Smokers' Rights (or, How The Government Wins When the Anti-Smokers WIn)

Rights... or privilege? With the recent controversy surrounding , first, restrictions, and, now, outright bans, on smoking, what does it all mean for the average American citizen, smoker or not? It's one of many imminent steps the Government is implementi

There's a bigger issue at work behind the latest smokers' rights controversy than the fact that we are allowing the Government to slip and start directing the course and choices of our daily PERSONAL lives... it's one of UNDERSTANDING the core of the addiction in the first place, why smokers can't simply 'stop'.
Certainly, this recent controversy should not be the vehicle by which government intrusion is mandated to force its way into individual citizens' homes, regardless of the majority opinion... or is it?

   Recently, I overheard a small coffee klatch in the company break room discussing the latest news on smoking control measures and bans, spawned from a newspaper article on the recent state push to restrict smokers from doing so in their cars when small children are with them...
"An adult would never make the decision to smoke," the female voice declared, "Since they have made the decision to smoke, they are clearly showing they are not an adult and as such, the government will look out for their well-being, since they have shown the inability to do it themselves."
Another laughed and quipped, "Now that we have cleared the issue...go to your room!"

   I stopped short of turning the corner.
   I smoke.
   I'm one of the few here that still do, and it has become a stressful, furtive struggle just to get through the workday. As an older Boomer-generation smoker, I literally dwell under the heat of a political magnifying glass!  It's one thing to acknowledge that smoking is not something I'm proud of, although I keep my smoke breaks to the bare minimum of three times a day: quick walks outdoors in the parking lot during my two fifteen minute breaks and once during lunch. But it's another, entirely, to work, shoulder to shoulder, with others who have taken the "anti" stance to the point you're left feeling somewhat less-than-human, a new sort of "white trash"...


I don't drink alcohol - not beer, not spirits, not even table wine or fizzy coolers - but I would be among the first to cry foul if there were a government move to remove children from the homes of those who do imbibe.
I believe it's not good, at all, for children to be raised around a beer-swilling Daddy or wine-snogging Mommy, but it's not my place - and certainly not the Government's - to forcibly reform another citizen's personal - and LEGAL - choices.


Daily, I endure a lot of the venom non and anti smokers direct towards my painful addiction, my lowly habit - and almost ZERO support or encouragement. Maybe that's a large part of WHY it is so hard, why it takes the average smoker several attempts... The animosity can make it discouraging for ANYBODY to be able to get past the withdrawal - because to GET PAST the addiction one needs to have IMMENSE inner strength, and the support and network of many others along the way. I got caught up in the smoking machine/culture BECAUSE I was NOT one of the FEW, at the time, 'stronger' types who could walk away from what we thought -- what we were brought up to believe! --  was merely an affectation of  'cool', years ago...

"An adult would never make the decision to smoke."
No, not NOW, I silently answered, not with all of the proven information available, and the general majority shift in culture towards non-smoking becoming the 'ideal'...

But several decades ago, when the US Surgeon General started printing those 'warnings' on cigarette labels, millions of impressionable youth wondered, it can't be THAT bad, or they'd just stop making them, right? Hence, an entire generation was reared on government double-speak, as they did what all young people do: rebel, be cool, don't be silly and believe that warning label (again, if it REALLY WAS that bad, cigarettes wouldn't be MADE and available in every business, hospital lobby, high school cafeteria (anyone remember high school in 1975? Cigarette machine in the lunchroom, smoking ring outside the doors and along the back for between classes quickies).

So the tide shifts, and the smokers who believed for many years that their habit wasn't 'really that bad' find that it IS that bad... and, worse, that they have now become pariahs in society. This is not like your funny alcoholic Uncle Bert, who got to enter in-patient rehab several times, and received welcome home parties every time he came home sober (only to fall back off the wagon six weeks later, dang, that silly Uncle Bert!) - there ARE no similar 'hard core' systems in place to help smokers cease the ADDICTION to a product that American tobacco companies persuaded and cajoled them into partaking of so many years ago. No one apologizes for LYING to the American victims of their marketing tactics.

Cigarettes should have been BANNED forty years ago, but instead they figured a little label would make the doctors happy (Let people choose whether they want to be worried or not - but keep it on the market for those who are already hooked or figure we must not really mean these things are that bad for you).

They NEVER INTENDED for their addicts to stop smoking. They simply wanted to lightly cover their butts with a 'well, we TOLD them.'

In the meantime, millions of smokers from a generation as different from this one as day is to night are struggling with discovering, many for the first time, that now that they WANT to quit, they are unable. Only someone who has NEVER been a long-term smoker would believe otherwise, so hold your tongue unless you've been through this particular Hell yourself. It is an addiction often compared to heroin, and known for a longer, more difficult withdrawal.

