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NewslettersSMOKERS ARE BEING TREATED UNFAIRLY & THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
Yesterday I got out of,BEAUFORT MEMORIAL HOSPITAL" with suitcase & pillow in hand I walked over to the parking lot,found the best place I could to sit,read a book,wait for my ride & SMOKE A CIGARETTE. One of those hospital golf carts pulled up beside me with 2 men in it. The one with a suit on got out & told me I was suppose to be smoking there. I explained I was FAR from WINDOWS,DOORS & PEOPLE EVEN & That if I moved chances are my ride wouldn't see me. HE SAID IF I WANT TO SMOKE I HAVE TO GO ALL THE WAY OUT TO THE SIDEWALK (RIBAULT ROAD)! Just thought this might interest the smokers out there.JUST HOW UNFAIRLY WE CAN LOOK FORWARD TO BEING TREATED AS OF NOW! TOTALLY OUTLANDISH! PEOPLE JUST GETTING OUT OF THE HOSPITAL SURE DON'T FEEL LIKE WALKING ALL THAT WAY CARRYING SUITCASES,POCKETBOOKS,PILLOWS,DRINKS ECT... JUST TO HAVE A CIG.
I can just hear all the non-smokers saying- well they shouldn't be smoking after just getting out of the hospital. Makes sense to some, but until you know what it is like to have been in somebody else's shoes it might be wise to keep your opinions to yourself- I for one have been smoking OVER 30 years & HAVE TRIED really hard 4 times already to quit smoking. It isn't as easy as some think & I think there should be places set up in convenient locations JUST for smokers. After all they use to have places set up for non-smokers.
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Been in your shoes. Smoked cowboy reds like they were going out of style. For 30 years I smoked. I quit. It was an answer to a prayer. Keep trying. I know it's hard but you can do it.
As a pilot, who must bear the brunt of the bad opinion of small airplane pilots by the public, and as a demon lawyer, who also have a less than stellar public reputation, I do my best to ensure that my flying skills are sharp and my ethics unblemished.
Yet, I see smokers throwing cigarettes out the window of their car all the time. Do you also toss food boxes, trash, used diapers and tampons out the car window as well? Maybe I should come vomit inside your car when I feel sick, since, well, I just couldn't help it and did not want to dirty up my car with my trash. YOU, the smoker, are done with YOUR dinner, so YOU light up. Do YOU care that someone sitting downwind of you is just starting their dinner and perhaps would rather smell their food instead of YOUR cig?
Perhaps I should stand next to you the next time I'm farting my brains out, and just keep doing it since I know you love it so much since what I want to do is whats is controlling, not what you might like.
Smokers have dug their own grave by being the inconsiderate addicts that they are. If you would have only, as a group, showed the slightest amount of consideration for others around you, there NEVER would have been the backlash that has arisen. Is preventing you from smoking, outside, away from any other people a stupid rule? Yes, it is.
However, I am certain that the Hospital first tried no smoking areas, and then tried smoking areas, and then just gave up when it became clear that smokers simply would not follow the rules. They then just banned it on the entire campus. Perhaps not 'you' personally are responsible, but 'you' in the collective sense, are responsible for where 'you' are today. Your 'right' to smoke ends at my nose. Just like my 'right' to fart indiscriminately in public, ends at yours.
Great analogy at the end of your post. We can only hope that people have their "noses" in the right places.
I quit smoking for 8 1/2 years after having been a smoker for 20 years. During those twenty years I was always mindful of the rights and noses of those around me. I would ask politely before lighting up around others and from my own observations I have noted that most smokers are equally as considerate. For many years most businesses that serve food have been considerate enough to offer non-smoking areas for those who didn't care to be around smoke.
I learned a harsh lesson after I quit: most people who have never smoked could care less. The vast majority of those who have quit don't have the strength to stay off of cigarettes if they are exposed to them so they make life miserable for anyone who smokes (like they used to). I actually enjoyed the smell of smoke after I quit and would sit in any available seat ina restaurant. I had no cravings, I had quit and had the strength to be around smoke without having to have one.
