Health Care

[onoway]

Regarding smoking..a month or so ago a long distance trucker was stopped in Ontario and given a hefty fine for smoking in his truck as it was "the workplace" although no-one else was travelling in the truck with him. This seems a bit much?

 

A different angle on the health care issue is the use of prescription drugs for healthy adults. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/HeartDiseaseN...tory?id=9353879

The other side of the Hurrah! camp, is that there have also been calls for recall and banning the drug. From Crestor's own site; http://www.crestorrecalls.com/crestor-cont...-to-Remove.html there are a number of Hot Topics which are of interest..one on which is partially quoted below

 

Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn.-3) today said the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cannot ignore recent warnings on the popular cholesterol-lowering drug Crestor. According to media reports today, the American Heart Association's Journal “Circulation” reported a study showing Crestor is more likely than other drugs in the same category to cause muscle deterioration that can lead to kidney disease and failure.

and every page I saw on Crestor ended with this

If you or anyone you know has taken Crestor and has experienced the above symptoms or side effects, contact our Crestor lawyer and receive a free case evaluation."

 

It's a whole new scenario for the drug companies if they can push prescription drugs to healthy people. It will be especially lucrative if they can get the government to pay for them. (assuming there are no lawsuits in the offing for people developing diabetes and kidney failure). According to Crestor's site, Sweden will not because of safety concerns, and two private drug companies in the States also refuse to pay for them. . I guess if a person asks Crestor when they have a problem lawsuits won't become an issue though. :ph34r:

[y66]

I'm convinced by lobowolf's arguments that if a private business owner wants to allow smoking and serve food, they should be able to get a license for this, provided they take reasonable and prudent measures to prevent harm to workers and others who are unwillingly or unknowingly exposed to secondary smoke, for example, people who work and live in adjacent spaces. Business owners can do this by calling their establishments smoking establishments, by controlling exposure of workers to secondary smoke in reasonable, measurable ways, as in businesses that expose workers to radiation risks, by paying for regular health exams for employees and by paying the costs of inspections to ensure compliance.

 

I don't understand the argument for exempting private business owners from the responsibility to take such measures. It seems to me that private business owners who don't are stealing from the common good and that governments have an obligation to prevent this.

 

I am struck by the inanity of the self-proclaimed freedom seekers' party's arguments that health care reform somehow undermines freedom. Ronald Reagan would have understood that workers who aren't free to switch jobs or move freely about the country because they risk losing health coverage are less free and that workers who are competing against workers in other countries where health care costs are subsidized have a significant competitive disadvantage.

[blackshoe]

Regarding smoking..a month or so ago a long distance trucker was stopped in Ontario and given a hefty fine for smoking in his truck as it was "the workplace" although no-one else was travelling in the truck with him. This seems a bit much?

Ridiculous. Zero tolerance run amok. Even if the cop was stupid enough to give him a ticket for this, how could the judge be stupid enough not to throw it out?

[Lobowolf]

Regarding smoking..a month or so ago a long distance trucker was stopped in Ontario and given a hefty fine for smoking in his truck as it was "the workplace" although no-one else was travelling in the truck with him. This seems a bit much?

Ridiculous. Zero tolerance run amok. Even if the cop was stupid enough to give him a ticket for this, how could the judge be stupid enough not to throw it out?

Some very intelligent people out there who really think they should be protecting you from yourself. Sort of reminds of the chorus in "Hot Fuzz" who keep repeating "The Greater Good" in that monotonous tone. Agree with "ridiculous."

[mikeh]

I'm convinced by lobowolf's arguments that if a private business owner wants to allow smoking and serve food, they should be able to get a license for this, provided they take reasonable and prudent measures to prevent harm to workers and others who are unwillingly or unknowingly exposed to secondary smoke, for example, people who work and live in adjacent spaces. Business owners can do this by calling their establishments smoking establishments, by controlling exposure of workers to secondary smoke in reasonable, measurable ways, as in businesses that expose workers to radiation risks, by paying for regular health exams for employees and by paying the costs of inspections to ensure compliance. 

