Smoke-Free Campus (Page 2)

Out2BeALoser - 2011-06-14 8:31 AM Maybe dissenting voice here but....when are they banning alcohol since people could become alcoholics? When are they banning all the other self-damaging habits? Having banned inside buildings is one thing, it's prevents someone else's habit from negatively impacting others. But banning it outside? Sounds like trying to enforce some kind of nirvana state. What's next? Red meat because it sits in your colon for so long? Unprotected sex because you could get a STD? At what point is it none of their business what someone does within the legal boundaries of the country/state? And before it's ask...no, I don't smoke. I quit 12 years ago because it's bad for you

Per the Alcohol in many places it already is illegal to drink in public, and has been for a while. (also illegal to be drunk in public but that is different). They are different issues and it is not banned due to being self harmful but due to the potential harm to others through second hand smoke. Like I said in my earlier post, while I am a big fan of this I think that certain areas should not be restricted, as much as I hate tobaco products - such as open parks where there is room for people to get away from it. In areas around buildings, entrances/exits, windows etc, it is not always possible to get away from it so why should someone be forced to walk through a 50 foot cloud of cigarette smoke when they exit their workplace or classroom? Also while state universities might have slightly different issues to deal with I think that any business which is privately owned can set what rules they want on their property (within certain bounds).

I really don't like walking through a cloud of smoke on my way into a building. The worst place for this in my area is the mall. It is REALLY bad. Smoking in the parking lot wouldn't bother me but I hate the group of smokers outside any building and the litter of cigarette butts that comes with it.

My Mom is a smoker and works at a hospital in Denver. Last year they made this rule and she is glad. They used to smoke outside and are no longer allowed to smoke on any hospital property.

I live in Houston but technically outside the city limits there is still smoking in most restaurants we frequent.

Out2BeALoser - 2011-06-14 9:31 AM Maybe dissenting voice here but....when are they banning alcohol since people could become alcoholics? When are they banning all the other self-damaging habits? Having banned inside buildings is one thing, it's prevents someone else's habit from negatively impacting others. But banning it outside? Sounds like trying to enforce some kind of nirvana state. What's next? Red meat because it sits in your colon for so long? Unprotected sex because you could get a STD? At what point is it none of their business what someone does within the legal boundaries of the country/state? And before it's ask...no, I don't smoke. I quit 12 years ago because it's bad for you

Well, at my work we're certainly not allowed to drink.  I don't know of any professional (ie not bars/clubs etc) companies that allow daily drinking on the job anymore.

My company has a smoking ban on campus and did a cessation program a couple years before I started here.  They even paid people to quit.  And now I get a $60 a month discount on my health insurance for being a non-tobacco user.  We have very few smokers left. 

A few years ago the city of Vancouver enacted a bylaw stating that smokers had to be at least 6 meters away from any entrance... great idea except that it's never been enforced from what could see.  They've now enacted a bylaw stating that smoking on any property that is taken care of by the Parks & Rec of Vancouver... sadly I won't be around to see them not enforce this either. 

London has finally banned smoking in its restaurants and pubs, but all that means is that the smokers take their drinks and smoke right outside of the doors so that anyone entering the establishment has to run a gauntlet of cigarette smoke.  It's absolutely disgusting and I wish they had enacted a stronger law at the time.

My in-laws live in OC MD, so I spend a fair amount of time at the beach in the summer and the biggest issue for me, is that every smoker seems to think that the beach sand is the same as the sand in those outdoor ashtrays.  So you end up with hundreds of cigarette butts all over the beach.  That's just nasty.

I actually think it is because it is harmful. Not even talking long term exposure here and the risks associated with that. Someone though with asthma or even bad allergies like me, walks through a cloud of smoke and it can cause a serious negative and unhealthy reaction. I have seen this happen often enough to a friend in college (and a few other people here and there) that it is not an n=1 argument to me. And sure other things can cause these flare ups/reactions/issues but it is easier to avoid those with simple things like Air quality warnings. I look at the pollen count/warning every day because of my allergies. I have a friend with Asthma who has to do the same for Air quality. hard to find a report on clouds of cigarette smoke though.

Did people then switch to Skoal or Copenhagen then and start spitting everywhere?

If a business "should be able to [ban smoking]", shouldn't they conversely have the right to allow smoking?  It should be up to the business owner to allow or disallow smoking in his establishment.  Recent history has shown that businesses will not go under by banning smoking but how many could thrive by allowing smoking?  It should be the owner's right to decide and my responsibility to avoid places that allow smoking.