I did start again, but not out of any need for nicotine and not because of any addiction. Quitting was easy. Being a non-smoker was intolerable! I simply no longer wanted to be associated with such a totally inconsiderate group. I have never heard a smoker offer to share their bodily functions with others so readily as Mr Farrell and others like him. People like him are afflicted with what I would call rectal-cranial inversion. If he cares to pass wind, I say go for it, it's his head!
For all of his skills and ethics you would think he might curb his language a little. A point can be made without foul language.
topgun - what language was foul or improper? I thought, except for the 'f' word, that I used the appropriate name for the bodily function.
Congrats on quitting - its not EZ. Also, thank you for being considerate of others. Not enuf of that around here or anywhere else for that matter.
Some in my family are smoking nazis, never liked it and never want it around them. I grew up in a large, noisy Italian family in New York. What I wanted was not ever that relevant, so what others do it not that important to me. You want to smoke, its your health not mine. I like a cigar even now and again, and in my own home go outside on the porch to partake. I try to be considerate of others, so I go outside.
Smokers should simply pay the cost of their activity. Their health insurance cost sharing should be higher, they should pay more in a restaurant with a smoking section since it costs more to clean their area then the other sections. They should pay more for car rentals, since they stink the car up and it needs to have the fabric cleaned more often or more deeply when the car rental company ultimately sells it. These are incremental costs, not a lot of money, but perhaps 50 cents more at a meal, or when renting a car.
Joe,
I apologize for being rude in my initial reply. And thanks for bringing up a phrase that I overlooked: smoking nazis. I think that term sums up what I was trying to say about the group I did not wish to be associated with.
As I said, I always tried to be respectful of others and would ask before lighting up, and if they had any objections I simply postponed the urge. Your comment about passing gas struck a chord. I was at another person's home many years ago and politely asked if he minded if I smoked. Had he said no I would not have done so. But, his response was:"Do you mind if I fart?" I was immediatedly offended by his disrespectful response to my sincere request. So, I responded in kind and told him I didn't mind at all if he farted and then commenced to light up.
I think respect should be a two way street. Bars and restaurants are supposed to have massive ventilators in smoking areas and most do. And count on the fact that they find a way to absorb the cost of any additional cleaning in those areas. Car rental companies have non-smoking cars and some don't allow it at all. If asked in a respectful manner not to smoke, most smokers will comply. But when challenged or insulted most people will rebel. There are good and bad folks on both sides of this issue as with any issue, and the bad ones make it worse for everyone.
Keep in mind that most smokers grew up and have lived in a world that allowed smoking nearly everywhere. And then in recent years the non-smoking movement has narrowed that world tremendously. Some people smoke because they like it and others because they are addicted to it. It is still legal to smoke (in some places) and many folks see this as having a freedom stepped on. People who don't smoke should be free to live without having smoke blown at them, and smokers should have their rights respected as well. There are painless ways to accommodate both factions and I think we should look for those options.
The fact remains that smoking is unhealthy and unclean in a lot of ways. And I think it is a ludicrous thought to allow smoking anywhere near a hospital.
It happens that I work with toxins as a part of my job that are far more dangerous than cigarettes. As a result I have educated myself extensively on such things and was amazed learn how many such toxins the general public is exposed to everyday and they never have a clue.
A smokeless world would be a nice place, but it isn't going to happen when disrespect and intimidation are the primary tools used...by both sides.
Forrest - I has my idea that, once you leave Bluffton, once you to the I-95 turnoff just past the big gas stations on 170, across from Oldfield Plantation, they oughta put up a toll booth that read EZPass. Locals would just drive through cause no one who is a resident has an EZ Pass, while all the New Yorkers and Jersey residents either drive down or fly down, and they would NEVER leave the EZPass in the car at the airport.