Be ANGRY. BE LOUD! But the hate and vitriol needs to be pointed towards the multi-billion dollar government-loves-big-revenue chums, the tobacco companies, the double-speak of Congress and even the surgeon general himself! DEMAND that some of those billions they CONTINUE to rake in off the backs (and lungs) of their 'consumers' be earmarked for MORE health programs and cessation clinics (hell, create the intensive six to ten week inpatient rehab clinics an addiction of this sort warrants, and allow every smoker in America to enlist its services free of charge the first two or three attempts!).

Any non-smoking citizens who believe 'THEIR taxes' are paying for tobacco-related illnesses and hospitalization are misguided: the TAXES on cigarettes far exceed the taxes most citizens now, non-smokers and smokers alike, fork over, on any given day, and are more than capable of covering the damages they (cigarettes) cause their consumers!

Above all, be KIND to each other. Smokers don't smoke to be irritants to others. They do not smoke to harm their children. They do not smoke to cost anyone else any money. These people, these ADULTS, are your aunts and uncles, cousins, teachers, grandpa, the volleyball coach you admired in high school, the hobby shop owner who used to patiently help you pick out your next model airplane on your two-dollar budget... They are not cretins, bums, dummies, jerks or (other expletive).

If just a HANDFUL of the anti-smokers would pause and consider this, that you are not dealing with less-than-humans who deliberately make bad choices, but PEOPLE who were (and are) victims of the insidious marketing, the American ideal, human beings who have tried, many times, to quit on their own, using the paltry and ineffective, albeit pricey, aids on the market in vain, and for one reason or the other continue to 'use' because most plain don't have the monumental strength and commitment gene that a few successful quitters have. Remember, all marketing TARGETS consumers who are easily convinced, persuaded, sucked into the 'cool' thing - and several decades ago, smoking was the 'cool' thing, with MOST of America regarding the habit as a 'coming of age' affectation - the easily-convinced of us were just that: convinced. And we unwittingly became their moneymakers, their addicts....

I've tried for almost 10 years to quit permanently, and though I've failed several times, I still have hope that I'll eventually be successful - because most smokers really DO NOT WANT TO BE smokers .

It's the tobacco industry that wants our addiction, our unhealthy and now unpopular habit, to continue.

Smokers know this.

The Government knows this.

Congress also knows that they can slip in a few major changes that will ultimately affect each and every one of our Constitutional rights, among them the 'freedom to choose', by using the emotional touchstone that is the smoking issue. Because popular opinion against tobacco is a conflagration that burns hot and bright, every action our Government takes 'against' it, outwardly looks to be a blessing for those so adamantly against smoking in general.

But, upon closer examination, one would spot the hypocrisies behind the proverbial smoke screen.
There ARE better ways to help the smoker kick the habit, over time, and in a way that benefits all concerned.
And in a way that would prevent the Government 'boot toe' from wedging itself firmly inside the doors of our homes and private lives, our freedom to choose.

Tobacco manufacture and sales, and the users they control, provide huge revenue for the Government. More people need to question the irony behind anti-smoking laws AND cigarette tax increases within weeks of each other.
America COULD continue to be 'Home of the Free' while decreasing its smoking population in more humane, and less Government-intrusive, ways.

But much in the same way American consumers were lured into adopting the unhealthy habit, years ago, by unscrupulous, albeit 'legal', marketing tactics, the American people are now being herded into choosing to lose more freedom - that freedom to choose - by an unscrupulous Government with a hidden agenda.

It never was an issue of 'smokers' rights'.
It has ALWAYS been an issue of Americans' 'rights', to choose, that is ultimately at stake.

We are allowing the government to slip and start mandating the course and choices of our daily PERSONAL lives, when UNDERSTANDING the issue of the addiction, in the first place (why smokers can't simply 'stop', and what better methods there are available to help citizens break their addiction), would eventually solve the smoking problem AND prevent government intrusion into individual citizens' homes.

Author's Note

I am not an activist, just an observer. I do believe cigarettes and tobacco products (as well as alcohol, drugs, most prescription meds, fast food, aspartame, etc.) are health-harmful, but I also believe in a person's right to choose and make decisions for themselves. I believe we are a nation far too absorbed in 'sweating the small stuff'', examining navel lint, and complaining in general. A movement to gradually eliminate the 'bad' from our lives is a good thing: asking the Government to do so, for us, is not. Because I also believe that once laws are established disallowing citizens to 'do this or do that', 'here, there or everywhere', it also allows the Government to get their foot into our private doors, legally. And that could be the beginning of the end of our Constitution. What next? There are already bids to 'allow' restaurants to bar obese people from patronizing their business, and there are changes being made in the food and drug industries that are supposed to insure we eat healthier (by whose standards?)... The smoking bans are just the crest of the slippery slope ahead...

Reviews

[Angelheaded Hipster]

AMEN!!!!

*goes into my library*

im a smoker....former addict...and yes, herion is easier to kick than nicotine. Ive never done heroin myself, but ive known several ex users who instead of using a needle, they smoke.
i dont like smoking, i would love to quit, but youre right....how are we able to quit with so much negativity about the whole thing??