as you have to have a high measure of intelligence for the job that I am doing. (advanced plasma and device physics). Unfortunately, having a high IQ does not mean you have a high EI (emotional intelligence). To do something that you know will kill you and others around you -- and not take simple precautions, is a symptom of a low EI.

If you choose to smoke and die (and you will), then go for it. Just don't take anyone else with you. (either figuratively or financially).

 

I am aware of why MJ was banned. Predujuice against Hispanics was another reason. (big alchohol producers).

Should MJ be banned? Good question. Personally I think it should be regulated just like any other drug of choice. You will find that in almost every western nation where MJ is legal (or tolerated), the degree of abuse is much lower than ours.

I don't smoke because I do not wish to. I drink very little because I don't wish to. Even if MJ was legal, I wouldn't indulge, and I doubt the amount of drug use would increase significantly.

But then again, this topic is about a private employer and tobacco. Sorry to hijack the thread!

 

Ted,

Try reading and settling your emotions.

I stated for those who currently DO NOT SMOKE and choose to light up after all the PROVEN factoids about smoking have to be lacking overall common sense.

As far as my relatives they began smoking in the 1930's and 1950's before the hazardous information was found.

Lastly, I stated I agree with the smoking laws in regard to public places, job's, etc. I do not agree with the government regulating your private property. I.E you home in front of the computer.

Back to my relatives. My grandfather was diagnosed failing lungs and had a major heart attack in 1971. He was told if he continued to smoke he would die. After 52 years of non-filter Chesterfields, over packs of day, he quit cold turkey. He died in 1982. 11 years on 50% heart strength.

Maybe you should give it up too.... I hope you do....

 

In other words, are you then essentially agreeing that it is okay for your employer to pump a bunch of toxic chemicals into you on his time but it is not okay for you to pump a bunch of toxic chemicals into yourself on your own time??? Hmmm.

 

What I said is that any job (regardless of whether it is $5.15/hour, $51.50/hour, $515/hour, $5,150/hour, $51,500/year, $515,000/year, or $5.15 million/year) should be paid in straight cash and let each individual decide how to spend same. Those who need health insurance can spend part of their paychecks on that. Those who need tuition money can pay for that out of their own paychecks. And those who don't care for either health insurance or tuition can spend their money on something else. As for WalMart "drones" making $5.15/hour, perhaps this happens because it does not take any exceedingly high skill level to run a cash register or put merchandise on a shelf. In other words, since being a WalMart drone is a relatively low skill level type of job, nearly anybody can do it and hence the potential supply of WalMart workers is much larger than the supply of, say, potential nuclear engineers. Hence since the supply of WalMart workers relative to demand is much larger than the supply of nuclear engineers relative to demand, the prospective nuclear engineer is much more likely to get a job (and a higher wage) than the prospective WalMart worker.

 

Ugh - why do I bother McFly?

The Semi business is a toxic business. If you had any clue of what it takes to make an IC (hence, the heart of the very computer that you are using right now), you would understand. But hence, you apparently do not.

To make most industrial products, a certain amount of toxic susbstances are used. If you know what you are doing and are careful, you don't get hurt (in 22 years, I have not had a major incident).

My employer has trained me on the risks and how to deal with them. Sure, accidents due occur, but it is not like smoking (you will die from it if you don't from other things first).

Risk is part of almost every profession. You risk being shot as a cop - but have the training to try to manage that risk. You risk being shot when you work at the Post Office (apparently, they haven't figured that one out yet - lol). You are even exposed to risk as a WalMart worker (you have the risk of being BSed to death by a heartless corporation with the morals of Bill Clinton)

 

Re: Ted,

I agree with you 100%. I think it was President Nixon who on TV said that smoking was not addicting and wasn´t bad for your health.

 

For that money you could have had Sir Arthur Evans writing it for you at your dictate. And have spare money for several field trips to Creta to inspect the place together.....

 

Ted H: "...and all of it in the long green stuff."

nosborne: Naw. I want specie, damn it, not fraudulant legal tender IOUs that no longer even pretend to say I.O.U. Either GOLD or SILVER or notes backed 100% by those metals. FDR committed a grave and useless error by going off the gold standard. Like all monetarist activities (think Alan Greenspan), deliberately inflating or deflating the currency by adjusting the gold content or abandoning it altogether does nothing but rob ordinary people of their savings. And fiat currency allows endless government control over things where the government doesn't belong. For all of MY lifetime, taxes went up and up with no vote or public debate. How? By deliberate inflation.

I call the spirit of Antonin Scalia through the medium of little fauss to my aid. (Can you DO this when the spirit is still alive??)

SURELY the meaning and intent of the Framers was to AVOID PAPER MONEY?

 

Unfortunately, Sir Arthur died two decades before my parents became aware of my impending arrival.