Charge 'em a $500 'deposit' that they get back when they leave Beaufort. I was sitting outside at Panini and was forced to listen to a family, obviously from New Jersey, complaining about everything, from the humidity [in November] to the bugs, to having to drive 'all the way' to eat pizza that wasn't as good as they got in their own town. I wanted to tell them to simply get the 'h' outta town, go home, and leave us alone. But my manners prohibited me from doing that. I heard more complaining from this family in that hour than I usually hear in Beaufort in a month, even on this blog.
Did smoking have anything to do with you being in the hospital in the first place?
Any addiction is hard to quit. Look at all of the people who are addicted to food (that's another subject). When you want to quit bad enough, you will.
I understand the hospital having a no-smoking on premises policy. Not only are they protecting visitors to the hospital from second-hand smoke, but do smokers realize the litter caused by cigarettes? One can visit any public place which allows smoking, and look around in the flower beds, sidewalks, parking lots - you see cigarette butts. What would you have done with your butt when you finished your smoke? The hospital has to pay an employee to pick those things up because they don't go away. Patients want a clean hospital! Good luck with kicking your habit.
I would like to see you quit your food addiction for just six months.
tbd
Yeah! I'm kinda addicted to food. I get real cranky and have headaches if I don't eat regularly. ;)
Yesterday I got out of,BEAUFORT MEMORIAL HOSPITAL" with suitcase & pillow in hand I walked over to the parking lot,found the best place I could to sit,read a book,wait for my ride & SMOKE A CIGARETTE. One of those hospital golf carts pulled up beside me with 2 men in it. The one with a suit on got out & told me I was suppose to be smoking there. I explained I was FAR from WINDOWS,DOORS & PEOPLE EVEN & That if I moved chances are my ride wouldn't see me. HE SAID IF I WANT TO SMOKE I HAVE TO GO ALL THE WAY OUT TO THE SIDEWALK (RIBAULT ROAD)! Just thought this might interest the smokers out there.JUST HOW UNFAIRLY WE CAN LOOK FORWARD TO BEING TREATED AS OF NOW! TOTALLY OUTLANDISH! PEOPLE JUST GETTING OUT OF THE HOSPITAL SURE DON'T FEEL LIKE WALKING ALL THAT WAY CARRYING SUITCASES,POCKETBOOKS,PILLOWS,DRINKS ECT... JUST TO HAVE A CIG.
I can just hear all the non-smokers saying- well they shouldn't be smoking after just getting out of the hospital. Makes sense to some, but until you know what it is like to have been in somebody else's shoes it might be wise to keep your opinions to yourself- I for one have been smoking OVER 30 years & HAVE TRIED really hard 4 times already to quit smoking. It isn't as easy as some think & I think there should be places set up in convenient locations JUST for smokers. After all they use to have places set up for non-smokers.
Allrown, let me get this straight - You're upset because they wouldn't let you smoke near a Hospital?
AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, tell me, was it near the Emphysema ward or Asthma admissions entrance?
You should SUE for being traumatized so mercilessly! Imagine, treating a smoker so disrespectfully - especially after he was just released from the hospital himself, probably too weak to do much else but crawl to a safe spot and administer toxic fumes into what's left of his 30 year smoker's lungs! It's an OUTRAGE! You should be allowed to exterminate yourself anywhere you d### please, it's a free country, after all.
Most of the breathing-challenged/lung impaired patients in that hospital are probably former smokers themselves, with only a tiny chunk of lung left, who most likely didn't care where THEIR toxic cigarette fumes wafted - before the inevitable smoking-related disease wracked their bodies into the hospital - So, why shouldn't YOU have the same privelege? Yeah, let those one-lung patients see how it feels to breathe in another inconsiderate b##t##d's second-hand smoke. Payback's h#ll!
You should make a stand, Allrown - march down there right now, and light up one of those cancer sticks -
- next to an oxygen tank.