 

I see: on a practical level...how do you expect to limit the exposure of staff to second-hand smoke? By making them wear breathing apparatus?

 

As for monitoring their health, any doctor will tell you that the effect is both cumulative and long-term...you don't magically eliminate the damage by waiting until an exam shows significant adverse changes...and that damage (in the form, say, of a small tumour) maybe not be apparent until years after the harm was done.

 

I say this knowing that removal from the environment will allow for some degree of recovery provided that nothing terrible has happened to the point of removal.

 

This is nothing like exposure to radiation....in those industries, protective clothing is required...if the analogy were apt, the measures would absolutely include breathing apparatus and maybe hazmat suits.

 

Now that I think about it....go ahead! I'd love to see how financially sustainable such an operation was.

[jdonn]

Employees have more rights than patrons

No, they don't. Everyone has exactly the same rights.

Legally, this is certainly not true. Many rights are defined by relationships. "Rights" generally correspond to "duties," and the duties we owe differ depending on our relationships.

 

As a non-legal example that I suspect most people would agree with, children have a right to be housed by their parents; however, the children's neighbors do not have the same right to be housed by the children's parents.

By his logic the unabomber has the right to run for president.

[PassedOut]

Regarding smoking..a month or so ago a long distance trucker was stopped in Ontario and given a hefty fine for smoking in his truck as it was "the workplace" although no-one else was travelling in the truck with him. This seems a bit much?

Ridiculous. Zero tolerance run amok. Even if the cop was stupid enough to give him a ticket for this, how could the judge be stupid enough not to throw it out?

This story looked so off-the-wall I wondered if there was more to it. Maybe a prostitute had complained about the smoke after leaving the cab or something. Nope. Truckers furious after driver fined for smoking in cab: Considered a 'workplace'

 

I am not a lawyer and don't know whether to blame the officer, the judge, or (most likely) the lawmakers, but I absolutely agree with blackshoe and lobowolf. That fine was ridiculous.

[mikeh]

Regarding smoking..a month or so ago a long distance trucker was stopped in Ontario and given a hefty fine for smoking in his truck as it was "the workplace" although no-one else was travelling in the truck with him. This seems a bit much?

Ridiculous. Zero tolerance run amok.

Even if the cop was stupid enough to give him a ticket for this, how could the judge be stupid enough not to throw it out?

This story looked so off-the-wall I wondered if there was more to it. Maybe a prostitute had complained about the smoke after leaving the cab or something. Nope. Truckers furious after driver fined for smoking in cab: Considered a 'workplace'

 

I am not a lawyer and don't know whether to blame the officer, the judge, or (most likely) the lawmakers, but I absolutely agree with blackshoe and lobowolf. That fine was ridiculous.

 

It turns out that I am a lawyer, altho not the type of lawyer who would ever be involved in this kind of dispute: I do civil litigation.

 

The process in Canada depends on the nature of the offence. My guess is that this was a 'ticketing' offence, similar to speeding or other minor infractions of the law.

 

In that case, the decision about whether proceedings were to be instituted lay with the police....in more serious offences the police make a report to crown counsel (the prosecutor) who then decides whether the circumstances both justify laying charges and carry a reasonable prospect of conviction.

 

Once the process is underway, there is little discretion left in the system. That is desirable on the whole, else we get a situation in which the rule of law becomes subject to the personal attitudes of the prosecutors....which is to some extent unavoidable but which should be minimized to ensure equality of treatment to all.

 

In particular, the Judge has zero right to decide not to convict merely because he or she disagreed with the law. Anyone who criticizes a Judge in these situations has no understanding of the role of a Judge.

 

Furthermore, the usual practice in Canada once these types of laws are introduced is to have a publicly advertised period during which the police will issue warnings but will not issue tickets......once that period is over, abusers get ticketed.

 

We are having exactly that in British Columbia, where I live, with respect to cellphone use by drivers of vehicles....we have to be hands-free or get ticketed. That came into effect Jan 1, but the police will merely give warnings for (I think) 3 months.

