The smoking witch-hunt

-Let me just say that I am not a smoker. I do not like cigarettes, and would not engage in an activity that would harm my own body. But my body is not yours. Faire comme tu veux, messieurs.

Are smokers a disenfranchised minority?

Smokers are beyond a doubt a disenfranchised minority. The majority of smokers themselves are in poverty, and I do not know of any senators or congressmen who smoke (or make it known that they smoke). If you are a non-smoker, you will generally think less of someone sucking on a cigarette because they are “foolish” or “stupid.” Smokers are the only kind of person that it is politically correct to heckle; heckling truck drivers, or water bottlers because they destroy the environment is not right.

Second hand smoke-

Second hand smoke is not the all encompassing evil it is made out to be. It is kind of an excuse the government and non-smokers use to criticize smokers for the deaths of thousands upon thousands of people every year. In reality, however, second hand smoke is found to cause around 2000 deaths per year. Although that may seem like a lot, these deaths are often due to breathing “industrial” air, or people dying from something that may not have been caused by smoking, yet smoking is cited as the cause of death because the illness they died from is sometimes associated with smoking. Disregarding these facts, 2.4 million people die every year in this country, meaning that for a given, non-smoker the chance of death from second-hand smoke is less than one in a thousand.

Does the federal government have the right to ban smoking in certain places?

Excluding federal buildings and DC, no it does not. The federal government does not have jurisdiction and therefore no power: they can keep their panties on. Other Solutions An easy solution to this whole bars and restaurants fiasco is to allow smoking in places that have a non-smoking section and decent ventilation systems. A good ventilation system would remove smoke from the air so that non-smokers would not even notice the creepy dude in the corner who has not showered for a week-and-a-half blowing smoke rings.

PS- I see logic (even if it is faulty logic) behind the ban of smoking in restaurants, but a ban in bars, to me, makes no sense. The real purposes of a bar are to ease socializing through the destruction of brain cells and the hardening of the liver. Why should anyone care if a person wishes to blacken their lungs there as well?

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