Never been a smoker because I didn't like it. Both parents and 3 uncles and two aunts have died from emphysema from smoking. All were less than 60. The official cause is oxygen deprivation. The hallucinations due to carbon dioxide build up is hard on the caregivers. In the last stages, victims can see spiders crawling all over them or see someone trying to kill them, day and night. You can say what you want, but they still see them. Bad way to go.
I also have two younger brothers that have died for the same reason. No amount of reminding them helped.
One of my employees died from lung cancer st 47 years old. Smoked all of his life and gave it up after they found cancer. Too late. All but one of my employees went to the funeral and still light up.
Addiction is a powerful force to overcome. They always say, "I'll quit tomorrow."
If you are then your next hopsital visit may be the nut house - your post is simply unbeleivable, maybe you are still a bit medicated or something
to smoke whereever they want??
The horror of having to walk to smoke!!! Gees
The hospital has been a NON SMOKING campus since Feb. 2006!!! Get over and take your cancer sticks home.
You asked a great question, "Why is it smokers think?" Certainly such activities should be prohibited.
Egret, you have my sincere condolences for your losses due to your family & friends smoking. Reading between the lines, I'm sure you've suffered much more emotional pain than your post shows.
That's the saddest part for the survivors in this world, being left without brothers & sisters, parents, children & life-long buddies - It's life-altering to lose people you love and care about. Knowing it's the singlemost preventable form of death doesnt help much either, as we watch them suffer and die hideously painful, smoke-related deaths.
Another downside of smoking for non-smokers is the health insurance situation.
Sure, the health Ins. companies charge a bit more to (admitted) smokers, but the REAL cost is when the smoking fools insist on being kept alive through supreme life-saving procedures, from partial lung removal to lung transplants, and all sorts of other over-the-top surgery designed to keep their hacking, sputum spewing arses from flat-lining, just so they can "enjoy" a few more months of "life."
I'll never forget the scene in Alice's Restaurant where Woodie Guthrie was in a hospital bed smoking through his throat's blowhole.
I'm wondering what the actual cost actually is to insurance companies every year paying out to smoking-related surgical procedures, does anyone know? Of course, it's not really the health insurance companies paying the bills - It's YOU and ME - with constantly rising health insurance premiums.
To put it into perspective, I checked on some life insurance for me & my spouse a while back. It was $27.00 per month for a smoker's beneficiary to receive $100,000. - But only $24.00 per month for a NON-smoker' beneficiary to receive $250,000.
Go figure.
Most if not all Health Ins. companies require a blood test to determine who smokes & who doesn't, before they write the policy too. Since 2nd hand smoke obviously enters the lungs, and therefore the bloodstream, it could jeopardize a non-smoker's ability to be eligible for the better policy. It's just one more argument to keep the smokers away from the rest of us, any which way we can.
But as I've said before, it cost the government less if you die before reaching retirement age. (Which also means more SS money left over for us non-smokers, probably the only positive side.)
Go ahead, work all your life, pay through the nose into SS, smoke all you want, and then belly-up when you're barely 60 after the surgeries just aren't working anymore.
Just please don't do it around me.
Go figure.
South Carolinians spend $800 million annually on health-related costs that stem from the effects of smoking. A great deal of that money comes from state taxpayers.
According to data from the CDC and the 2000 census, more South Carolinians die each year of smoking-related illnesses than from AIDS, liver disease, breast cancer, car accidents and several other causes combined.
Data show that 5,992 people died in 2004 of smoking-related illnesses. That is nearly twice as many as a select group of causes, including murder, suicide, infant death, illegal drugs and fires.
-copied from a previous Beaufort Gazette article
Statistically speeking, everyone I know has died was from a heart failure. It is also reported in papers that we should have a life span well over one hundred years of age. I don't advocate smoking. I do wish that people can choose how they die/or live(within their bodies). If I choose to steal copper wire out of a relay station(choose to be dumb as rocks) then I get what I chose. If the powers that may be want to put shock colars around my neck to stop me, then this is more dumb. Statistically speeking, few people die from heart failure. Go figure.