 

I would be almost certain that the no-smoking in one's truck was treated the same way. If so, then all of this is just bullshit...a typical case of the media printing a story in a misleading fashion.

 

If the law is that I cannot so something, and it is publicized, and a probationary period is permitted, and I decide after that that my personal view is that the law is unfair....well...I can go ahead and break it...but I have NO moral right to be outraged when I get prosecuted, convicted and fined.

 

If I don't like the law.....I live in a democracy....I vote...I can join a political party, I can sponsor a petitions....I can write letters to the editor....I can try to get the law changed. What I can't do, unless I am a whining, selfish sniveller, is deliberately break the law and then protest that his being fined is unfair.

 

There are instances in history where deliberately breaking a harsh and unfair law resulted in changes to the law, but I doubt that there are any real parallels between the smoking trucker and Ghandi :)

 

Now, I don't know the exact facts of the case in point, and I am not saying that the smoker in question matched these harsh words...all we have is the almost certainly incomplete and quite possibly inaccurate words from the newspaper article. There may have been no adequate warning. The driver might not be the one complaining, and so on. But after 30+ years of litigation, during which the media has reported on a number of cases in which I have been involved, I remember only one story that contained no significant error, distortion or omission.

[PassedOut]

Thanks for the perspective. I had thought perhaps the judge had no choice.

 

The driver might not be the one complaining, and so on. But after 30+ years of litigation, during which the media has reported on a number of cases in which I have been involved, I remember only one story that contained no significant error, distortion or omission.

In a completely different context many years ago I had similar experiences. After a time I began to appreciate reporters who were simply able to describe the gist of things, even though the details (and direct quotes) reported were always somewhat askew.

[Lobowolf]

It turns out that I am a lawyer, altho not the type of lawyer who would ever be involved in this kind of dispute: I do civil litigation.

 

The process in Canada depends on the nature of the offence. My guess is that this was a 'ticketing' offence, similar to speeding or other minor infractions of the law.

 

In that case, the decision about whether proceedings were to be instituted lay with the police....in more serious offences the police make a report to crown counsel (the prosecutor) who then decides whether the circumstances both justify laying charges and carry a reasonable prospect of conviction.

 

Once the process is underway, there is little discretion left in the system. That is desirable on the whole, else we get a situation in which the rule of law becomes subject to the personal attitudes of the prosecutors....which is to some extent unavoidable but which should be minimized to ensure equality of treatment to all.

 

In particular, the Judge has zero right to decide not to convict merely because he or she disagreed with the law. Anyone who criticizes a Judge in these situations has no understanding of the role of a Judge.

 

Furthermore, the usual practice in Canada once these types of laws are introduced is to have a publicly advertised period during which the police will issue warnings but will not issue tickets......once that period is over, abusers get ticketed.

 

We are having exactly that in British Columbia, where I live, with respect to cellphone use by drivers of vehicles....we have to be hands-free or get ticketed. That came into effect Jan 1, but the police will merely give warnings for (I think) 3 months.

 

I would be almost certain that the no-smoking in one's truck was treated the same way. If so, then all of this is just bullshit...a typical case of the media printing a story in a misleading fashion.

 

If the law is that I cannot so something, and it is publicized, and a probationary period is permitted, and I decide after that that my personal view is that the law is unfair....well...I can go ahead and break it...but I have NO moral right to be outraged when I get prosecuted, convicted and fined.

 

If I don't like the law.....I live in a democracy....I vote...I can join a political party, I can sponsor a petitions....I can write letters to the editor....I can try to get the law changed. What I can't do, unless I am a whining, selfish sniveller, is deliberately break the law and then protest that his being fined is unfair.

 

There are instances in history where deliberately breaking a harsh and unfair law resulted in changes to the law, but I doubt that there are any real parallels between the smoking trucker and Ghandi :)

 

Now, I don't know the exact facts of the case in point, and I am not saying that the smoker in question matched these harsh words...all we have is the almost certainly incomplete and quite possibly inaccurate words from the newspaper article. There may have been no adequate warning. The driver might not be the one complaining, and so on. But after 30+ years of litigation, during which the media has reported on a number of cases in which I have been involved, I remember only one story that contained no significant error, distortion or omission.

