Posted on 11/19/2004 5:35:36 AM PST by SheLion
Today is the day we set aside each year to badger, harass and pester that marginalized subculture of Americans, the Doorway People.
You know the Doorway People. They stand in doorways at work or at the mall smoking cigarettes because lighting up in mixed company has become as distasteful as nose-picking.
Yes, today marks the 27th anniversary of the Great American Smokeout, sponsored by the American Cancer Society, where modern incarnates of pinch-mouthed prohibitionists attempt to further ghettoize smokers.
Now, it's not that I think smoking is good. I have friends who smoke. I wish they didn't. On average, they will trade 10 years of their lives to enjoy their habit. But we're all grownups. Smoking is their demon and I have enough of my own demons to wrestle with.
But, unlike anti-smoking zealots, I sympathize with smokers.
That's because I was a smoker. When I quit for good in 1996, I was burning through 2 1/2 packs a day. I ditched the habit because each time I coughed, my lungs rattled as if someone had backed into metal trash cans.
Still, I loved every puff. I still miss it. In fact, I still have nicotine cravings.
So I'm sympathetic to smokers and believe they should be free to enjoy their addiction, which, last I checked, remains legal. Which is why I dislike the anti-smoking scolds. They are trying to criminalize smoking.
From New York City to Dallas, from Toledo, Ohio, to Eugene, Ore., anti-smoking zealots have racked up successful campaigns to ban smoking in bars and restaurants, the last bastion of peace and acceptance for smokers.
Eventually, the anti-smoking "movement" will have won enough smoking bans in enough cities in enough states to introduce national no-smoking legislation, said Zoe Mitchell, co-founder of Ban the Ban, which recently defeated efforts to enact similar no-smoking legislation in Washington, D.C.
"Ultimately, their goal is to make it a national issue based on their success at the local level," she said.
Anti-smokers say they're acting in the best interest of public health.
They say all those smokers burden the healthcare system with their cigarette-related maladies. It costs all of us more in healthcare premiums, they say.
Nonsense. Smokers die sooner than most of us nonsmokers, never collecting a cent from Social Security, which they've paid for decades.
Also, smokers pay outrageous cigarette taxes on each pack of smokes, which pours billions of dollars annually into government coffers.
At best, the money argument is a wash.
When an anti-smoking nut steps into a place like the Puss N' Boots Tavern in Fairless Hills, all they see is the blue-gray cloud of smoke hovering over the patrons crowded around the bar.
When I walk into the Boot, I see it differently.
I see a local cop who's seen more than his fair share of tragedy.
Or an emergency room nurse who was up to her elbows in blood just a few hours before.
Or a construction guy who's sacrificed years of Saturdays to work overtime so he could save for his kid's college tuition.
Or a middle-aged father worried about his son, who's fighting the war.
These are the good people the anti-smoking zealots want to stigmatize as public health leeches.
And if they accomplish their goal, they won't go away.
They will persecute the overweight, stigmatize SUV drivers and haul into court those who don't recycle.
They've got the money and the time and the lawyers.
Don't forget the infamous Americans With Disabilites Act.
It cost some businesses fortunes to put in wheelchair ramps and no one ever uses them but skateboarders.
Curb cuts all over my city for wheelchairs and again it's great for skateborders and kids on bicycles.I have never seen anyone on a wheelcharr go down my street,ever,yet the cuts were mandated by law.
Get the damn government out of my face,
From the title of the thread.
Suggest you brush up on your reading comprehension.
The title asks for a cessation of nagging the smokers. There is nothing to suggest an invitation to smug, know-it-all, nannies to come on in and make an ass of yourselves.
Yeah, what do I sound like?
Maybe an educated, former Marine who has actually left his parent's basement, traveled around the world, been in a bunch of crappy places, and maybe formed a personal opinion or two?
Do I offend you because I have a spine and am not afraid to state my opinion?
Go back to your crayons junior, come back when you can act like an adult.
I was being sarcastic. I do walk around with and unlit cigarette in No Smoking areas. People act like you've got as banana stuck in your ear. But that's another story.
My, I, and me.....
Do you ever think about anyone except yourself? Hmm, maybe you should go sit in your room and think about this for a minute or two.
I'm with you. What concerns me is: if they succeed with this, what else will they go after? And you KNOW they have a long list of what they have in mind!
That's not what I said, and you know it. You can do better than that.
All that and still no common sense, sad.
A former head of Harvard School of Public Health once admitted -- privately -- that genetics is the big one!
There you go thinking again.
Not only are you a little slow, you're memory isn't too good either. You are the one who started attacking me.
Quit spouting things you've heard ohter people say and try using your brain for once.
If ya'll want to smoke, ya'll need to grow your own and
roll your own cigarettes so you won't get all those cruddy
poisons from all the stuff commercial tobacco is sprayed
with.
Have a cigarette it will calm your nerves! lol
You got me.
In states where it's illegal to smoke in private businesses I don't have to complain to the managers.
How's that?
I paid for part of that highway, I want to speed on my 1/25th of a mile.
Restaurants, bars, homes, businesses are all private property, they have the right to allow smoking on their property if they want to.
Time for a nap.
If you want to bring up OSHA, the antis went that route and OSHA told them that if they wanted to have a PEL for ETS that it would be so high that there was no way any business could get that many people to smoke that many cigarettes in that amount of time to reach the PEL.
The antis immediately backed off that one.
You ARE an anti, it's all about the SMELL for you.
Open a business, provide a product or service in a clean and safe environment.
And provide that product or that service to the clientelle it wants to attract, unless there is a documented, scientifically proven, overriding public health concern.
Antis make this claim falsley but when asked to back it up they can't do it.
You, sir, want what you want, when you want it, how you want it, and want the force of law to make it so, unconcerned about what type of government we live in, unconcerned with the loss of liberties AND rights by people that you don't like to SMELL.
Not in his eyes, he knows what is best for you better than you do and stop blowing smoke in his face. lol
Even good genetics can be ruined by bad habits. Food and the sofa killed my father way before his time.
LOL, my mom was having a bad day (eighties) and we needed some stuff, so to K-mart we went. Things were hectic and mom had had enough, she lit a cig in the toothpaste isle and smoked it. Nobody said a word, NOBODY...
LOL.
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