10 Reasons to Ban Smoking
Before I begin, I just heard that former Congressman Mark Foley’s father died at 85. It’s always touching to see a son be able to give his father one final moment of pride before his passing. One can only hope that the Reverend Ted Haggard has a similar opportunity.
Speaking of smoking, I’ve been doing some thinking about this, and I think it’s time to ban it across the board.
Belmont, California has just become the first city to ban smoking entirely, with the exception of single family detached residences. This is completely outrageous. Why are people still being allowed to smoke in their homes? Even if a resident lives alone, did you know that second-hand smoke was responsible for the deaths of 140,041 dogs, cats and random pet vermin last year? I got that stat from the same people who seem to know exactly how hot it’ll be in 100 years and yet can’t tell us what the overnight low in Scranton will be two weeks from Tuesday – so I know it’s reliable.
There are some good reasons to ban smoking. Here are only a few:
10. It destroys innocent life. Some women are wheezing so bad that they can barely make it to the abortion clinic.
9. The government would lose huge amounts of tax money, and be forced to turn to taxing trans-fatty foods. When a Whopper costs $35, our much needed weight loss will be greatly facilitated.
8. If smoking is illegal across the board, there’s a good chance we’ll be able to throw Sean Penn in jail.
7. There would be no possibility that television ads encouraging people not to smoke do nothing more than remind teens to smoke, which can ultimately cause emphysema for everybody else in the free condom line.
6. If we make it illegal to not only smoke, but to drink alcohol, eat meat, drive SUV’s, display Christian symbols, use chemicals on our lawns, hunt, fish, build additions on our homes, shop at Wal-Mart and wear fur – we’ll have much more available time and be in better condition to bash George W. Bush for stomping on our privacy rights.
5. When smoking bans have been instituted in prisons, it has drastically lowered the number of cases of chronic cough in murderers, rapists and pedophiles while providing the additional benefit of removing the main method of payment in the illicit prisoner trade industry.
4. Once smoking is banned, we can focus on eradicating the real killer: running on the playground.
3. The government often invests in big tobacco stock and uses some of the dividend money to buy ads to tell us not to smoke. This counterproductive practice would come to an end, allowing Uncle Sam to instead invest in distilleries and use the dividend money to buy ads telling us not to drink.
2. Courtney Love was almost killed last year after lighting up after sex and accidentally setting fire to the bag on her head. Similar accidents can be avoided nationally.
1. Smoking contributes to global warming, and Al Gore’s dartboard and Magic 8-ball are never wrong.
So, if you’re the kind of person who freaks out because a terrorist detonated a belt-bomb — and your first thought is that you’re afraid it might have contained asbestos — then let’s get to work to ban smoking and anything else people do that we don’t like. By banning these things and creating a healthier world, we’ll be able to celebrate what this country is all about: Freedom!
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November 16th, 2006 at 10:00 am
Hello Doug,
I’m incredibly allergic to cigarette smoke and have experienced little sympathy or concern from smokers who either told me to “deal with it” or just didn’t care if their habit annoyed anyone else.
I live in a condominium above a smoker who genuinely feels bad that her habit is painful to me, but it now has reduced me to having to find ways to deal with the poisonous fumes that seep up through our floor. When I travel overseas, I notice that the cigarette smoke isn’t quite as loathsome which makes me suspect that the domestic brand has added new noxious chemicals to enhance their potency and addictiveness.
When I traveled to Vegas and wanted to find an area of a casino that was non smoking, they looked at me strangely. Apparently, the smokers needed to have the whole casino to themselves and because they also tend to gamble and drink more, their wishes took precedence. I never really liked bars or understood their purpose (what fun is it to sit in a dreary room and pay for drinks) so maybe they have a point: smokers are big spenders and they get respect for it.
I don’t want to be in the granola crowd, but I happen to think it’s wonderful to breathe clean, fresh air. I also happen to like being able to walk in a park or beach without stepping on top of cigarette butts that have been in other people’s mouths.
Despite the fact that I find cigarette smoker’s habits so incredibly loathsome, I can sympathize with their desire for freedom. Everything we do has negative impacts and those need to be balanced. When traveling by train, I love the ability to grab a cup of coffee and a danish and sit back and enjoy the ride. But many trains have abolished eating because some people cannot clean up after themselves or respect the needs of others. It’s a fine line and the devil loves playing with it.
November 16th, 2006 at 10:56 am
11. More fun after-sex habits. Once smoking is gone, eating Sloppy Joes in bed can finally take it’s rightful place as the #1 most preferred post-coital activity.
12. Better lifestyle. An outright smoking ban will enable former smokers to “bum a stick of celery” or another nutritious snack off of their newly found vegan friends.
