esrosedotblog

WSJ?OTD

"Do you support smoking bans in restaurants and bars?"

The perrennial question.

How far will we push the smokers back this time?

I grew up with smoke. My dad smoked. I smoked.

Most of the people that I worked with smoked.

It is not that smoking was thought to be safe. I remember as early as 1954 that they started filters.

Kent.

Micronite.

But the news did little to deter us.

We smoked everywhere.

Well, there were some 'no smoking' places. Schools. Churches. Museums.

I started smoking when I was 19 because my best friend Paul came back from a Co-op summer as a smoker.

It took awhile to learn how.

I was hardly into it when they started hammering at us to quit. I quit many times.

On the public space angle, I thought that it was OK for places to designate smoking and no smoking areas. But that is not realistic.

I remember going to meetings in the early 80s where one side of the room would be smoking and the other non-smoking.

Well, the smoke didn't see the barrier.

I remember a non-smoking friend saying to me that the day that they started banning smoking and doing all the stuff to make it more difficult to smoke was a dark one. He felt that, after they were done with smoking, they would start on other social engineering projects.

He was right.

I am now almost ten years without a cigarette.

I don't miss smoking. I seldom crave a smoke. This picture does grab me a little, I must say. See how pretty the smoke is?

I don't mind being around it. I am not one of those asshole ex-smokers who carry on against it now. Live and let live.

I am not sure that I believe in the danger of second hand smoke even today.

But, as a smoker and ex-smoker, I lost my right to argue.

No one wants to hear it. They just figure I am defending my smoking habit. Addiction.

I quit smoking because I had prostate cancer and was going to get radiation and they asked me to do it. I used the patch.

And I had a book that I had given to John's mother. It was about the craving aspect and it was very helpful.

I still have smoking dreams.

So. I am not qualified to answer this WSJ?OTD objectively but since when is that a problem?

I voted NO just to be a bastard about it.

Of course, I am in the minority. 77% voted YES.

Oh well.