It turns out that I, too, am a lawyer (though not in Canada; although conceived in Montreal, I was born in California).

 

 

I particularly disagree with this paragraph:

 

If I don't like the law.....I live in a democracy....I vote...I can join a political party, I can sponsor a petitions....I can write letters to the editor....I can try to get the law changed. What I can't do, unless I am a whining, selfish sniveller, is deliberately break the law and then protest that his being fined is unfair.

 

So, the underlying principle, apparently, is that if I know what the law is and break it, I'm a whining, selfish sniveller if I protest about the unfairness of the legal sanctions. REALLY?

 

So, for instance, if consensual adult sexual activity is illegal in jurisdiction X of a Democracy, and you're unsuccessful in changing the law because, for instance, you're subject to the tyranny of a moralistic majority, then you have no business complaining about the moral unfairness of being fined or imprisoned for breaking such a law? That's a bit astounding.

 

The issue isn't whether or not the trucker (or any given homosexual in jurisdiction X) was on notice; the issue is whether the law itself is a reasonable one.

 

Reminiscent of those whining, selfish snivelling slaves who got caught heading north to evade their owners. If they didn't like the law, they should have just changed it.

[kenberg]

A trucker's view from the cited article.

 

 

John Falzon, who drives for a local trucking company, likes the law. He said he's allergic to cigarette smoke and recently had to share a truck with a smoker.

 

"I'm being subjected to carcinogens and things that are making me sick," said Falzon. "This is our workplace. We should not have to be subject to that. Every day I'd get in I'd see cigarette ashes on the dash, it stunk like cigarette smoke and it wasn't fair. I don't smoke. I try to take care of myself. If there are more strict rules about smoking in the workplace, smoking in trucks, then it would protect some of us who actually care about our health."

 

But even he said that if someone is an owner-operator of their own truck, they should be able to smoke and drive.

 

"If it's your own vehicle, you're the owner-operator, then that's your choice," said Falzon. "But if it's a company vehicle that has to be shared with other people, I think smoking should be completely outlawed."

 

 

My guess is that whoever wrote the law decided to keep it simple. Worrying about who can smoke when i which circumstance in which workplace seemed like an unending thicket so they just said that you can't do it.

 

 

I am also guessing that before the law was passed, the smokers who shared the cab with a non-smoker paid little if any attention to the non-smoker's preference. Falzon seems to be saying this, and I my own experiences would support the claim. Impose your will on others but howl like hell when someone returns the favor is s.o.p. for many. Early on, smokers were absolutely adamant that they have a total right to smoke anytime anywhere. Now that the tide has shifted they have all become great advocates of respecting the rights of others.

[y66]

I'm convinced by lobowolf's arguments that if a private business owner wants to allow smoking and serve food, they should be able to get a license for this, provided they take reasonable and prudent measures to prevent harm to workers and others who are unwillingly or unknowingly exposed to secondary smoke, for example, people who work and live in adjacent spaces. Business owners can do this by calling their establishments smoking establishments, by controlling exposure of workers to secondary smoke in reasonable, measurable ways, as in businesses that expose workers to radiation risks, by paying for regular health exams for employees and by paying the costs of inspections to ensure compliance. 

 

I see: on a practical level...how do you expect to limit the exposure of staff to second-hand smoke? By making them wear breathing apparatus?

 

As for monitoring their health, any doctor will tell you that the effect is both cumulative and long-term...you don't magically eliminate the damage by waiting until an exam shows significant adverse changes...and that damage (in the form, say, of a small tumour) maybe not be apparent until years after the harm was done.

 

I say this knowing that removal from the environment will allow for some degree of recovery provided that nothing terrible has happened to the point of removal.

 

This is nothing like exposure to radiation....in those industries, protective clothing is required...if the analogy were apt, the measures would absolutely include breathing apparatus and maybe hazmat suits.

