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Originally posted by Jemeyes:

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nightlight

if the main thing the anti's are complaining about is all the added chemicals thats in with the tobacco plant, due to the fertelizers and processing of the tobacco

why haven't the tobacco companies remove them and bring the product to the market as organic grown..

wouldn't that be an acceptable soluition to the bans on tobbacco and the so called harm the antis say we smokers are causing..

Tobacco companies, like any other business, look for profit first. The junk supermarket cigarettes are more profitable since they don't have to use real, high quality tobacco leaf. Instead they can use fabricated sheets, with added colors, nicotine & flavors, made from lower grade parts and debris of the tobacco plant (stems, low quality leaves, scraps from higher quality tobacco production, etc). It costs them probably $5 to manufacture a carton. A decent quality pure tobacco leaf cigarettes will cost, even when made on large scale, twice as much. Also, additive free tobacco will have a shorter shelf life due to drying, becoming harsh and crumbling into dust.

As with junk foods (which are as unhealthy as junk cigarettes), most people grew up with the mass market brands and never knew anything better. Hence, for a mass market brands it would be wasteful to target a tiny fraction of connoisseurs. Of course, as with foods where you have gourmet restaurants, with master chefs preparing great dishes using the highest quality ingredients, there are outfits producing tobacco for smoking 'gourmets', especially for pipe and cigar smokers as well as for smokers rolling/stuffing their own cigarettes, which is gaining popularity in recent years.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: nightlight,

Yes, Winston, that was an outstanding sermon! You certainly know how to communicate effectively.

I have a question. If you type in the word smoking on google, or pro smoking, all the anti smoking sites pop up and it is very annoying.
Can we come up with a different title of some sort, a word, maybe a name to eliminate this problem. The general words in use like tobacco and cigarettes are the same.

Diana,

Thank you very much for bringing this up. I haven't seen your name before, so I'll also say "Welcome".

The terms "pro-smoking rights" or "smoking rights" do seem a bit problematic for common usage, but there's a reason. As you noted, it is due to anti-smoking. That is because this is the nature of the larger, collectivist force that drives phenomena like anti-smoking.

These issues can, though, take a broader context of "property rights", but this presents a similar problem. The very same collectivist force seeks to make "property" a dirty word. If you give the inch of calling "smoking rights" something else, you give a mile to facing the same, future problem in your Google searches for the word "property rights".

Also, people already don't know the difference between private property that is "open to the public" and "public property". A government-owned park is "public property". A privately owned business is private property that, at the owner's discretion, is "open to the public".

There's also a problem in the word "rights" because people have a very twisted idea today of that word means. They think a "right" is a "permission". It is clear from both The U.S. Constitution and The Declaration of Indepence that Rights in America are Natural; something that you are born with, that can not be taken away from you, like your hands or your skin.

The spirit of this idea is that you should defend your Rights with the same sense of internal, moral justification that you would defend yourself from someone trying to chop off your hand.

Unless it is specifically denied by law, or denied by the owner of the property you are on, Smoking is a Right. The same as your Natural Right to Free Speech or Freedom of Religion.

Smoking is not a privilege. The notion of privilege does not exist in The United States. If The United States is founded on one idea, it is the idea that you can not overtly institutionalize the concept of privilege governmentally.

So, in my mind, "Smoking Rights" it is, but this was also a very good question, one that really needed to be asked, so thank you again.

The discomfort you feel with using the term "smoking rights" is created by a force working down on you. This is the very same force that you are trying to escape, I assume, in your coming here.

WinstonSmith, a very timely reply, I found this article the other day - you are a kindred spirit with former Colorado State Senator Mark Hillman.
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_6742213

Thanks, Gilster. What a great article, not only in content, but gracefully written, too.

Hillman makes a distinction that is often forgotten, again because of the misappropriation of words. Capitalism is supposed to be an organic phenomena and it doesn't mean that the corner store should be forced out by government to make room for a Dunkin' Donuts. Though I'm familiar with the problem of eminent domain, and know that The Supreme Court made an assinine decision regarding it a year or two ago, I may be a bit naive regarding how often this abuse takes place.

I don't want to support businesses that have gained their property via these means.I wonder if there's a list somewhere from a source that can be trusted. (Anti-capitalists, it occurs to me, may make these claims when they are not quite true.)

Thanks again for providing the article.

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Can we come up with a different title of some sort, a word, maybe a name to eliminate this problem.

I sure like this idea, Diana, we need our own buzz phrase. In the past, I think a lot of these groups like civil rights, abortion pro or anti, did actually decide these things at conferences.

Many here may know that search engines actually make money by accepting fees for top of the search placement. Some companies have a person who does nothing else all day but figure out how much money they've got to keep putting in to be on the top of the search or in the top three. It's something like that, what little I know, but I wouldn't doubt the big anti groups who have the money may get involved in this, or maybe it's completely inadvertent, because they do have a lot of stuff out there.

When I first had a hard time finding what is currently called "smokers rights" information. I started looking up by states, i.e., Arizona smokers rights, Arkansas smokers rights, then I found more groups, and other information.

Looking things up by specific topic also yields a lot of great stuff, both on our side and the opposite.

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what is currently called "smokers rights" information.

At the risk of sounding like a high school English teacher; it must be 'Smokers Rights'.

Smoking is a verb, we are "Smokers',a noun.

As in,"I am a SMOKER and I VOTE!!"
Gary K.

Regardless of the term defined by us, once known by the anti-smokers it will become common amongst them as well, recreating the same problem.

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Originally posted by gkayser30:
[QUOTE]At the risk of sounding like a high school English teacher; it must be 'Smokers Rights'.

Smoking is a verb, we are "Smokers',a noun.

As in,"I am a SMOKER and I VOTE!!"
Gary K.

I think of smoking as an activity that anyone should be free to enjoy. I don't think that "smokers" are really any kind of representative group by the simple act of lighting up. If someone should want to try out the pleasures of tobacco for the first time, are they a "smoker" by definition, for instance?

I don't think people like us, who gather here to discuss personal freedom in relation to smoking, should be seen as any kind of representation of all people who smoke, but rather a representation of what we believe to be a right. Probably most people who smoke never even bother visiting such sites or giving serious consideration to such ideas. They're probably calling the 1-800 quit lines.

The act of smoking doesn't make one part of any kind of group ideology that they should be perceived as representing. If eat a sandwich, does that make me a "sandwicher"? One might say things like "golfer" but only because it is convenient to do so, but not because one necessarily does it for a living or is representative of some group discussing the rights of golfers.

So, I prefer "Smoking Rights" to "Smokers Rights".

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The act of smoking doesn't make one part of any kind of group ideology that they should be perceived as representing.

That is not the way the anti 'group think' goes these days.

We all have to stand outside and smoke where smoking is banned,be we 1 a day or 60 a day smokers.

Jews were Jews, Niggers were Niggers, Indians were Indians,and smokers are smokers.

The forces of liberal, elitest,socialistic hate do not make any such fine distinctions.

In G.Orwell's '1984' one crime was as bad as one million.

Winston,you should remember that.

Actually; it is sort of amusing that all exposed to SHS(most everyone), has been exposed to and thus must be addicted to cigarette smoke and would therefore have to be considered a "smoker".
A Winston Smith would find all equally quilty,regardless of the level of involvement.

Or;perhaps, I should go back after all these years and re-read the book!
Gary K.