OK, so obviously this is going to be a rant.
I can't understand how smoking can still be legal. First off, with as many people that smoke there is no way that this is not contributing to pollution. With all the rules and regulations that go into making industries, machines, equipment and vehicles as pollutant free as possible, how has this been able to survive? Just that alone should be able to stomp it out, but there is also the health issue. How can something that causes so much harm be allowed to be sold? It just doesn't make sense to me at all. They've passed laws for people's safety. The seat belt law and the helmet law are two prime examples. However, not wearing a seat belt or a helmet doesn't affect anyone other than the one not wearing it. Smoking however does. I'm going to give smokers the benefit of the doubt here and say that maybe they don't realize how much their nasty little habit affects others around them and others that aren't even remotely near them. So, if you are a smoker please let me help you understand what happens that you don't see or know.
At the apartment complex where my family and I live, we live at the end of the last building in the complex. There is a pool in the center and a laundry room on the other side of the pool from where we live. Next to the laundry room is a ceramic plant pot that is filled with sand or kitty litter or what ever they put in it so you can snuff out your cigarettes.
That area is probably 30 or so yards away from our front door, plus there are some trees and shrubs in between. Our front door has one of those security screen doors on it. Directly across the apartment is a sliding glass door with a sliding screen door. We like to leave both the front door and the sliding glass door open with the screen doors shut because with them open we get a real nice breeze through the place. Every day and sometimes multiple times per day we will be sitting in the living room or in that area of house and all of a sudden, "cough cough, ugh, what is that? Oh man smoke, quick shut the doors!" Then turn on the fans and the oven vent hood to try to get the smoke that made it into the house out so we can breath normal again. Now, if this was just me, or if it happened only once or twice every once in a great while, I probably wouldn't put up a stink about it, but I'm married and have 2 young children that are subjected to this on a daily basis. How is that OK? It is beyond me. Plus, if it is hot enough we now have to turn the AC on to prevent sweating to death in the heat an not getting any air. That means I now have to pay out my hard earned money because someone decided to smoke. Not to mention that studies have shown that second hand smoke is as dangerous or even more so as smoking yourself. Not only that, but I can't complain about it or do anything about it because you are allowed to smoke outside in an open area.
Now if I were to walk around with a squirt bottle squirting everyone who was smoking I would probably get in trouble, not to mention the possibility of bodily harm. Interesting isn't it? A little squirt of water that does no harm and dries by it self in a few minutes treated so much worse than a lung clogging, cough inducing, cancer causing cloud of smoke. How???
I understand that smoking is addictive and my heart goes out to those who are addicted. I hope they will one day break free of it. If you do smoke I plead with you please do your best to quit. For your own health and for the sake of how you are affecting others around you. I know the way things are that there's no chance of a law being passed. The smoking industry produces too many, jobs, taxes, profits in the medical industry and tons of sponsorships in sporting events. I fear the only way to defeat this is for more and more people to stop smoking and for the younger generation to never start. Anyway that's my rant.
What are your thoughts?
