Gadling

Looks like Japan moved up a notch from number 7 to number six - funny I thought that they would have been higher on the list?

Cigarettes are cheap here at around $3.20 a pack but they are starting to take measures to educate people on the side effects of smoking. You can no longer smoke in a taxi in Tokyo and in some areas you will even be cited if you smoke while walking.

Shane Sakata
The Tokyo Traveler
http://www.thetokyotraveler.com

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If Kentucky were an independent country, where would it rank? It's amazing how backward smoking laws are there compared to Ohio.

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sadly we made it to number 10 in the states
nothing to be proud of.
whoever still smokes has to take a serious look at themself's.

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It's amazing that someone would refer to smoking laws as backward, or not... these laws should not have been considered, written, submitted or passed. I don't smoke. My dad did and later I did. I'm an "ex-smoker". I have NOTHING against smoking or cigarettes. I just don't because it upsets my family so much. Maybe later. I don't even miss it - after about 30 years, even! My lungs are fine. I used to amuse me and now irritates - even scares me - the Orwellian "tsk-tsk" of how we view smokers. Studies are slanted one way or tother... many smokers and those who are around smokers are totally healthy. It's NOT like narcotic ("harmless") street drugs which are heavily pushed by celebs, talk show hosts, tv shows, psychs and face it, about everyone you know, all very la-de-dah "let's legalize marijuana", ways to get legal marijuana illegitimately, doing "X" and coke and this and that all over the place, the whole heroin chic push - you name it. Having smoking sections in restaurants and airplanes and in airports was fine - if you didn't like it, you could go elsewhere. If they wanted to smoke, they could go elsewhere. Now, we all have to be dictated to because it ups the odds of poorer health. Well, so does living in a smoggy city, and that's a choice. So does eating foods with high fructose corn syrup, and that's a choice. Starving one's body of nutrients normally acquired via the organs known as eyeballs by allowing one's kids (or self) to stare at monitors hours on end (vid games, tv, computers). How about er um "I'm going to have a drink with dinner" - "social" drinking? Mmm even that impairs mental capacity. No one outlaws drinking, but outlawing drinking and driving is done as that's a legitimate danger, borne of irresponsibility and loss of life. I agree with that. "Second hand smoke" has already been filtered via someone's lungs - someone who opted to smoke. It can't possibly be as bad as smoking can be, if/when it is bad. Again, stay away from each other if you'd like. It's a personal choice if you wish to reside or co-habit with a smoker, and there are plenty of devices to absorb the smoke if you're an adult and wish to shelter your kids or pets somehow in your own - and I stess OWN - home. Well, same goes for restaurants and planes. That's why we have HEPA filters, smokeless ashtrays, heck even fans. Leave it alone already. Lighten up on the "smokeless cities" and all that. Legislators are supposed to write and pass representative laws. This is tantamount to someone coming to your house and saying, YOU can't smoke here. You can't have chocolate cake here - sugar. You can't have alcohol here. You can't have beef, it's not per your blood type. You can't eat meat, vegetarians don't agree. You can't do this sexual act with your wife here - we wouldn't. You can't watch these shows, they do not conform. You can't read this book, it goes against The State. You can't believe that here.
Sound familiar?

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Greek men and women smoke till the ashes drop behind their teeth. That is the Greek mentality! Better they should keep there hands busy cleaning up the litter all over that beautiful country!!!!

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Aunt Julie
You sure wrote plenty about nothing. Sorry to burst your bubble, but second-hand smoke is a well established known that does inflict harm/injury to others - especially to the young, elderly, or those with compromised health. Do we need to improve the environment? Of course. This is why there are emission laws and such. Do we need to do more? Absolutely. The lack of one does not exonerate another. No man is an island unto himself.

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Amazing how radical people are about smokers but say nothing about the drunks. Alcohol kills and affects far more people in an adverse way that cigarettes.

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People and monkeys are the only species that smoke.
The anti-smoking advocates aren't going to be happy until all tobacco and supplies are wiped off the face of the earth and then those same people will find fault with something else. Those type of people are never satisfied, put their garbage on the world,garbage in, garbage out, they are beyond miserable people.

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Perhaps because this is an article about smoking. Not that you don't have a point, because drunk-driving is definitely an important issue in this country, but it's for a different venue.

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Aunt Julie may have sounded a little bitter and she may not have been as "to the point" as she could've been in her comment but she does hold a particular view that many Americans share. I too am an ex-smoker. My husband and I both recently quit. And both of us believe that the anti-smoking laws enacted in most US states are inherently WRONG and go against everything this country stands for.

The United States of America is a country that was founded on the freedom of CHOICE. The choice of which religion to follow, which candidate to vote for, which career path to take, etc. etc. etc. Smoking is a personal choice. Before the smoking ban was passed in my home state, there were non-smoking bars, non-smoking restaurants and non-smoking sporting events/concerts/festivals. When a person decided to go out, they made a CHOICE of whether to visit a smoking venue or a non-smoking venue. Now there is no CHOICE. Our state has told us what to do. I might feel differently about the laws, if we were given the chance to vote on them. But we weren't. We were told, like little children (or sheeple, if you will), what we could and could not do.

I understand that smoking is an unhealthy habit and that many people find it digusting. But there are also, many other unhealthy habits that this country engages in that I or the state for instance might find disgusting. You tell me if you will like living in a country where you are told is against the law to drink alcohol, to eat fatty foods, to go out in the sun for too long, to spend too much time on the computer, etc. That kind of totalitarianism is where the anti-smoking laws will lead us. Wait and see.

And as for the second hand smoke argument. Seriously. Is sucking on the tailpipe of a running vehicle as harmful as sitting in a traffic jam? Seriously.

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Well said Aunt Julie. This is not an issue of where people should smoke it's an issue of freedom of choice. I'm wondering how those people who are so anti smokers would feel if their rights were taken away. Lets get a ban on people using cell phones in restaurants, or a limit on how much coffee a person can drink each day, or how about only allowing us to read certain books. After all, that is also for our own good and those people around us.

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Oh please!!! If you don't like Greece then don't go there. Keep the nasty comments to yourself.
On a side note, perhaps all those anti smokers should look at something far more important than second hand smoke. Why aren't they going after the source of the problem instead? The USA is one of the only countries that allows the tobacco companies to put so much addictive poison in cigarettes. Why not stop them from doing it? Less addictive means less smokers. Of course all those anti smokers find it far easier to pick on smokers and segregate them than to go after a big company.

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Neuticles comments that alcohol kills more people than cigarettes. Actually a Robert Woods Johnson Study that came out about 10 years ago compared the costs (including death) of drugs, of cigarettes and of alcohol. Cigarettes were far costlier all around to the average family. This study included deaths by cigarettes from smoke and other issues (cancers, other lung issues and other - fires when the smoker fell asleep...etc.) Financial costs per average family were also taken into consideration (i.e. even the wine collector was considered in the formula.)

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Snoking bans do not make sense. Quite simply, ETS is not present in anywhere near the quantities to be a major risk factor. The anti-tobacco lobby has exagerated the risk. Think of it this way - people's breathing competes with the building's ventilation system for the available smoke. People breathe at about 8 l/min or about 0.28 cfm. Building codes generally require 10 to 20 cfm of outdoor air. This means that about 35 to 70 times as much smoke will be removed by the ventilation system than by people breathing. In addition, a significant quantity of smoke is still in the air at the end of the day, when people leave the building.
If anyone is interested in calculating actual dose, I suggest you use National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST.gov) CONTAM computer program. While it takes some conversions, one can get something equivalent to dose.

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