 

Now that I think about it....go ahead! I'd love to see how financially sustainable such an operation was.

Since when are private business owners entitled to financially sustainable solutions to their problems?

[mikeh]

I particularly disagree with this paragraph:

 

If I don't like the law.....I live in a democracy....I vote...I can join a political party, I can sponsor a petitions....I can write letters to the editor....I can try to get the law changed. What I can't do, unless I am a whining, selfish sniveller, is deliberately break the law and then protest that his being fined is unfair.

 

So, the underlying principle, apparently, is that if I know what the law is and break it, I'm a whining, selfish sniveller if I protest about the unfairness of the legal sanctions. REALLY?

 

So, for instance, if consensual adult sexual activity is illegal in jurisdiction X of a Democracy, and you're unsuccessful in changing the law because, for instance, you're subject to the tyranny of a moralistic majority, then you have no business complaining about the moral unfairness of being fined or imprisoned for breaking such a law? That's a bit astounding.

 

The issue isn't whether or not the trucker (or any given homosexual in jurisdiction X) was on notice; the issue is whether the law itself is a reasonable one.

 

Reminiscent of those whining, selfish snivelling slaves who got caught heading north to evade their owners. If they didn't like the law, they should have just changed it.

 

I know that the practice of law in the US is quite different from the practice in Canada...maybe the kind of 'reasoning' set forth in your last paragraph is persuasive where you practice. Comparing the plight of a trucker who deliberately (for the sake of argument) opted to break the law to the plight of slaves is silly, and I suspect you know it to be so.

 

And you completely misread my intent in the paragraph with which you disagree.

 

I have NO universal issue with someone choosing to break a law that they feel to be unjust and then complaining publicly about the unfairness of the law. Where I do have a problem is with such a person complaining that they were prosecuted and fined, upon conviction. They deliberately set out to expose themselves to the risk of prosecution and punishment so cannot argue that it was unfair to prosecute and punish them. This is very different from the concept that the underlying law is wrongly enacted.

 

Study the approach taken by Ghandi in imperial India to grasp the difference....he didn't whine that his conviction was wrong...he argued that his conviction was the (proper and inevitable) result of an improper law...he was not attacking those who arrested him or prosecuted him or convicted him...he was using their response, which he deliberately provoked, to draw attention to the unfairness of the law. Indeed, if my memory serves, the government tried to offer him a way to avoid sanction, because they were rightfully worried about the P.R. disaster to follow...he insisted upon the process being carried out.

 

By contrast, the article seems to suggest (maybe I am misreading it, and I have already said that I make no assumptions about the accuracy of the article vis a vis the motives or knowledge of the driver) that the driver was upset not only at the law (legitimate subject of complaint even tho I personally hold a contrary view) but also at the process that resulted in a fine. It is that latter attitude, if it existed, that in my view constitutes whining.

 

To draw a more accurate analogy to the concept of slavery, it would be: say the law was that if an african entered into the US in January 1800, he could be taken into slavery. This law would seem, certainly to us, I would hope, to be both absurd and repugnant. An african, learning of this law, and knowing that it would be enforced, chose to enter the US, under no compulsion or other reason to do so. He was taken into slavery.

 

I would fully support his right to claim that the underlying law should be abolished, preferably retroactively (let's ignore the concept that it may be void ab initio). What I would not, however, accept as legitmate is a protest that the taking of him into slavery was unfair given that the law existed as it did and that he knew of it and voluntarily exposed himself to it.

 

If he were a Ghandi, he in fact would have deliberately provoked this result precisely in order to publicize the underlying issue...and in that spirit would presumably insist upon being taken into slavery.....if he were not, then his actions would not serve to draw any real attention to the real issue.

 

This is a 'hard' analogy to draw because, I expect, all of us are so opposed to slavery that it seems harsh to criticize any form of protest, but I hope I have illuminated the point I tried to make earlier. This trucker was not committing an act of civil disobedience to get a bad law changed.... he ignored the law, setting his own views above those of society as represented by the elected legislature, and whines when the state properly tells him he is not allowed to do that with impunity.

