I don't care if people smoke.
I don't care if smokers burn through four packs a day, drop morethan a hundred dollars a week, and end up standing on a bread line,hoping to get home to their shanties before dark.
In the end, they're the ones spending the money, not me.
I don't care if smokers can't climb stairs, or need an oxygentank, or have to smoke though a tracheotomy hole, or end up talkingthrough those robotic, voice-box microphone things.
In the end, they're the ones winning the Darwin Awards.
I don't care if people smoke in restaurants.
If smokers can't go an hour without smoking -- if their dinnerroutines are disturbed that much, then by all means, let's not messwith them. I can eat elsewhere. I don't mind.
In Muncie alone, dozens of restaurants have smoking sections.Despite efforts to "ventilate," the result is usually a "SmokingSection" and a "Secondhand Smoking Section."
Other restaurants have banned smoking. These are options fornon-smokers.
In the end, restaurant owners -- not pro-smoking or anti-smokingadvocacy groups -- should decide whether to have smoking sections,at least for now.
I don't care about losing my personal freedoms.
In our land, people are free to smoke all they want, just as I'mfree to harbor petty hatred. I like freedom. Freedom is good.There's not as much as I'd like, but there's enough.
As long as smokers are free, there also will be windbagsdecrying the evils of smoking and making people miserable withtheir whining. I figure I'll be in there somewhere.
This isn't about personal finances, or health, or businessdecisions or even freedom.
I do care about the litter, and there's the rub.
Cigarette litter is overlooked. Many smokers believe thatcigarette butts are made of cotton, and therefore aren't litter.These smokers are stupid, but the truth will set them free.
Before filters, smokers simply discarded cigarette stubs, andthe remaining cigarette either burned down the city or got smokedby street urchins named Oliver or Ponyboy.
With the advent of filters, that all changed.
Cigarette filters are made of plastic cellulose acetate,according to a Longwood University (Va.) study.
One butt can take ten years to biodegrade because "the filtersare made of a type of acetate that doesn't break down," accordingto CigaretteLitter.org.
Of course this is all nit-picky until one considers that176,000,000 pounds of cigarette butts are discarded every year inthe United States alone.
Worldwide, the actual number of discarded cigarette butts is inthe trillions per year, according to the Victorian Litter ActionAlliance, based in Australia.
According to the Center for Marine Conservation, one in fivelitter items is a cigarette butt, making butts the biggest litterproblem on the planet.
Drive around. Watch drivers toss butts out the window ofashtray-equipped vehicles.
Walk around. See people toss butts on the ground within walkingdistance of an ashtray.
The excuses, which range from laziness to vindication for unfairtaxes, don't work. Why make excuses when the problem can be solved?Find an ashtray or stop smoking.
Most smokers, if made aware of the problem, will make an effortto change.
See, I'm an optimist, under all the unbridled hatred.
Now let's see if "making people aware" does anything.
Write to John at kingseyeland@bsu.edu
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