13. Further villify “The Duke”. It’s bad enough that one of our most enduring American icons is a (ugh!) cowboy. On top of that, John Wayne was a fully functional smokestack as well. The smoking ban should retroactively disgrace him enough to finally enable a real man’s man, Alan Alda, to achieve the iconic status denied him for so long by the far right.
November 16th, 2006 at 11:58 am
This may surprise you, but most leftist actors tend to be huge cig smokers.
November 16th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
Polishknight I am not sure what Bars you frequent but not all are dark and dingy… but I digress… you worry about “stepping” on cigarette butts that have been in other peoples mouths? I live a city where public smoking is all but banned, and with the exception of a few corners here and there you can hardly find a butt laying on the ground. But looking at the sidewalks and the roads, you do something else in its place… GUM…. chewed disgusting gum… spat out on the sidewalks and the streets….take a careful look at your main streets you’ll see the little white lumps permanently melted into the surface of the pavement and concrete they’re everywhere and far more disgusting than ciggarette butts, at least they can be swept up and don’t stick to the bottom of your shoes!
so whats next we ban chewing gum as they did in the far east?
November 16th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
My view on smoking is this: It’s a legal drug, so as long as it is, it should be up the private property owner as to whether or not people smoke there.
If enough people hate it, they won’t go there, and the place will go out of business. This opinion has gotten me kicked out of California for life.
It’s kind of like my view of Thai restaurants: Just because I’m allergic to curry and sickened by the smell doesn’t mean the place should be forced to change the menu. I won’t go there. If enough people hate curry, the place goes under and becomes a Starbucks, and the entire process starts over involving people who are allergic to caffeine.
November 16th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
Hilarious as usual Doug.
However, it is discouraging to see that the idea of freedom has been lost on so many. Smoking “stinks,” quite literally, but so do many habits that people have…where does the line get drawn? Because cigarette smoke is detested by so many they are willing to see that freedom done away with. But I’m afraid it has only just begun…and no, I’m not a smoker.
Just think of the money that could be made in Vegas if someone opened a PRIVATE business that didn’t allow smoking!
November 16th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
Doug,
You talk of freedom. Well, my 15 month old daughter and I have the freedom to not smell and inhale other people’s cancer-causing smoke. Living above and around other smokers forces us to close our windows on hot days. We can’t sit outside and enjoy the weather when others are smoking. No one in their right mind should be smoking anyway. It is so expensive to smoke. Smokers should take that money and give it charity, and/or put it in a savings/college account for their children.
It is 2006, we know of all the dangers that smoking and second-hand smoke causes. You say smokers have rights too; the freedom to kill themselves. Well, it is also affecting non-smokers. My health insurance rates should not have to go up because others choose to smoke and get ill. Their treatments cost insurance companies way too much money. And the rest of us have to pick up the bill.
Yes, I have had close relatives smoke and die from cancer. I have a friend right now that has to drink her breakfast, lunch, and dinner from a straw because cancer from smoking took the top of her mouth. When we talk, I have difficulty understanding her too. I do not look forward to her funeral either. Smoking hurts everyone.
Why shouldn’t a city ban smoking everywhere? They are really helping people in the long run.
Signed,
A Belmont, California Resident
November 17th, 2006 at 12:02 am
Belmont did not go far enough. They forgot to ban Lion’s Club, Rotary, and all other forms of BarBQ that pollute the air so badly you can smell it for blocks. Steak houses should be shuttered or serve it raw (sashimi-style).
Smokers in Belmont should gang up on them, print up protest posters or large protest buttons, light one up, and stand outside city hall. In this situation, smoking is a form of protest speech, and is palpably protected by the first amendment.
All the ninnies out there need to wake up. The expansive principles this “law” is founded on can be immediately applied to ban things like alcohol, such as foods deemed fattening.
Actually, we should apply these principles to ban feminism. That would be quite useful and beneficial. Feminism is something we can scientifically prove has been highly damaging to children, women, men, and marriage, in hundreds of ways including social, economic, and mental health results.
November 17th, 2006 at 1:56 am
I’m waiting for the City that bans telling lies. Now that would be a huge step forward for mankind that would put Niel Armstrong’s words in the shade. Ban the Princess of Lies.
November 17th, 2006 at 9:35 am
Hello Everyone,
I wanted to show that I was sympathetic to the needs of smokers and the complex issues of freedom. Sometimes, issues can be complicated and there’s no simple answer such as “let people do whatever they please” or “create a fascist police state.”
In answer to Fubrics Short: Not all bars are dingy but I get that impression from most of them. I haven’t seen too much of a problem with chewing gum and I’ve lived in a lot of places. Maybe our experiences differ. I love the episode of “Tripping the Rift” where the main character lands on a Singapore like planet and spits out gum and is sentenced to execution. I don’t see a lot of gum spat out at beaches but there are literally millions of cigarette butts on an average day. Face it: Cigarette smokers are litterbugs.
