NY prohibits smoking by people fighting addictions

This is not a terrible idea...however it is a very trying time for people in recovery and it may be just that much harder to take to the treatment that they are in....

I respect NYS for that!!!! they are taking a stand against this filthy habit. maybe it'll be hard to kick all the bad habits at once but it'll be worth it. otherwise people in recovery will use smoking as a crutch.

A good sounding policy but No Compassion. Those fighting addictions are people who have failed time and time again. I really think it is unfair to put coping mechanisms out of reach. Yes, someone in recovery might use smoking as a crutch. However, I would much prefer to see someone using the crutch of smoking over the ills of drug addiction or the possibility of killing someone as a drunk driver.

Are the recovering addicts in rehab because they want to be? Or have they wound up in court for some offense and been ordered into rehab?

Been There wrote:

Are the recovering addicts in rehab because they want to be? Or have they wound up in court for some offense and been ordered into rehab?

Actually ,both... Many people have reached a point in their lives that they have been able to sober up long enough to put themselves into a rehab...yet, many of them come through court orders & court mandating treatment schedules. Many people especially addicts/alchoholics do not believe smoking changes their lives as much as their other addictions. Many of these programs are very intense....not to mention the stress of abstinence.....Smoking is all these people have left. We are not a race of robots.......We all have a vice, they should not be taking that away......What's next no TV at rehabs, or No Caffeine <----Some already do....

rrrrrr wrote:

I respect NYS for that!!!! they are taking a stand against this filthy habit. maybe it'll be hard to kick all the bad habits at once but it'll be worth it. otherwise people in recovery will use smoking as a crutch.

Let's look at this crutch.....

Call it spam if you want, it doesn't change the truth. Remember the NASA footage when we could just frolic back and forth to the moon and when the Voyagers I and II were built?(that are still sending back data by the way) What do you notice about that footage? Is it that people are smoking, or that society didn't cater to the dumb shmucks who need to feel important, not because of what they do, but because of what they don't do.

Now, lets look at some real achievements. Warning. These humans smoked tobacco......

ISAAC NEWTON: described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, and is the basis for modern engineering.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: special theory of relativity, which reconciled mechanics with electromagnetism, and his general theory of relativity, which extended the principle of relativity to non-uniform motion, creating a new theory of gravitation. His other contributions include relativistic cosmology, capillary action, critical opalescence, classical problems of statistical mechanics and their application to quantum theory, an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules, atomic transition probabilities, the quantum theory of a monatomic gas, thermal properties of light with low radiation density (which laid the foundation for the photon theory), a theory of radiation including stimulated emission, the conception of a unified field theory, and the geometrization of physics.

NEILS BOHR: physicist who made fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. He was also part of the team of physicists working on the Manhattan Project. Bohr has been described as one of the most influential physicists of the 20th century.

THOMAS EDISON: considered one of the most prolific inventors in history, holding 1,093 U.S. patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production to the process of invention, and therefore is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL: eminent scientist, inventor and innovator who is widely credited with the invention of the telephone. Many other inventions marked Bell's later life including groundbreaking work in hydrofoils and aeronautics. In 1888, Alexander Graham Bell became one of the founding members of the National Geographic Society. Upon Bell's death, all telephones throughout the United States "stilled their ringing for a silent minute in tribute to the man whose yearning to communicate made them possible."

EDWIN HUBBLE: He profoundly changed astronomers' understanding of the nature of the universe by demonstrating the existence of other galaxies besides the Milky Way. He also discovered that the degree of redshift observed in light coming from a galaxy increased in proportion to the distance of that galaxy from the Milky Way. This became known as Hubble's law, and would help establish that the universe is expanding.

rrrrrr, your little squeeks are so very tiny.

Let's see. We have classical mechanics, the theory of relativity and e=mc^2, atomic structure, quantum mechanics, the phonograph and electrical power stations lighting houses and streets, the telephone, and the knowledge of distant galaxies and that the universe is expanding....hmmmm. And what has rrrrrr provided? Abstention? Whining condescension? Bravo rrrrrr. And just look at that name. Brilliance to be sure.

