policy?

[philip]

Ok, I know there are a lot of smokers and non-smokers out there. If you were member of a model railroad club what would the smoking policy consist of ?

Here' s how my club runs. If you smoke light em up. If your a non-smoker, well.........deal with it. The smoker to non-smoker members are about a 50/50 mix.

I'm done dealing with it. I quit the club.

philip

 

[Fred_M]

I won't touch this with a 100mm light. I quit 7 years ago and feel much better now. So I been there and done that and see both points. Fred

 

[Tyson Rayles]

What Fred said! :thumb:

 

[Muddy Creek]

I'm with you, Philip. As much as I wish there was a club up here in the mountains, I'd be out of there in a heartbeat when the smokers lit up. My days of intentionally breathing crap and coming home from anywhere reeking of smoke are long over

Wayne

 

[shaygetz]

Having once been a 2 1/2 pack a day smoker (off 'em 18 years this coming Jan. 31 :thumb: ), I'm pretty easy going on this issue, even providing ashtrays at work for those who do smoke. One of the things I enjoy about our club is it's policies and where they come from. For instance, our policy of only decoder equipped locos on run nights came from two guys who are on a shoestring budget but saw how their non-decoder locos were wreaking havoc on run nights with their "Double Ott Dance". The "No Smoking" policy has nothing to to with health or political correctness but smokers agreeing that their smoke had a negative effect on the track and scenery and so imposed a smoking ban inside the layout room. Not utopia but it works...

 

[b28_82]

I second that

 

[Chessie6459]

I am the kind of person that would go outside where there is not alot of people around. That is just rude for them to do that inside, i mean come on now have a little respect for others. I am trying to quit myself and it is hard. But i will make it. I Hope.

 

[Will_annand]

In our club there is no smoking.
Any member wishing to smoke must do it outside.
So far no one has complained.

 

[Fred_M]

The Goverment did a correlation study and determined that smokers have more respiratory infections than nonsmokers. Question I had on that study was, is it because they smoke, or because they are being banished to the cold outdoors in the middle of winter to smoke? Run them outside in zero weather to see how many cigarettes they can smoke on their 10 min. break. Then wonder why they get more colds, LOL, gotta be cigarettes, right? That what the goverment determined. Fred

 

[philip]

I appreciate the comments. Keep them coming.


philip

 

[brakie]

Our club has a workable smoking policy..No smoking in the layout room or meeting room..Fire 'em up and smoke 'em..Outside please..The funny part is 60% of the members smokes and we help vote that in mainly for fire safety as a group.Now on bitter cold nights or days(Sundays) we smoke in the meeting room as per the agreement.We have 2 nonsmokers that doesn't like that agreement but, that 60% that smokes means roughly $600.00 a month in dues..The other nonsmokers thinks it a fair deal that we can smoke in the meeting room during extreme cold weather..Its a workable solution.

 

[rsn48]

I thought I had given up on this crusade, but I guess I haven't. Virus's produce colds, etc; not "cold" as the myths would have it. So people can stand outside and get cold and not catch a "cold" because cold does not produce "colds." So the smokers can stand in the cold till the cows come home and they won't get a cold; ask the Inuit.

I'm sorry I just buried my mother this summer because of emphysema and I have no patience with smokers, even though I was one. Emphysema is one of the worse ways you can go so why be around second hand smoke?

 

[Fred_M]

Sorry Rick, but I didn't say a "cold". I said respiratory infections.

The common cold is a mild, self-limited, catarrhal syndrome caused, for the most part, by members of 5 families of viruses. A small proportion of colds are complicated by bacterial infections of the paranasal sinuses and the middle ear, which require antimicrobial therapy.

Upper respiratory infections are common infections and include pharyngitis, sinusitis, epiglottitis, laryngotracheitis, AND the common cold. Viruses play a significant role in the pathogenesis of many of these infections. Bacteria and other organisms also are responsible.

Pharyngitis is an inflammatory process of the pharynx, hypopharynx, uvula, and tonsils that can be caused by viral or bacterial infection and, occasionally, both. Distinguishing between these infections is important because rheumatic fever and acute glomerulonephritis may complicate untreated group A beta-hemolytic streptococcal infections (GAS), but they usually can be prevented by appropriate antibiotic treatment.

Sinusitis is an inflammatory process involving the paranasal sinuses (maxillary, frontal, ethmoid, and sphenoid). It usually is a bacterial complication of a viral upper respiratory infection.

Epiglottitis is a life-threatening disease observed most frequently in children aged 1-6 years, often during the fall and winter. Although less common, it also can affect adults.

