Living is a slow suicide. Look at it rationally; by living you passively choose to continue in an activity that will inevitably end in death.
For anyone who's curious, or oblivious:
The first warning label appeared in January of 1966, about two years after the first Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health. The original warning label said "CAUTION: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health" and was replaced in 1970 by one saying "WARNING: The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health."
This means that very few people are alive in the US have ever picked up a cigarette pack that did not tell us the dangers of smoking. 42 years, i think we know what we are doing. The same goes for getting into cars, crossing streets and living outside of bubbles.
In the past 17 years, it has become popular to pick on smokers legally.
Send us outside of bars, and in some cases our own homes or even cities.
Taxes in the past 10 years alone have more than doubled the prices of cigarettes. (When compared to other taxes, vice taxes are extravagant and a means of forcing a small segment of the population to pay for the ills of the majority; a financial punishment for activities we legally pursue).
We went from being encouraged to smoke (it has even been endorsed by medical doctors as being healthy) to becoming social pariahs for doing so. Both the American government and the media helped to spread the quantities of those addicted to smoking, now those smokers have been betrayed.
If you believe the bullshit anti-smoking media campaigns, choosing to smoke is actually the responsible decision. Smoking has be so vilified that we are supposed to be convinced that second-hand smoking is actually more dangerous than first-hand smoking; so we apparently save ourselves by smoking.
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People are so happy to throw away the rights of the smoker. Unfortunately, they do not realize that when you freely give up one right; it becomes easier to take the next right from you. Read Orwell's "1984", or Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" to see what lies at the bottom of the slippery slope that we, as Americans, are choosing to dive down; all while we fight for our freedom... what a hypocritical joke,
Open air outdoor environments, even when heavily populated with smokers are full of far more dense and dangerous pollutants than cigarette smoke. There have long been bars and restaurants with smoking sections, and even those that choose (not enforced by tyrannical laws) to prohibit smoking on their premises. Just as you can choose to not watch an offensive television program, you can choose to not enter a smoke-filled bar. By all means your rights are important. but not when they infringe on mine.
But my point is that when you choose to violate my rights; you also grease the wheel for the violation of your own.
As for the democratic ideals that this country is supposedly intended to espouse, the rights of the few do not outweigh the rights of the many; and in the same vein, the rights of the many do not outweigh the few. The rights of all are of equal importance.
And as far as the rights of the many?
-54 million americans smoke http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920057,00.html which is approximately 1/6th or 16 percent of the population of 304 billion http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
-That means that there are far more smokers than either of the two major minority races in the united states
black or african american 35 million
hispanic or latino (of any race) 42 million
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-ds_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_&-_lang=en&-_caller=geoselect&-format=
I mean really, when compared to these other numbers; how much of a minority are smokers?
I'm not saying that you should not be able to go into a bar because i want to smoke. I'm saying that i deserve the same right as you. You, to choose a smoke-free bar to enjoy your drinks. I, to choose another establishment that openly allows me to have my cigarette without having to step outside.
Smoking outside is an imposition. Five smokers hiding from the sun or rain under 9 square feet of awning is less than fun. Then there's all the fun of being forcibly segregated from the general population as a social pariah.
You work in a coal mine, you expect to breathe coal dust. You work in a "men's club", you expect to run into sweat, lube and cumstains. You work in a bar, you deal with smoke and assholes. Those are the facts of life.