 

Indeed, setting one's lungs on fire is a slow form of suicide.

But so also is getting one's liver and brain totally soused in alcohol so one can get really bad headaches in the morning and feel like shyte and eventually kill enough brain cells to give one the delerium tremens and then kill enough liver cells to give one cirrhosis and all that good fun happy stuff.

Or one could just eat a lot of McDonald's greaseburgers and eventually, as one's financial situation improves, trade up to more elite gourmet methods of clogging one's arteries.

Or a guy could just become a total gutter-slut, sleep around without protection, and die of whatever dread sex diseases might be available at the time.

And I am sure that there are lots of other options.

But --- and this is something that modern man seems to narcissistic to understand --- WE'VE ALL GOT TO DIE SOME TIME. So let each choose his own death.

 

For that kind of money he would have waited

 

Re: Ted,

Well, let's see here. I started smoking on September 3, 1987, one month and three weeks after taking up employment as a drill press operator in a steel fabrication shop. My main motivation was to prove to some fifteen or twenty hardened steelworkers that the allegedly wimpy-arse college boy was just as much a real man as any of them. Seemed to make sense at the time. And, of course, all of those second-hand welding fumes that floated over to my drill press would have eventually gotten me anyway.

 

Yes, definitely. If you smoke because you truly want to, because you enjoy the taste of cigarettes, and not because you can´t quit it, then I understand. Pollution, alcohol, drugs, saturated fat food are as bad. The problem (at least that´s my experience) is that tobacco also negatively affected my life. I had constant cravings, I couldn´t do much exercise in spite of enjoying it, I burnt holes in my clothes, I had to leave buildings to smoke a cigarrette, I literally couldn´t do nothing without having a ciggie between my fingers. Now, after two years without them, I think I can concentrate much better, I do 30 Km in a bike each day, I am truly a sex machine , it increased my self confidence (and am more optimistic to undertake difficult challenges), and I have some more money. For me it worked. I just regret I didn´t do it early. I admit I miss it every once in a while. But the thought disappears as quick as it came. But again if you enjoy it, and you don´t want to quit, I understand and I respect your decision.

Regards

 

You opened the door on that one & as they say in law school, if you're going to open that door, you had better know what's behind it!

You wrote: "Smoking is not a right." You would have been technically correct had you written: "The Constitution of the United States never explicitly says that there is a constitutional right to smoke."

However, the Founding Fathers probably omitted the right to smoke from the Bill of Rights because that & so many other rights not enumerated in the Constitution were so obvious that it did not need to be spelled out (at least to people who had actual common sense). The Ninth Amendment was included in order to make it plain to activist judges & political zealots that rights that were already assumed to exist at the founding would still exist even after the adoption of the Constitution.

Government is not, nor should it be, a creator of rights. This is because Government, though it was allegedly created to protect rights, actually tends to arrogate power unto itself & power corrupts & absolute power corrupts absolutely & the Founders understood this. Besides, even if the Government could create rights & was willing to do so, always remember & never forget that the lord giveth & the lord taketh away.

 

Re: Ted,

Don't be fooled - the dangers of smoking were known by the 40's. Why do you think so many people, even then, called them "coffin nails"?

Also, as far as second hand smoke, my husband is a researcher on respriation. While it may not cause cancer, it may turn out to be even more dangerous than has been so far reported. He is so convinced of that that he thinks smoking with a child in the car should be considered child abuse!

 

Okay, my memory is a bit fuzzy here, but didn't Queen Elizabeth I complain about smoking as a filthy, unhealthy habit? And THAT would have been about the time the noxious weed first appeared in England.

Also, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has Dr. Watson describe Sherlock Holmes as a "self poisoner by cocaine and tobacco" around 1900.

Of course the Framers would not have outlawed the horrible stuff...tobacco was actually used as currency in the Colonies and remained a major cash crop in the young Republic.

I don't think ANYONE could honestly ever have doubted tobacco's many ill effects at any time in its doleful history.

 

Not only that, but her cousin and heir James I wrote a book entitled _A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco_.

Of course tobacco was used as legal tender money in the early history of the United States. That's so that every year lots of freshman history students (and even some graduate students in history) can get a kick out of finding out that early Virginia preachers were paid in tobacco.

Just like many young grad students in history got a kick out of finding out the Sigmund Freud had a set of writings called _The Cocaine Papers_.

 

Ted:

Thanks for the James I citation.

In ANY event, I've never understood these tobacco settlements. Since the, what, mid '60s? evey pack of cigarettes carried a strong health warning. EVERYONE knew that the habit is deadly.

Furthermore, the state governments who are now demanding restitution for public health costs of smoking collected MAJOR taxes on cigarette sales! If anything, the states THEMSELVES are to blame as much as the companies are.