Laryngotracheitis usually is the result of viral infection. The subglottic area and trachea are involved, whereas the area above the true vocal cords is spared. When children younger than 5 years have the infection, it is called croup.

From medical website http://www.emedicine.com/MED/topic2339.htm


And from http://health.yahoo.com/health/centers/smoke_free/121 :

1 to 9 months after quitting: Coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue, and shortness of breath decrease; cilia (tiny hair like structures that move mucus out of the lungs) regain normal function in the lungs, increasing the ability to handle mucus, clean the lungs, and reduce infection.


Anyway you look at it smoking is bad for you. I quit and encourage everyone else do the same. Fred

 

[Ray Marinaccio]

What's next? No farting in the club house.
Phillip,
Even though I'm a smoker, I don't think that clubs policy is fair. A non smoker has just as much right not to breath second hand smoke as a smoker does to light up.
Seems some people don't feel that way and think their right is more important.

 

[spitfire]

I smoke, and I am also sensitive to the rights of others not to partake in my smoking. I can see the fairness of this, but I am also aware of a certain irony when the driver of a large SUV for example gets on the second-hand smoke crusade.

You can spend a whole day in a room full of chain smokers and outside of a probable headache, walk away to tell the tale. You can't spend an hour in a room with an idling car and live.

But I digress! With regards to the club, I think it's totally unfair of the smokers to impose their noxious habit on everyone else. It's not like they can't smoke somewhere else. Whereas there is no other place to run the club layout is there?

I'd say they are being unreasonable. If it were me, I'd do exactly what you've done Philip - I'd vote with my feet.

Val

 

[philip]

Ray,

I to smoked for 25 plus years. Finally after seeing my Mother suffer for years and the ultimate untimely death in 1986 I quit. I just want opinions from the members here. I appreciate your comments and after this thread dies or Mikey closes it I will take the results to the club board members . Hopefully they will change the policy and be considerate of the non-smoking members. Especially when some of the club members are children.

Philip

 

[jon-monon]

Another X-smoker here. I feel sorry for smokers. Not only are they bannished to the cold in many cases, they are downright shunned and looked down upon by many. I think a reasonable attempt should be made for a wind/rain free smoking area, preferable indoors. Most clubs can't afford this. Brakie's club found a reasonable compromise.

On colds, viri, micoorganisms getting up your nose and in your lungs: We've know for ages a cold is a virus. Why, then, why do we catch a cold when we go outside in the cold with wet hair and not dressed well for the occasion? Why do colds run rampid in the spring and fall? Perhaps in the cold we compromise our immune system and open up for the attack of germs that are around us everyday. Fred may have been half joking, but a lot of corporations in this area banish their workers to the cold outdoors for a smoke. It's not good. We used to have a smoking break area, but we closed it and you can't even smoke in your car. Gotta go across the street.

 

[spitfire]

My theory on cold and colds is this: when the body has to expend energy staying warm, it doesn't have as much for fighting germs. So, in this weakened condition, it is vulnerable. It's like when you get overtired. More likely to get whatever's going around.

Val

 

[Fred_M]

LOL. Right, it's stress to the immune system that allow opportunistic infections to grow. So we have a group of people who smoke, which is one stress, sent ouside into the freezing rain, strike 2, to almost poision themselves with carbon monoxide in the 10 min. "shake from the cold between puff hustle", strike3. Then the people who complained about the second hand smoke get lonely and go out and join them in the smoke shack. All the fun people are in the smoke shack they say. Pretty soon everybody is in the smoke shack at break time, breathing an atmosphere 1000% worse than it ever was when people could smoke them at will in the factory. Been there and seen that. The smoke shack looks like a army gas mask training center. Someone calls the fire department when they open the door. My wife still smokes, I wish she didn't. I would never ask her to go outside. But they do at work. At the local hospital its against the rules to smoke within 100 yards of the building. You see patients with fresh stiches from their heart lung transplant out front smoking while on 7 liters of oxygen. The goverments answer is make cigarettes cost more, they are now about $3 a pack tax. Does that stop them, NO. They claim that the tax and court settlements go to help treat people with lung problems and smoker aware programs like the one where they leave the babycarriage on the street corner and run away. That ad reminded me of a bad movie plot about terriost. They didn't help my fatherinlaw when he had COPD from a lifetime of smoking. Now they tell people they can't smoke on company property. Why, because of the study I mentioned. Smokers are sick more. I ain't gonna offer no solution because there isn't one I see. Everybody has rights and my rights are, and always will be, more import that yours. Can I get an Amen?

 

[theBear]

AMEN !!!!!!!