I REFER to Tuesday's letters by Mr Karl See and Mr Raymund Koh, 'No smoking in lifts, but enclosed lift lobbies' and 'Ashtrays in bus shelters defeat message'.

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I totally agree with you. Everybody makes their own choices on what we want to do and smoking is one of them. I am a smoker myself and I feel so "criminalize" by their stares even though I am not in a non smoking area.

goldenshadow,
you are in a NON-smoking area smoking ... and you wonder why people stare at you? o.0

smokers ARE subnormal human beings when they don't care if their slow-acting-killing-smoke blows onto other people's face. e.g when they walk as they smoke along a busy walkway, when they smoke in a enclosed lobby, etc.

lobo_
Please note that I mentioned "NOT IN A NON SMOKING AREA" which means i am in a smoking area.

I would like to say smokers are nuisance when they smoke in non-smoking area. Period.
Up to you if you want to smoke anything. I don't care. But please don't polute my breathing space.
Thanks to all smokers for continue support the tobacco industry.

I am a non-smoker who find cigarette smoke most irritating but I also believe that people have the right to smoke.. I say, let them smoke in their own zones, as much as the like. Same as if you want a good variety of choices and a good night with a prostitute, there are tacitly designated zones in SGP for it..

I think .airconditioned somkers' cafe should be set up for them. I have seen some overseas. Then they can dart inside one and smoke in the company of other smokers and nobody will complain. Same as when you want to pee, You need to find a toilet. There is no restriction on peeing but you need to do it in a toilet..

Very lengthy argument but sorry I dont buy it one bit. The doctor is saying some people has an anti social habits and people should basically allow and accommodate? For years non smokers have had to bear the brunt of many inconsiderate acts of smokers who smoke without thoughts for others, even when there are little children of pregnant women around, throwing their cigarette butts any where they like - i remembered even as long back as when I was in the army and we will always have to spend a few minutes after every rest stop picking up cigarette butts because of some smokers.

Tell you what doc, if we are in a public place and I keep farting and fouling up the environment; I'd say I have the right as an individual to fart, you will just deal with it OK? At least 2nd hand farts are not medically proven to be as harmful ya?

Spare us your clearly one sided rhetorics until smokers generally at large can behaved acceptable socially so that they no longer feel marginalised.

such an "interesting" letter! can't help but rebut it point by point even tho i'm really busy in reality:

These are examples of an anti-smoking lobby that has become totally unreasonable and insensitive, and which ignores the rights of other human beings.

what is your yardstick of reasonableness and sensitivity? how do you balance the rights of non-smoking human beings? smoking and not smoking are mutually exclusive, period.

What happened to the call to build a more gracious, tolerant and forgiving society?

when smokers are killing not only themselves but others? what an argument!

Smoking is now banned even in nature reserves. The authorities explained that carelessly thrown cigarette butts can start bushfires during the hot season.

it should be banned, period!

Translation: We cannot even smoke outdoors.

your logic is amazing! "nature reserve" = "outdoors"?!

This can only be considered a Nazi-style approach.

what is a "nazi-style" approach? just bec a whiner doesn't get what he wants when he wants it?

How about banning children from aircraft because they drive most passengers nuts?

really? how so? or only when they whine and wail like some bratty adults do when they can't seem to get what they want when they want it?

Reminiscent of the eugenics movement or Pol Pot's Year Zero Initiative?

how so?

George Santayana said: 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'

you don't even need to be a medical doctor to know that smoking is unnatural, abnormal and most of all, unhealthy, and yet you do it regularly, and you're quoting him?

Smoking is already banned in many places. From next month, the ban will be extended to children's playgrounds, exercise areas, markets, underground and multistorey carparks, ferry terminals and jetties. It will also be extended to non-air conditioned areas in offices, factories, shops, shopping complexes and lift lobbies.

wonderful, long overdue!

Smoking bans are misguided efforts by retrograde Puritans.

bare allegation?

