Never been a smoker or even smoked until I was well beyond 30 and even then, something like 6 small cigars over the course of 4 years or so.

None of my parents, aunts/uncles or grandparents have been smoking since before I was born AFAIK and I still disagree with you.

I've always liked the distant smell of smoke for some reason. As everyone stops I'll probably miss it a bit but that is OK, I don't want them to destroy their lungs.

But your blanket statements feels weird to me, even as a non-smoker from a non-smoking home.

> Cigarette smoke feels like it sucks the air out of a nonsmoker's lungs from quite a wide radius [...] makes people involuntarily gag

Unless you have an allergy or something, this is entirely in your head.

Some people also “involuntarily gag” when they think about interracial marriage or a person eating pickled cabbage. This kind of paranoid disgust is a conditioned response, not a reasoned risk assessment.

* * *

Note: I am not defending tobacco advertising, smoking in enclosed public spaces like restaurants, smoking in a car with kids inside it, smoking on primary school campuses, etc. (For that matter I’m not defending spending time near an indoor wood cooking fire, etc.)

It is clear that getting significant amounts of second-hand smoke is bad for anyone, and children are especially vulnerable because they can’t make choices about where to go.

But desire to avoid dangerous levels of smoke doesn’t excuse being a jerk to people who are engaged in a behavior (outdoor smoking) which they have a physical addiction to, and is predominantly harmful to themselves alone.

> Some people also “involuntarily gag” when they think about interracial marriage or a person eating pickled cabbage. This kind of paranoid disgust is a conditioned response, not a reasoned risk assessment.

What a peculiar defense. The next time you use a bathroom that has gone far too long between cleanings, just remember that your response to the odor is all mere conditioning and that you just need to make a risk assessment. Inhale deeply, my friend. Take it all in. Let the fresh shitsmelling air cleanse your thoughts. It's not dangerous after all.

> > Cigarette smoke feels like it sucks the air out of a nonsmoker's lungs from quite a wide radius [...] makes people involuntarily gag

> Unless you have an allergy or something, this is entirely in your head.

The fraction of the population with asthma is easily high enough that there's plenty of people for whom it's not in the head.

Personally I just hold my breath and speed up until I've passed those people, but its most definitely unpleasant.

That isn't being a jerk - it is downright narcissism to think that everyone or most who cough in their presence is faking it because it interferes with their fix and gratification. First time smokers cough frequently and that is why menthol was targetted, for making it easier to start by masking its effects. The old cliche even back when it was more acceptable was forcing precocious smokers to smoke the whole pack to put then off of it! A body /not/ rejecting tobbaco smoke is a sign of a problem.

The narcissism of tobbaco users is emminently obvious to non-smokers but completely invisible and incomprehensible to them and their gratification. Just like how cigarette butts are the most common litter, and chewing tobbaco was curtailed due to concerns of tuberculosis from spitting it everywhere. It seems to be an effect of the drug more than anything sociological that all dissenting evidence is mentally erased.

After having dealt with narcissism in people around me it's quite amazing how often this pattern emerges. They must be faking it to lord over me, to make me feel bad, clearly everything these other people are doing must be about me.

Cigarette smoke is not nearly as bad or gross for the average person as you make it out to be - how do you think smokers could possibly stand it otherwise? If you didn't know it was bad for you you wouldn't be making such a pearl clutching fuss about it.

This post is pure hysteria. You're rationalizing a conditioned, exaggerated reaction.

It didn't bother me back when everyone smoked, but now that I'm rarely around it it's about as bad as described. I can tell when someone's smoking two cars in front of me at a stoplight, too, when both our windows are rolled up. Smells awful.

On and off smoker chiming in here. I love the smell of cigarette smoke when I’m smoking or recently quit. If I haven’t smoked in several months, though, the smell is as the person you’re responding to describes: terrible, imposing, and wide reaching.

I honestly don't think you're posting in good faith.

Is it that difficult to understand that most people don't want to inhale smoke and find it really distasteful?

Honestly, inhaling flatulence is probably less dangerous than inhaling second-hand smoke, and I don't think anyone is going to blame someone for intensely disliking inhaling that.