Either way....Great minds & weak minds use smoking as a crutch....The point is that in the case of the great minds it may just have been that stablization of a nice smoke that relaxed them enough to focus...!!!:) NYS should not play GOD here! It is bad enough these people have to overcome other addictions that are very dangerous.

BSpa_Local wrote:

Either way....Great minds & weak minds use smoking as a crutch....The point is that in the case of the great minds it may just have been that stablization of a nice smoke that relaxed them enough to focus...!!!:) NYS should not play GOD here! It is bad enough these people have to overcome other addictions that are very dangerous.

Well said. "Crutch" might be too simplistic but I know what you mean. I think the effects of this plant on different individuals is quite complex. Causing or encouraging disease in some, while maybe inhibiting certain things in others. Research is under way for curative properties as well as the negatives. And just to top off the Great Minds scenario, I would like to supply a more thorough list of tobacco users to include to that previously mentioned:

Robert Oppenheimer
Hermann Minkowski
Charles Darwin
Neil Armstrong
Ludwig van Beethovan
Sergei Rachmaninov
Johann Sebastian Bach
Igor Stravinsky
Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Maurice Ravel
George Frederic Handel
Mark Twain
George Orwell
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Langston Hughes
Arthur Miller
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ernest Hemingway
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Oscar Wilde
C.S. Lewis
John Adams
Herman Melville
Miles Davis
William Faulkner
Salvador Dali
F.A. Hayek
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Charles Dickens
Alfred Hitchcock
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Charlie Chaplin
Billy Holiday
Rene Magritte
Walt Disney
W. B. Yeats
Louis Armstrong
Thelonious Monk
James Baldwin
Lord Byron
Winston Churchill
J.R. Tolkien
Bertrand Russell
Francis Bacon
John Coltrane
Richard Leakey
Auguste Renoir
Pablo Picasso
Luciano Pavarotti
James Joyce
Franz Liszt
Sir Francis Bacon
Dmitri Shostakovich
Ayn Rand
Orson Welles
Babe Ruth
Edouard Manet
Charles Mingus
H.L.Mencken
Somerset Maugham
Albert Camus
Norman Mailer
Ferdinand Porsche
George Gershwin
Norman Rockwell
Henry James
Rudyard Kipling
Count Basie
Frieda Kahlo
Jimi Hendrix
Jean Paul Sartre
Jesse Owens
Duke Ellington
Louis L’Amour
Rod Serling
Sarah Vaughn
Bill Evans
T.S. Eliot

Mythos wrote:

<quoted text>

rrrrrr, your little squeeks are so very tiny.

Dear Mythos, obviously not as tiny as you think. One squeak doesn't get heard, but many squeaks, the chorus of squeaks... they are loud and clear!!!! a lot of people and legislatures must have been squeaking for a while, cuz that's done, baby!!!!! LOL
the truth is, that thing you probably have in your mouth right now, puffing away, is killing you! It's addictive! It's a drug. so you can lull your conscience to sleep with all those big names if you want. it doesn't change the fact that you're committing a crime against your own well being! that's all!

Mythos wrote:

<quoted text>
Let's look at this crutch.....

So, Mythos, let's review your comment. are you actually attributing these people's genius to smoking? because i don't see the link here. there's two sides of a medal to anything and anyone. yes, they were very talented and inspired, and yes, they were smokers too. those are the two opposite sides (positive-negative) to those great historic characters. if we take your model of thinking and apply it to other addictions, well then we can justify and glorify anything. what about those talented, well known and forever loved musicians who abused cocaine and other drugs? are we going to make a list of them and present it to public, claiming that it's OK to do the same... Once again, Mythos, I don't see how you relate genius and smoking. blows my mind. it's nothing but some cheep agitation.