No Smoking Tokyo

I hate smoking and enjoy smoke-free restaurants and sporting events, but this is pretty bad. At what point do a person’s rights get stepped on? Will people only be able to smoke at home soon? And, is that so bad? Hmmmmm. See partial article below:

Smokers Fined for Lighting Up in Tokyo Streets

TOKYO (Reuters) - Lighting up on Tokyo’s streets became hazardous to more than health on Friday as the first luckless Japanese were fined for smoking in some downtown areas.

Smoking on the street was banned in busy parts of central Tokyo’s Chiyoda ward a month ago, but a system of fines–up to $163 for multiple offences–began on November 1.

By noon, cigarette patrol officers had issued citations ordering 13 people to pay fines of 2,000 yen for smoking or discarding cigarette butts on the streets, an official said.

Rights being violated? How about people who have no choice but to accept carcinogenic second hand smoke. I think tabacco should be illegal to smoke in all public areas, but most people are too jacked up on nicotine to agree with me.

I agree. I can’t go out at night or go to have a coffee (or decaf) without getting second hand smoke. If I do so I’ll spend at least one night awake with asma attacks and will have a irritated throat for one week.

I think I have to move to Japan to have my health respected.

I agree. I work so hard to plan a perfect diet, spend all this time in the gym; all to live longer and look better. I think it is horrible to have to go somewhere and have to breathe smoke. I feel like all I worked for during the past week was robbed from me. I dont have any problem with people smoking, it is their life and I believe peolple should be able to do whatever they want with it, but I just dont want it affecting me.

I think its awesome, and yes they should sit at home and smoke.

Cigarettes should never be banned while diesel engines are still legal.

Also, if you’ve lived in Japan you know that the amount of discarded butts littering the streets is really appalling. Sometimes it looks like Wall Street after a parade. The heavy smoking here is the one thing that I really DISlike about Japan - I say more power to the anti-smoking lobby.


There was a bit on the news here a couple of nights ago, when the enforcement started. Most of the people (it wasn’t limited to Japanese people, either) who were stopped were cool about putting their cigs out in the little foil-lined pouches that the monitors offered them. But there were a few who were real assholes about the whole thing. One woman (maybe 19 or 20 years old) actually started punching and shoving people aside in order to get away from the monitors. (It didn’t work.) Others turned and fled when they saw the monitor group.

sounds about right…get them for both littering and local polluting at the same time. Smoking’s bad for them anyway.

Hehe, it makes me feel great to learn that there are others that feel the opposite side of the argument - the rights of the majority count too. Less than 50% of people smoke in public, but almost all of us have had to deal with second hand smoke. I’m tired of it and I wish people could just realize that the world could be so much of a better place without public smoking.

Screw the smokers. They endanger not only themselves but anyone around them. I had to grow up with a smoker for most of my life. And it was absolutely horrible. I can’t stand smokers and many of my friends smoke! They have a “no smoking in public places” referendum on the ballot today, and you better believe that I’ll be voting for that. Smokers should smoke far away from nonsmokers. I would love to see all bars and clubs smoke free, like California. And when I’m president, I’ll be sure to get rid of smoking and the tobacco comanies for good.

Although, I do not agree with one thing: The tobacco companies should not have to pay all these people that are now suing them for health problems caused by smoking. People have always known that cigarette smoking is bad for them. They have no right to sue the tobacco companies for a choice they made. I think it’s ridiculous. Maybe I should be able to sue automakers because I have to breath in their exhaust when I’m riding my bike or just driving with my windows down. Or maybe I should be able to sue smokers because they are exposing me to second-hand smoke. I don’t like the tobacco companies, but they shouldn’t be paying these dumbasses who are dying!

“Cigarettes should never be banned as long as diesel engines are legal”

Think again, my friend. New generation diesel engines, like what are featured in Volkswagons, are lower in emissions and more fuel efficient than almost all unleaded engines. Stateside, the Passat gets almost 50mpg.

This is comming from the same crowd that do not want their supplements banned? Unless you own the air, then put up with it. Otherwise don’t be shocked and outraged when the government comes and bans your beloved ephdrine and andro. It is all woven from the same cloth.

Other people have to put up with our really nasty protein farts, I don't see anybody banning farting in public.

What I hate the most is when my friends decide to smoke in my car. I bitch about it all the time and they come back with ‘don’t worry, I’ve wound down the window’. What happens? even at slow speeds, the ash and smoke is blown back into the car and onto my carpets. When you return to the car the next day, there is this stinky ‘warm air’ smoke smell, that even febreeze can’t get rid of. And to Pat regarding the Andro supplements…they aren’t affecting anybody else like how cigarette smoke does, so you can’t even compare the two. However, I do agree with you about the protein shake farts…they be real stanky, that’s why I only eat whole foods.

Lowrider, if you don’t want your friends smoking in your car, tell them before they get in that as of today no one smokes in your car. If they want to smoke, they don’t ride with you. If they need a ride, they don’t smoke. If someone violates your new rule and lights up in your car, dump him/her on the curb and let 'em walk! Same for your house/apartment. Kick the smokers outside in the rain/snow/hail.

I agree with she-ra! If you don’t want people to smoke in your car, then tell them no smoking allowed. I’ve never let anyone smoke in any car I’ve owned. I once had someone try to light up, and I told that fucker to put that shit out or get out and walk. And last year, I had a hella hottie try to smoke when a bunch of us were heading back to a friend’s house after partying all night. I don’t care how hot she was, no one smokes in my car! It was bad enough that everyone smelled like smoke from hanging out in the bar, and it took a couple days to get that smell out of my car!

From now on, I think I will…unless the girl is reeeaally pretty.

Far as I’m concerned, farting in public (especially in a crowded/no-escape situation like an elevator) SHOULD involve a fine. At least. Maybe jail time…

Hey every one is forgetting one important thing. That obesity related sicknesses and smoking related cancers are our number one killers here in the United States. So don?t tell me not to care what people do on there own private property because these people are the ones that raise up my health insurance and Medicare deductions. If it was my decisions any one that is sick for one of the two preventable above reasons or any other preventable disease, (such as liver failer due to drinking) should not have the luxury of my money paying for there treatment. Screw em… You knew the cost before you started playing the game… Watch cost will keep going up and smokers and lard azz will still be saying it is none of MY business… Bull shit…!! Think about it… Next time you look at your pay stub or pay your health insurance for the 10th year in a row. Which you never use other than a occasional mandatory check up. None of my business… Wake up!!!

Gotta say I’m disappointed. First, believing all the second-hand smoke bullshit, which in no way has been ‘proven’ to cause life-threatening conditions (visit junkscience.com for a more rational examination of the second-hand smoke theory), is just really not logical, ESPECIALLY in regards to the outdoors. OK, so I can completely understand why you wouldn’t want to smell the nastiness from the smoking section of a restaurant, but in a bar? In a bar where the owners and employees are all cool with smoking? Just let people live or die on their own decisions and don’t micromanage everyone else’s life. It’s almost like our entire society has lost focus on the entire notion of freedom and is instead pumping out 2000 page laws every week, for the sole apparent purpose of justifying a politician’s presence in the capitol.

Listen dickwad, did it ever occur to your pea-sized brain that there’s a reason health insurance companies charge you MORE if you are a smoker? Smokers bear the cost of their own habit (ignoring government health programs which should be altogether eliminated).