mood: couphy music: Orbital - Are We Here?

Can we, as a society, please come to a few agreements about the subject of smoking?

1)If you do it, you really should stop. There are many methods to help you.

2) Smoking indoors is unacceptable. You really need to stop doing this, because it makes most, if not all, of the non-smokers miserable.

3) Cigars are the worst.

Seriously, it's the 21st century. Consider this: if you were sitting in a restaurant and I was sitting next to, and suddenly decided to spray a white powder all over my food, and some drifted over onto your food, you'd probably want to know what it was.

"Oh, just a inert medium with some arsenic, tar, nicotine, and a dash of benzene. It hasn't been proven that the concentrations are dangerous, and it enhances my enjoyment of my meal." I'd reply. I leave the ensuing legal chaos to your imagination.

Yet allowing people to smoke in food service establishments, or indoors at all is allowing the same thing. Just today I was seated in the corner of a hotel in Reno (which is also a casino, which I guess anti-smoking laws don't apply to) enjoying getting some work done on my laptop when I noticed a burning in my throat. I looked over and - sure enough - a guy and his wife had plopped themselves down thirty feet away and began sucking on death sticks. He, a cigar; she, a cigarette. I packed up my things and moved on. The entire smoking section of the casino to inhale deadly toxins in, and they had to come invade my nice, quiet, relatively carcinogen-free oxygen.

All that to say this: "smoker's rights" end where my lungs begin. Your smoke is contaminating my air.

Exit, stage left. Sparks