{"id":1291,"date":"2003-04-25T11:20:29","date_gmt":"2003-04-25T18:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/8stars.org\/aa\/2003\/04\/25\/theres-smoke-and-theres-smoke\/"},"modified":"2003-04-25T11:20:29","modified_gmt":"2003-04-25T18:20:29","slug":"theres-smoke-and-theres-smoke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/2003\/04\/25\/theres-smoke-and-theres-smoke\/","title":{"rendered":"There’s smoke, and there’s smoke"},"content":{"rendered":"

The City of Austin is considering a pretty extensive public ban on smoking. As others have noted<\/a>, this is a matter that gets people pretty riled. The proposed ordinance<\/a> is pretty sever, in that it would ban outdoor<\/b> smoking at most places where people might smoke.<\/p>\n

Now, I hate cigarettes. I’ve never smoked a single one, and a discarded cigarette butt is only slightly less disgusting to me than is a turd. But this really does go too far. I can co-exist with smokers outdoors, for crying out loud. By over-reaching, this ordinance simply invites ridicule and non-compliance.<\/p>\n

But if it passes, I may try to get the city to consider another ordinance that could do a world of good for public health: a ban on motor vehicles in the city. Cigarette smoke is a nuisance, but probably hasn’t significantly impaired my health. Motor vehicles have<\/a>. And some of the trucks around her belch diesel exhaust that puts any smoker to shame. I don’t know how many deaths can be attributed to cigarettes per year in Austin, but I’m guessing there must be about 1,000 deaths attributable to motor vehicles every year here. That’s a lot–and the cause of death is simply beyond dispute, which is not the case with, say, lung cancer. Nobody says “well, the car running that guy over may have been a contributing factor in his death, but there were a number of genetic and lifestyle factors that may have accelerated his demise.” Nope. The car ran him over, he died.<\/p>\n

Oh, I know what you’re thinking. People need transportation. Despite their drawbacks, transportation plays a vital role in any economy, and we won’t be able to replace cars overnight. Ok, but, umm…think of the children!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If we can ban smoking in the interests of public health, how about motor vehicles too?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-austin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}