I disagree with KMM in discussing public cigarette smoking as a second hand smoke health issue. It’s a nuisance, plain and simple. But that said, nuisances are legitimate public issues similar to screaming out slurs, blasting boom boxes or public exposure. Public cigarette smoking is a habit that, even when practiced reasonably, is painful to many people around them while gum or even tobacco chewing does have legal and responsible ways of disposing of their waste even if they are not always followed.
Doug makes an interesting comparison with legal drugs. Indeed, the tobacco industry has gone to great lengths for tobacco to NOT be considered a drug for the obvious reason that it then becomes a public health and safety issue similar to heroine, cocaine, and marijuana which were all once legal drugs but banned due to health and public safety concerns. Cigarette smokers are addicts and act accordingly often unable to behave in a civilized manner. They aren’t as dangerous as a drunk driver, but they’re often just plain jerks. (That’s even how the habit was originally sold to a “rebellious” “maverick” youth: rebel against society and, at the same time, comform with your peers) So when they cry about their freedom being curtailed, it sometimes falls on deaf ears. I’m a libertarian, not an anarchist. If they can’t control their smoke and where their butts fall, that should be their problem.
November 17th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Thanks PK, I am a smoker and am very aware of other people’s air space by being courteous in my smoking-hope I’m not looked at as a “plain jerk” if the wind changes and some smoke accidently comes your way.
A related but side issue to this is that many of us want to quit but have been unsuccessful. I sometimes wish that smoking would be made illegal so I would have to quit, BUTT (sic), I live in the state of IL and with all of the tobacco money they have received has ANY program been offered to help us quit. Not a fucking dime. Sure, billboards were rented, with money from this getting kicked back to the pols, and a toll free number to call for what, someone to say, well you should quit?
I would be happy with and would participate in a solid cessation program where I would be required to go to sessions, meetings, etc. to quit smoking which would be paid for out of tobacco money, if I didn’t complete the course, I would have to pay for it. This could be offered to each smoker once every 5 years. Whether they quit or not, they made the effort with their time and the state showed it was serious with some money.
I’m not convinced by the varying sides if smoker’s health problems really cost the state more or less.
Morbidly, smoking should be encouraged by the Social Security Administration-maybe a future problem could be eliminated.
Personally, I get ill from certain perfumes and odors. Heck, I have to open a new shower curtain and leave it outside for a few days before using it-the outgassing make me heave-ho. Some women (to a lesser extent men) think that piling on more toilet water makes them more attractive. It is in fact a repellent.
November 17th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
Just think of the money that could be made in Vegas if someone opened a PRIVATE business that didn’t allow smoking!
Pretty dumb statement. Last time I checked, businesses are supposed to make money, so if there was money to be made, there would be lots of non-smoking restaurants.
By the way, are you saying there are NO restaurants in Vegas that are non-smoking? Either way I guess people made their choice.
November 17th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
I’m saying that people have a choice of where they spend their money and if they don’t like the way one is run(smoking)-they don’t have to go there. Private enterprise is just that-PRIVATE-and the government should keep their nose out of it. If all the non-smokers complained and abandoned the places they found offensive those places would get the idea.
I don’t think that is a dumb idea.
November 18th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
There are plenty of restaurants in Vegas that are no-smoking, but most don’t seem to make an effort to advertise the fact. They don’t make an effort to advertise the fact that they _allow_ smoking either.
I suspect that they don’t want the public to know for sure so that if a non-smoker walks in and is annoyed, then they’ll just have to make an effort to get up and leave. I would have zero problem myself if the smokers and the establishments that welcomed them advertised this up front so that non-smokers could avoid them.
The “if you don’t like it, leave” motto sounds similar to the “caveat empor” (sp?) or “let the buyer beware” expression. If private establishments cannot disclose the presence of noxious agents on their property voluntarily, then the government does have a proper role in requiring them to do so or even outlawing the substance.
November 18th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
Since when was that authority given to the government? And in a free society it is “buyer beware” to some extent anyway. The government isn’t supposed to be our nanny.
I know I don’t go to places that allow smoking and I don’t feel I’m being deprived of anything by making that choice.
November 20th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
Hello Mable,
News flash for you: that “choice” has been around for some time and most people feel very comfortable with it: Health code standards for restaurants. Labeling for foods. Zoning laws against strip clubs. These are all government “nanny” regulations which dictate what private enterprises such as reastaurants and bars in the public sphere can do.
I personally am fine with simple labeling. If the places told me clearly, in advance, that they were smoking then I could avoid them. But they deliberately go to lengths to obfuscate such information in order to try to inconvenience non-smokers.