tackling smokers

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I am a smoker myself.
I know that it's a bad habbit, and I really should quit...
But.. It's quite hard... I don't think I'm taking it seriously enough.

Anyway.. I wouldn't mind if people told me to stop it... I would stop... Besides, I don't want to irritate other people.
I don't smoke when there's a lot of people, or I am at a public place... I would wait, and the leave the area, smoke, and then come back..

And ... Smoking is not allowed in café and resturants here either.

If they're legally smoking in an area where smoking is allowed, they are perfectly within their rights to smoke, and nobody has the right to make them not smoke.

The best thing for you to do would be to politely ask them if they wouldnt mind putting out their cigarette, and explain why it is bothering you so much (asthma etc). Be really polite and appologetic, and you'll most likely be met back with politeness.

yes smoking is bad for peoples' health. we get it. i don't smoke, btw. my point here is that people who smoke know about it. I've applied three rules to the matter:

1. Stay upwind when outside. Yes, it can get sort of weird if you are walking and change direction, but it's an unobtrusive way of saying you don't want to inhale their cigarette fumes. And they understand it. Smokers actually find it sort of respectful because it's not blatant.

2. No lecturing. People who smoke know it's unhealthy. We all went to school, we all watched kids tv shows as kids. We all know it's bed, so don't mention that's bad.

3. If it's really bad, just leave. You can opt out of a place that wreaks of tobacco. Nobody chained you to the floor (if they did you might have some more important things to deal with than inhaling tobacco fumes).

MADD raised awareness about drunk driving. Then, after getting the attention they wanted they moved on to pushing for any anti-alcohol legislation. The original lady that started MADD left the organization because the organization had been taken over by people that wanted to ELIMINATE all alcohol from being consumed.

Same with the "Smoke Nazis". I use the term "Nazi" because they were one of the first govts. to spend resources on research and make wide-spread bans on smoking. And yes, they were pretty fascist about it.

Where I live they actually used a bit of common sense. Bars have the option to be a smoking establishment or not. Simple. It is up to the person(s) that own the PRIVATE PROPERTY and PAY the bills to decide instead of some arbitrary Govt. organization. Germany recently overturned their ban, so common sense may still prevail. Seems to be a lot of smokers in Germany for some reason. I wonder why?

There are compromises that work but what history has shown is that policies and attitudes towards smoking that are all encompassing and that are completely intolerant have adverse unintended consequences and make the problem even worse.

IF you push them, they'll just push right back. If they have the law on their side, antagonizing and challenging people you don't know could be dangerous. Who knows? It could result in you getting stabbed, shot ... who knows?

You sound like the kind of person who's always looking for a fight.

Here is a funny story about my ex.


Before I met GEOFF. (That's what I call him) He was at a restaurant and there was this guy smoking at another table near him. Other people were in there smoking too and Geoff got angry and said "Stop smoking in my face," and threw a table towards him.
The manager kicked him out of the place and the whole incident was so tragic, everybody stopped smoking for five minutes.

I asked my ex how does he know that, he wasn't even there anymore and he said "I looked in the window."