Thought For Food

I’m about to gag myself to death with the latest California brainstorm wanting to ban smoking in apartments and condos. 

Before you EVEN start let me say that YES I smoke.  Yes I know it’s bad for me and you and everyone else in the universe.  I have no problem with not smoking in a restaurant.  I will gladly wait to light up after we all get done eating.  I have no problem not firing up on the airplane.  I get it, OK?  I understand that my choice to smoke is just that…MY choice.  I understand that I have no right to impose MY choice on YOU.  By that same token, you have no right to impose your choice NOT to smoke on ME. 

  I happen to have the opinion that the OWNER of an establishment should have the choice of whether said establishment is smoking or non-smoking.  And that we as consumers have the option of choosing whether or not to patronize that establishment based on that, or any other criteria we want to employ.  If the owner makes his establishment a smoking environment and we choose not to patronize it because of that and his profits then go down, he must either bow to the bottom line and change his mind or he must accept the loss in profits.  On the other hand if his profits do NOT go down, then the opponents of smokers must then suck it up and go off to find a cleaner environment to plot the reduction of rights the citizens of this country can call their own.

I find it cosmically frightening that the citizens of America are blithely watching their rights being whittled away without so much as a whine.  The fight against smokers is only one example, but it is a glaring one.  In the scheme of things I can think of a dozen more rediculously obvious dangers than second hand smoke.  But millions of dollars in cash as well as matching amounts in time and effort are spent making good, decent people feel like second class citizens. 

I, as a smoker, have never driven down the road on a nicotine high and killed innocent people in a head on collision as a direct result of over consumption of cigarettes.  I, as a smoker, have never smoked a six pack of cigarettes and beaten my children because I can’t handle my nicotine anymore.  I, as a smoker, have never given my child brain damage that will last a lifetime because nicotine makes me angry and vindictive and violent every time I light up a cigarette.  But you be sure to ban me from smoking in a BAR!!!!!!!!  We wouldn’t want all those bar patrons who will be out there “drinking responsibly” to suffer from second hand smoke, right?

What am I missing?  I see on the news with sickening frequency stories about multiple teenagers in alcohol related accidents.  Dead, maimed, brain damaged, crippled for life.   And let’s not forget the innocents.  Those folks whose only crime was being on the road at the same time as someone who was drinking and driving.  Not one suggestion of a ban on drinking in apartments and condos.  Not one mention of bans on alcohol anywhere.   Could it be that there are far more lawmakers that drink than smoke?

I have six….yes I said SIX cousins who are orphans because their parents and their oldest brother died from second hand alcohol.  They were killed by a drunk driver as they were returning home from Christmas shopping.  I guess we should be thankful that they didn’t die from second hand smoke, huh?