Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Complaints ranging from burning eyes and reeking clothing to increased blood pressure and cancer abound as non-smokers wag their fingers and say "Na-na-na-na!" at the recently jilted smokers. Soon, smokers will be exposed to the elements of a pitiless Chicago winter as they huddle deep in their coats, nursing deep grudges and developing persitent bouts of pneumonia. And for what? What has brought this suffering on top of a group already suffering the burdens of massive taxes, massive insurance rates, hacking coughs and the grim knowledge that they are guiding the icy scythe of death into their very lungs?

Many people try and answer this question, but very few answer it correctly.

The most popular answer is that ETS is dangerous.

"I have a cousin who knew this dude in college who had a neighbor whose ex-wife's new boyfriend got cancer from ETS!"

"I went to a bar one night, and when I woke up I was coughing for nearly 8 seconds!"

"ETS broke into my car and stole my radio!"

When pressed for details, they stutter, stammer, and fall back on tried and true methods of arguing: propaganda and junk science.

3000 deaths per year. 10,000 deaths per year. Over 100,000 dead worldwide in a single year from ETS. The numbers are as varied as they are unprovable. How many doctors stop running tests and asking questions of their patients after hearing they live with a smoker, or work in a bar? How many lung cancer patients simply had the bad luck to get cancer in their lungs, not due to ETS but rather due to the cosmic equivalent of "being shit upon"? Some? None? All? Most? Half? Can we ever be sure?

Smoking is bad for you. ETS does not magically become imbued with vitamins and anti-oxidants once it leaves my lungs and enters the air. But many of the so-called studies that promote the evils of ETS are also studies done by dubious sources. Can we honestly trust an anti-smoking group to accurately portray whatever dangers there might be to ETS? We might as well ask PETA to head up a study on whether eating meat is good for you or not. Other studies looked at lung cancer patients, pointed fingers at ETS, and completely ignored the fact that these people predominantly lived and work in industrial areas, breathing in all manner of pollutants from their work as well as their play.

The bottom line as far as I see it is that, while not healthy, ETS has yet to be conclusively proven to be as deadly as people make it out to be.

Another popular argument for the smoking ban is that smoking will kill me and I should be happy that someone is giving me the motivation and reason to quit, and these people are really just looking out for my best interests and are really really nice and caring. While they do seem to care deeply about my health, and while I certainly enjoy it when people stick their noses into my life and start telling me how to do things, I'm going to have to call "bullshit" on this one, anyway. It's merely a convenient argument used to try and bolster their position that they "really just want everyone to be healthy and live forever." Nonsense.

The other reason for the ban (or rather, for the support of the ban) is that people just don't like the smell. Simple as that. Simple and understandable. I'm sure to a non-smoker, cigarette smoke is vile and repugnant. It probably stinks, it probably clings to hair and clothes, and it's probably not a great thing to have all up in your face unless you smoke.

However...

We have a thing called "free enterprise" in this country. It allows for businesses to operate with minimal interference from the government, and it's a strong reason capitalism is working (the extent to which it's working is arguable, but it's kinda working). If restaurants, bars and taverns want to be a smoke-free establishment, it's perfectly within their right to do so. Enjoy the smoke-free environment, I'll simply take my business elsewhere and everyone will win. It's the sort of situation that gives everyone choices and infringes upon nobody.

Alas, the government decided that wasn't good enough and now have forced businesses to change to meet the demands of one group of people at the expense of another. Personal feelings of smoking aside, that's discrimination. It's probably popular discrimination, but that doesn't change the nature of the beast.

A better idea would be to open smoke-free restaurants and bars, to give everyone options and to allow everyone the freedom of choice they should have. Rather than force either conformity or discomfort (the latter being a rather mild word for the feeling of standing outside in sub-zero weather, watching your fingers turn into ice and fall from your hand to shatter into a thousand pieces, trying to inhale from your cigarette before your lungs freeze), we all could have been winners. It could have been musical chairs with two players and six chairs.

Instead, it's musical chairs with two people, one chair, and the government just took a lead pipe to the kneecaps of one of the players. Have you ever tried to win at musical chairs with your kneecaps shattered, you lying on the ground and writhing in agony? I don't recommend it.

So now smokers must suffer even more as the non-smokers can rejoice in their ill-gotten rewards, like the camp-following whores of fantasy novels, falling upon the vanquished armies' dead and snatching all the shiny, pretty things they can carry. It's not enough that we pay exhorbitant prices and taxes; it's not enough that we're addicted to killing ourselves; it's not enough that people look at us as if we were stabbing puppies whenever we took a puff.

Now we have to be outside while we do it.

Oh, well. Nothing can change it, no one will listen. Just learn a lesson, non-smokers. The government took away a freedom from a select group of people today. A limited and small freedom, yes. A specific government, sure. But yesterday we had a right, and today we don't. Who knows what the government will decide you don't need next?

And now, swimming in Nyquil, Jager and Red Bull, having written entirely too much on a subject that very few people care about, I shall step outside to smoke. And as I stand, gazing at the heavens as snow falls upon my face and wind lashes at my body, I will find solace in the fact that I'm satisfied with what I just wrote, that I made my point.

Man, it felt good to get that off my chest.