Just because something is accepted socially doesn't make it right or wrong. In her lifetime it was socially acceptable to sexually harass women in the work place and openly discriminate against African-Americans. Does that mean that it should be tolerated today in designated areas?
I questioned her motives given the stated circumstances of her life . I used a metaphor to describe the situation as I saw it. But don't let me stop you from clutching your pearls in horror at my use of artifice.
And I never said that people who smoke should be denied the privilege within the confines of the designated smoking area. That is Disney's call. I was responding to the out sized outrage from some of the posters here that questioning someone's "right" to smoke is somehow discriminating against or being mean to them. Get a grip.
I looked up the Florida Clean Indoor Air Act. Did you know that it illegal to smoke near schools? Why would that be? It is because second hand smoke is dangerous to children. But by all means let's not hurt anyone's feelings who thinks that it is perfectly reasonable to subject children at a theme park to over 7,000 known toxic and carcinogenic substances.
Here are a few facts from the Tobacco Free Florida website:
- Exposure to SHS can cause serious illnesses and even death.
- Since 1964, 2.5 million nonsmokers in the U.S. have died because of SHS exposure. 6
- Secondhand smoke exposure is causally linked to heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, lower respiratory illness, and impaired lung function. 7
- Each year, among U.S. nonsmokers, exposure to SHS causes an estimated 33,000 premature deaths from heart disease 8 and about 3,400 premature deaths from lung cancer. 9 10
- Nonsmokers exposed to SHS at home or at work increase their risk of developing heart disease by 25 to 30 percent and their risk of developing lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent. 11
- Inhaling SHS could be enough to block arteries and trigger a heart attack in someone whose arteries are silently clogged. 12
- Exposure to SHS is very dangerous for children.
- Breathing SHS increases a child’s risk of lung problems, ear infections, and severe asthma.
- Infants exposed to SHS are at a greater risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). 13 SIDS is the sudden, unexplained, unexpected death of an infant in the first year of life. SIDS is the leading cause of death in otherwise healthy infants. 14
- SHS can trigger an asthma attack. A severe asthma attack can put a child’s life in danger. 15
- In the first two years of life, children exposed to SHS have more than a 50 percent increased risk of getting bronchitis and pneumonia. 16
- See more at:
http://www.tobaccofreeflorida.com/current-issues/florida-clean-indoor-air-act/#sthash.b7wGZnEG.dpuf
So
@StarWarsGirl95, tell me how many people have died from exposure to a whiff of too much perfume or how many diseases can be attributed to a whiff of too much perfume? I'll guess it's zero. Exposure to second hand smoke is not the same as perfume and you are doing a disservice to the conversation by continuing to make the comparison.
The pro-smoking people in this thread are deluding themselves if they think that they aren't hurting anyone except themselves. By smoking cigarettes they are introducing dangerous, life threatening substance into the environment that they are sharing with the rest of us, many of them their own loved ones. That is a shame.
And I will continue to shame smokers, especially those brazen selfish a-holes that continue to light up in public.