[y66]

The issue isn't whether or not the trucker (or any given homosexual in jurisdiction X) was on notice; the issue is whether the law itself is a reasonable one.

Why do so many intelligent people insist that there is one issue, the issue, when there are obviously multiple issues, for example, making the law, breaking the law, enforcing the law, upholding the law, and making laws better.

 

Is someone arguing that the cop's actions are ridiculous or the judge's?

 

My favorite bridge pro breaks laws like this one all the time. He gets lots of warnings but somehow he never gets a ticket. He's way too charming. If that trucker had been fortunate enough to have taken bridge lessons from him, I don't think this would have happened.

[onoway]

Long distance truckers LIVE in their trucks for months at a time sometimes, so it is as much their home as it is their workplace. My understanding is that it was HIS truck, not a company truck, so the possibility of a smoker being forced to share it does not arise. He was treating the truck as his home.

 

Also, if you want to talk about law in Canada, although I am not a lawyer even in remote armchair terms; I have been outraged at the behaviour of the federal government in terms of its behaviour towards the Wheat Board..it has used its clout to prevent the wheat board being legally ABLE to defend itself and gain support for its position at the same time as using taxpayer money to actively campaign against it. The latest word is that the feds are now going to go to try to use some rules outside Canada entirely to force the WB out of existence. This is not because everyone wants it to disappear but because SOME want it to disappear and the present federal government is openly and actively determined it should do so for rather murky reasons...the possibility of it being a unified force to be reckoned with and answered to being the most obvious one. It has to this point been a totally arrogant and arbitrary misuse of power by the federal gov., as polls and letters indicate that the majority of farmers in the prairies want the wheat board to continue at least in some form. But really, who cares what the farmers want?

 

So talking about voting and such as though that's the answer is not necessarilly so. Most situations are complicated, people choose the options which they feel most relevant to them at the time. Other fallout just gets carrried along on the ride.

[Lobowolf]

I know that the practice of law in the US is quite different from the practice in Canada...maybe the kind of 'reasoning' set forth in your last paragraph is persuasive where you practice. Comparing the plight of a trucker who deliberately (for the sake of argument) opted to break the law to the plight of slaves is silly, and I suspect you know it to be so.

 

And you completely misread my intent in the paragraph with which you disagree.

 

I have NO universal issue with someone choosing to break a law that they feel to be unjust and then complaining publicly about the unfairness of the law. Where I do have a problem is with such a person complaining that they were prosecuted and fined, upon conviction. They deliberately set out to expose themselves to the risk of prosecution and punishment so cannot argue that it was unfair to prosecute and punish them. This is very different from the concept that the underlying law is wrongly enacted.

 

Study the approach taken by Ghandi in imperial India to grasp the difference....he didn't whine that his conviction was wrong...he argued that his conviction was the (proper and inevitable) result of an improper law...he was not attacking those who arrested him or prosecuted him or convicted him...he was using their response, which he deliberately provoked, to draw attention to the unfairness of the law. Indeed, if my memory serves, the government tried to offer him a way to avoid sanction, because they were rightfully worried about the P.R. disaster to follow...he insisted upon the process being carried out.

 

By contrast, the article seems to suggest (maybe I am misreading it, and I have already said that I make no assumptions about the accuracy of the article vis a vis the motives or knowledge of the driver) that the driver was upset not only at the law (legitimate subject of complaint even tho I personally hold a contrary view) but also at the process that resulted in a fine. It is that latter attitude, if it existed, that in my view constitutes whining.

 

To draw a more accurate analogy to the concept of slavery, it would be: say the law was that if an african entered into the US in January 1800, he could be taken into slavery. This law would seem, certainly to us, I would hope, to be both absurd and repugnant. An african, learning of this law, and knowing that it would be enforced, chose to enter the US, under no compulsion or other reason to do so. He was taken into slavery.