That's a very strange spin on things. If I am a non-smoker, I do not want a "choice to smoke or not". I have already made the choice. If I am a smoker who is not interested in quitting, I have also made a choice. Given the fact that I would be trapped on the ship for many days, unless I am truly an "occasional smoker" (which I think in actuality is going to be rare), I would not be interested in spending days thinking about how much I am craving a smoke - especially since most adult smokers have likely tried to stop and know what the cravings are like (heck, they don't even had to have tried to quit - there are enough "smoke free" places that they will know how they feel after a few hours, let alone a few days).

Smoking, drinking, gambling are all activities that have (relatively) high risks of harm but also trigger dopamine surges in the brain - the very model of addiction.  I don't know if that is relevant for a cruise (never having taken one - I can't imagine what I would do for several days on a ship), but I could see a lot more money being made on the ship by the casino; and that the "cross addiction" model makes some sense. The idea of conscious choices being made is bit murkier in this area.

I hope you are not extrapolating your personal n of 1 to equate "the marketplace". Not all smokers drink or gamble, not all gamblers drink or smoke, not all drinkers gamble or smoke. But if you were to look at the aggregate numbers, at least with regards to smoking and drinking, there are more alcoholics who smoke (percentage) than non-drinkers (in recovering alcoholics, it is nearly 3 times the rate of the non-alcoholic population; conversely the rate of alcoholism amongst smokers is about 10 times that of non smokers). The issue of whether or not cruise lines lose money on non-smoking ships is interesting, and while I suppose is technically an issue of "the marketplace" (in that making money or not is a marketplace issue), the underlying question in Sooner's post is more interesting - WHY? You are approaching it as being a purely economic issue, ignoring issues of social and psychological factors; but assuming the actions of the cruise goers are made by strictly rational individuals weighing pros and cons.

If I were running a cruise line, it might be nice to know about the other factors that cause people to spend their money. For all I know, the cost of the ticket is a "loss leader" to get people on the boat. The real money might be made off the booze and casinos. And if people who choose non-smoking cruises are less likely to drink and gamble, I would not make as much money. The dynamic for making money on a cruise is going to be very different than that of a restaurant, for example, where non-smoking may help bring patrons in who don't want to smell smoke while they eat, and get the smokers out quickly enough to bring in another party for that table.

It's really hard when, for instance, you're sitting with 300,000 other people at the Indy 500 (or other outdoor event)

I love it when the reality matches the hypothesis!

To address the questions about addiction, the answers are probably yes, yes, and yes (qualified).

Yes, there is a greater likelihood of cross addicted behaviors - the dopamine hypothesis is a primary theory at work. (Interestingly, if you have ever heard of the connection between Requip - a drug for restless leg syndrome - and gambling addiction, it is believed to be because the Requip affects dopamine levels to decrease motor restlessness - a kind of temporary/artificial parkinson's -and that gambling causes release of dopamine in parts of the brain related to pleasurable activities. So the "high" from gambling becomes comparatively more intense and addicting. Stop the requip, and the addiction clears. And to clarify, it is a reported side effect, but that does not make it common).

Yes, there is a genetic link (at least with substance abuse). So even if your parents got sober before you were born, if they were addicted, you have a greater risk of addiction, even without seeing them intoxicated as role models.

Yes, there is an environmental component. The mantra of AA/NA is "people, places and things", as in you need to change these to stay sober. They serve as cues for relapse. This is true of many behaviors, not just addicition. Think of the person whose evening routine is to have a bag of chips while sitting on the sofa watching TV. The sofa and the TV serve as cues to eat chips. Similarly, if whenever I drink, I like to have a smoke, doing one will trigger the other. And if I like to smoke and drink while I plug away at the slots or the tables, being around the slots and tables makes me want to drink and smoke.

Does this mean that all addicts are cross addicted with a family history and no hope of change without big environmental changes? Of course not. But if you want to play the odds, (haha), a smoker is more likely to be a drinker, and the environmental cues are probably relevant.

Statisically, yes.

Addiction isn't really a behavior, per se, although it tends to manifest in certain behaviors. Impossible to separate genetic vs. environmental factors for most things, especially something that's actually a complex set of "things" like addiction.

Also, not all smokers are addicts; not all drinkers are addicts; not all gamblers are addicts. And there are gradients to these things. The correlation between these behaviors runs along at least several lines, only one of which is addiction.