unmanaged wrote:

Well what gets me is that most of you think that all smokers are bad and have a carton a day habit. Some of us smokers do enjoy a pipe or a cig. every once and a while but that is we enjoy it.

No... we don't think you're bad (well, I don't). I grew up in a 6 person household, where 4 of the people in my family were heavy smokers (pack+ a day). Amazingly I never took so much as a drag off of a cig - I always viewed it as a stupid, grotesque addiction that I wanted nothing to do with. Growing up all around it, it was annoying then, its equally annoying now - possibly more so since I don't deal with it day in and day out (my wife quit years ago thank god).

For most of us non-smokers, smoking is a bizarre habit that we don't grasp or comprehend. Most people say they took up smoking because they felt it would improve their social acceptance. I.E. caving to peer pressure. Anything done out of peer pressure is bad; ill advised, done for all the wrong reasons.

I believe in people being free to do whatever they enjoy, so long as it doesn't impinge on another’s freedom. I should have the freedom to walk into a bar, enjoy a beer and not leave the place with my body and clothes reeking of smoke. Most of you don’t seem to have a problem with taking it outside. But some of you seem to think it’s your god given right to fill any enclosed public space that may or may NOT have adequate ventilation with fallout from your addiction. That’s the issue, and it’s NOT your right - no more so than it’s your right to blare your stereo at ear-splitting volume any time of the night you choose. Smokers have been up till now riding along for free because non-smokers just politely tolerated it. Finally someone had the balls to stand up and say “take it outside”. And they (we) are right.

Btw, ditch the pickup lines and just be yourself, and you might get some....

Amen to that. Words of wisdom kids.

-LB

RE: Got a Light? A Ritual Gone in a Puff of Smoke