The problem with bans and restrictions is that they are an easy way to deal with life's moral issues which could eventually weaken - and not strengthen - the moral fibre of society.

another bare allegation, non-sequitur too.

We need to step back to look where we are heading, for there is a lot more at stake than a breath of fresh air.

just bec it infringes on your delusional rights?

The epidemic of calls to castigate smokers even more has spread and is symptomatic of a far more grievous threat, a cancer that has been spreading for decades and has now metastasized throughout society.

megalomania!

This cancer is the only real hazard involved - the cancer of a relentless anti-smoking lobby.

a useful "cancer" then!

The issue is not whether smoking or second-hand smoke is a real danger or a phantom menace. The issue is: If it is harmful, what is the proper and reasonable reaction? Should anti-smokers satisfy themselves with educating people about the potential danger and allowing them to make their own decisions - or should they influence the Government to force people to make the 'right' decision?

if i know something is harmful to me and others, and yet i persist in indulging my lack of self-control, am i guilty of self-centeredness at the very least?

The decision to smoke, or to avoid second-hand smoke, is a question to be answered by each individual based on his values and assessment of the risks.

you're assuming that everyone has the right to make such a decision. unfortunately, the moment you light up, you're already depriving my right to be where i am and have you beside me without wanting to inhale your smoke.

This is the same kind of decision that free people make regarding every aspect of their lives: how much to spend or invest, whom to befriend or sleep with, whether to go for further studies or get a job, whether to get married or divorced and so on.

smoking and not smoking are mutually exclusive. i cannot be where i am with you next to me and not inhale your smoke. if someone has to move, then there is no longer the right to make that decision.

All these decisions involve risks; some have demonstrably harmful consequences; some are controversial and invite disapproval from the neighbours. But the individual must be free to make these decisions. He must be free because his life belongs to him - not to his neighbours - and only his own judgment can guide him through it.

your life does not belong to you alone. if this were not so, suicide would not be a crime.

Yet when it comes to smoking, this freedom is under attack. Smokers are a numerical minority, practising a habit considered annoying and unpleasant to the majority. So the majority tries to commandeer the power of government and use it to dictate smokers' behaviour.

the only part that makes any sense.

That is why these bans are far more threatening than the prospect of inhaling a few stray whiffs of tobacco smoke while eating at your favourite hawker stall. The anti-tobacco crusaders point in exaggerated alarm at those wisps of smoke - while they unleash a systematic and unlimited intrusion of privacy into our lives.

pity the smoker who has lost his head in smoke!

I smoke cigars and pipes and am merely defending the right of an adult to use a legal product. Since when can we exercise the rights of the many at the expense of the rights of the few?

since democracy came about.

I will be the first to defend the right of non-smokers, but each right also carries a duty - the duty to look out for those whose minority rights are infringed when a majority exercises its rights.

non-smokers would not want you to have the right to smoke in front of them or where they will be. please look after their right, majority or not.

Remember, cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco are not banned in Singapore - they are not cocaine, heroin or Ecstasy. There is no need to treat those of us who smoke like subnormal human beings, criminals or social outcasts.

bec it makes the govt money...so it is legal, but it is not nec moral. not saving someone who is drowning when you are able to is legal too, but is it moral?

This Dr Michael Loh is engaged by tobacco company to write the letter??? If he is talking about gracious society, then he should also know that graciousness is inclusive consideration for others. For a gracious smoker, if there is this term, he should know when and where he can smoke to avoid causing uncomfort to the people around him.

Smoking kills, being a Dr knows best, or is he Dr of other practices??? But 1 thing is sure, if someone is commit suicide, make sure he moves away from the general public so that he does not implicate others. This is what we can call Gracious as well.

"How about banning children from aircraft because they drive most passengers nuts? "

Geez, hey Dr...what kind of PHD are you holding? The above statement is a bad comparison! You sound like a heavy duty chimney smoker!!

A lot of smokers do not know the DANGERS of smoking until they are stricken with CANCER, then it will be too late!!

What a retarded and baseless letter!