 

I would fully support his right to claim that the underlying law should be abolished, preferably retroactively (let's ignore the concept that it may be void ab initio). What I would not, however, accept as legitmate is a protest that the taking of him into slavery was unfair given that the law existed as it did and that he knew of it and voluntarily exposed himself to it.

 

If he were a Ghandi, he in fact would have deliberately provoked this result precisely in order to publicize the underlying issue...and in that spirit would presumably insist upon being taken into slavery.....if he were not, then his actions would not serve to draw any real attention to the real issue.

 

This is a 'hard' analogy to draw because, I expect, all of us are so opposed to slavery that it seems harsh to criticize any form of protest, but I hope I have illuminated the point I tried to make earlier. This trucker was not committing an act of civil disobedience to get a bad law changed.... he ignored the law, setting his own views above those of society as represented by the elected legislature, and whines when the state properly tells him he is not allowed to do that with impunity.

I did not compare the plight of smoking trucks to the plight of slaves, any more than you compared smokers to pedophiles when you wrote:

 

Edit: BTW, if you argue that parents should be allowed to smoke in their homes regardless of the harm to the kids, please explain why you are opposed to parents having sex with their kids, in the privacy of their homes.

 

Or perhaps that actually was a comparison that passes for legal "reasoning" north of the border.

 

The slavery example, as I suspect you know, was not a comparison of the two situations, but an exploration of the principle that seemed (to me) to underlie your previous post - that given sufficient notice, someone sanctioned for breaking a law has no business complaining about the law.

 

Your follow-up does actually make your point more clear to me; I didn't pick up on your distinction between criticizing the law and complaining about one's own arrest. Probably just my hurried misreading; thanks for the further explanation.

 

In retrospect, I do think that my original "ridiculous" was an overbid; I was thinking of the trucker as a self-employed independent driver, and not part of a company in which the truck would be a shared workspace.

[Mbodell]

My guess is that whoever wrote the law decided to keep it simple. Worrying about who can smoke when i which circumstance in which workplace seemed like an unending thicket so they just said that you can't do it.

 

I am also guessing that before the law was passed, the smokers who shared the cab with a non-smoker paid little if any attention to the non-smoker's preference. Falzon seems to be saying this, and I my own experiences would support the claim. Impose your will on others but howl like hell when someone returns the favor is s.o.p. for many. Early on, smokers were absolutely adamant that they have a total right to smoke anytime anywhere. Now that the tide has shifted they have all become great advocates of respecting the rights of others.

I also think a big part of it was related to taxi drivers. Taxi drivers who own their own cab and drive it might have been smoking in their cars when there was no one else in the car (or worse, when they had passengers) and then the second hand smoke was effecting the passengers. I think that was probably the primary motivation on banning smoking in "enclosed work spaces".

[mike777]

guys note the trend is to ban smoking in your private car even if you are the only one ever in it. The govt wants to protect you.....smoking in car is deadly.....see nanny state.

 

 

 

http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.p...ng-in-cars.html

[kenberg]

guys note the trend is to ban smoking in your private car even if you are the only one ever in it. The govt wants to protect you.....smoking in car is deadly.....see nanny state.

 

 

I have known people who won't let anyone else drive their car, but I have never known a person who won't let anyone else ride in their car. I assume they drive a two-door model. Or maybe one-door.

 

But I won't hold you to your statement about "the only one ever in the car".

 

I think a lot of laws are not all that much a matter of deep philosophy or morality. It's more like this: Once smoking was socially acceptable and our laws reflected this. Now it is not socially acceptable and our laws reflect this new social view. If smokers had seen what was coming early on, possibly they could have worked more cooperatively with non-smokers to get laws that they would find at least a little easier to live with, but I am far from sure about that.

 

I confess to mixed feelings about laws that interfere with a person's right to do something stupid. If a young woman decides to work for a pimp who supplies her with drugs to help her keep up the good work, is it any of my business? Well, I would like to interfere if I thought I could do so effectively because I think the choice she is making pretty much constitutes proof that she needs a little help in making choices. You could say it's being condescending or a nanny or a buttinsky, and I suppose it is, but not everything comes down to philosophy consistency. Yes, it's true I don't want people interfering with my stupid choices. I think my stupid choices are not quite as stupid.

 

Society makes decisions like this all the time, and our laws reflect those choices.

[mike777]

guys note the trend is to ban smoking in your private car even if you are the only one ever in it. The govt wants to protect you.....smoking in car is deadly.....see nanny state.

 

 

I have known people who won't let anyone else drive their car, but I have never known a person who won't let anyone else ride in their car. I assume they drive a two-door model. Or maybe one-door.

 

But I won't hold you to your statement about "the only one ever in the car".

 

I think a lot of laws are not all that much a matter of deep philosophy or morality. It's more like this: Once smoking was socially acceptable and our laws reflected this. Now it is not socially acceptable and our laws reflect this new social view. If smokers had seen what was coming early on, possibly they could have worked more cooperatively with non-smokers to get laws that they would find at least a little easier to live with, but I am far from sure about that.

 

I confess to mixed feelings about laws that interfere with a person's right to do something stupid. If a young woman decides to work for a pimp who supplies her with drugs to help her keep up the good work, is it any of my business? Well, I would like to interfere if I thought I could do so effectively because I think the choice she is making pretty much constitutes proof that she needs a little help in making choices. You could say it's being condescending or a nanny or a buttinsky, and I suppose it is, but not everything comes down to philosophy consistency. Yes, it's true I don't want people interfering with my stupid choices. I think my stupid choices are not quite as stupid.

 

Society makes decisions like this all the time, and our laws reflect those choices.

yes

 

 

And I hope and pray to hear loud objections....

[luke warm]

so many decisions to make... if/when it passes, should i get divorced?

[luke warm]

canadian system at work... you mean there's a waiting list for heart surgery in canada? i really like this quote, "I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics." evidently the "best possible" is in the u.s.

An unapologetic Danny Williams says he was aware his trip to the United States for heart surgery earlier this month would spark outcry, but he concluded his personal health trumped any public fallout over the controversial decision.

 

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Williams said he went to Miami to have a "minimally invasive" surgery for an ailment first detected nearly a year ago, based on the advice of his doctors.

 

"This was my heart, my choice and my health," Williams said late Monday from his condominium in Sarasota, Fla.

 

"I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics."

"I wanted to get in, get out fast, get back to work in a short period of time," the premier said.

 

Williams said he didn't announce his departure south of the border because he didn't want to create "a media gong show," but added that criticism would've followed him had he chose to have surgery in Canada.

 

"I would've been criticized if I had stayed in Canada and had been perceived as jumping a line or a wait list. ... I accept that. That's public life," he said.

 

"(But) this is not a unique phenomenon to me. This is something that happens with lots of families throughout this country, so I make no apologies for that."

 

Williams said his decision to go to the U.S. did not reflect any lack of faith in his own province's health care system.

 

"I have the utmost confidence in our own health care system in Newfoundland and Labrador, but we are just over half a million people," he said.

 

"We do whatever we can to provide the best possible health care that we can in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Canadian health care system has a great reputation, but this is a very specialized piece of surgery that had to be done and I went to somebody who's doing this three or four times a day, five, six days a week."

[jdonn]

I wonder why the fact Canadians with money can come to America and get better treatment than Americans without money can get in America is often sited as a positive for the American health care system.

[luke warm]

I wonder why the fact Canadians with money can come to America and get better treatment than Americans without money can get in America is often sited as a positive for the American health care system.

and i wonder why canadians, with or without money, can come to the u.s. and get better health care than they can at home

[jdonn]

I wonder why the fact Canadians with money can come to America and get better treatment than Americans without money can get in America is often sited as a positive for the American health care system.

and i wonder why canadians, with or without money, can come to the u.s. and get better health care than they can at home

Are you really wondering more about faults in Canada's health care system than faults in your own? Why are you concerned with what Canadians can get in Canada? I am personally more concerned with what Americans can't get in America.