From the
Tribune's article:
SPRINGFIELD -- The Illinois House overwhelmingly approved a statewide smoking ban in public places Tuesday that would eliminate a confusing patchwork of local laws and leave smokers in every community with one place in common to light up—outside.
I've got mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I can totally understand the recent move toward bans on smoking in public places. After all, smoking cessation aides like Nicorette are able to completely replace the addictive qualities of cigarettes in a relatively non-carcinogenic way by providing a high quantity of nicotine in various forms. Essentially, these yummy drugs have quickly and efficiently replaced the cigarette's primary addictive chemical so that smokers can now transform their addiction to a gum or patch. That alone is pretty evil, but then again, it's not the nicotine that's the problem, now is it? Realistically speaking, nicotine's no more dangerous than caffeine, but if you put caffeine in cigarette form, caffeine would be the bane of humanity-- not nicotine.
(continued)I understand why it's now very fair to ban smoking-- you're not banning the drug, you're banning the evil things excreted in the smoke. Many people bring the proverbial child into the mix, citing that, "...it's for the children." I at least partially agree with this. Because of what's out there research-wise, there is at least a good body of evidence to suggest there's at least a
risk from secondhand smoke under certain conditions. By this logic, then, we could ban smoking everywhere there might ever be children.
Cool. I mean, if my mom smoked while I was growing up, by the time I was sentient of the dangers, I'd be pretty pissed off that I had been exposed to smoke for the last twelve or more years. Of course, if your parents don't care about the dangers of smoking around their kids, there's a pretty good chance that you've got a little bit more to worry about with regard to your development and mental/physical well-being than your parents smoking. Plus, say we actually ban parents from smoking around their kids. What happens when they do? Do we take the kids away from the parents and stick them in foster care? An orphanage, perhaps? Is that really going to be better for them than secondhand smoke?
Between the literature available on smoking and the literature available on child psychology and social development, it seems as though I'd much rather the parents smoke around the kids than the kids be uprooted from their parents. In fact, I'd much rather that same kid take up smoking when he's seven than have a kid uprooted from his parents. "What the hell?! A seven year old smoking? Are you mad?" some might say, but consider: given the choice, would you rather a kid die of lung cancer at 50, or die before 18 due to any one of the following reasons:
- joining a gang
- committing suicide
- fatal car accident
- drug overdose
- AIDS
The list goes on. Because, as long as the parents themselves aren't abusive, children almost always fare better with their parents. So, when-- not if-- smoking is banned around children, we'll actually be killing more children because of it. Unsettling, isn't it? To think that something drafted in order to protect children actually ends up killing more of them in the long run is unfathomable, but it's exactly what happened when we raised the drinking level to 21. After all, what happened when kids couldn't walk to the local tavern to drink? They instead drove to a party where there was beer, got hammered, and drove home while still hammered. Ironic. Legislation created to prevent drunk driving increased it in the long run.
But I digress. We're talking about smoking. Sure, it'd be great if we could outlaw smoking around kids, but as we've already seen, that might carry some unintended consequences. Surely public places where there aren't any kids shouldn't much of a problem, then. In most states, unless accompanied by a parent or guardian, nightclubs cannot let people in who are under the age of 18. Yet, this law bans smoking in those places, too.
Why is smoking banned in bars, too? The argument of “secondhand smoke” is brought up again, but based on the evidence, it seems that between the average number of times that adults go to adult-only venues and the amount of smoke present at those venues, the amount of smoke that is inhaled is trivial, because on the rare instances where one goes to a nightclub, the majority of the inhaled air passes first through the nose and the sinuses before ever reaching the lungs. As a result, only scant amounts of actual smoke reaches the sensitive lung tissues-- despite the fact your clothes smell like smoke the day after. The take home message is thus simple: secondhand smoke is bullshit. You can tell it's bullshit by the way you hear it presented: “Secondhand smoke is actually more dangerous than firsthand smoke.”
Wow, that's some powerful bullshit. Nobody ever explains it. They instead imply that somehow, the smoker is actually less in danger thant the people around him. How? Really-- how? Does the smoker have some supernatural power to add more smoke to that which he exhales? Maybe I'm just stupid, but I just don't see how the sum total of smoke inhaled can surpass the amount exhaled to the magnitude of causing more harm to those around you than the damage caused to the person who's getting the greatest amount of smoke possible in the greatest concentration. Imagine snorting someone's fart as the fart it. Now imagine exhaling that fart. Does the exhaled fart actually smell stronger than the inhaled one?
I digress again. Back to adults-only places...
The most expensive commercial stand-alone smoke eaters on the market cost $3 thousand dollars a pop and can handle heavy smoke in a 700-800 square foot area. Personally, I'd simply make my own centralized version that super-saturates the air using a high-pressure mist of purified water in order to bind to particulate matter before entering an AC intake. This way, the dirty water runs off, while excess humidity drips off through natural condensation, and you don't have to worry about changing filters constantly. Either way, even if you needed 5 of them, $15 grand is nothing for a bar start up, especially when commercial-grade stainless steel kitchenware nets you in excess of $200 grand. Mid-grade dancefloor lighting also ends up being about $1-2 grand a fixture, and there are normally at least 10 fixtures in a large club, so one can expect to spend on average $15 grand on lighting at minimum if they have shitty lights, as well.
The point is that instead of legislating smoke eaters, people are simply banning smoking alltogether. Why not simply require that bars/nightclubs install smoke eaters capable of filtering smoke up to a certain rating? Where I'm from, health codes seem pretty effective in preventing rat shit from getting on your food by requiring restaurants be up to code with pest sanitation, so wouldn't it be just as easy to require bars to be up-to-code with air sanitation?
Many people go to bars to drink, smoke, and talk just like people go to restaurants to eat, drink, and talk. So, if restaurants have to abide by rules pertaining to a safe eating environment, it would make sense to make bars abide by similar rules. When the government wants to prevent
e. coli outbreaks, they don't outlaw food, alcohol, and talking at restaurants. Instead, they create legislation that requires employees to wash their hands so that they don't transmit disease in the first place.
And that's not the only business that does it. Almost every county in the United States requires that pool manufacturers build pools which circulate the entire pool's water in a specific time, so as to prevent stagnant water breeding grounds for insects and to ensure that disease transmission via water-bourne pathogens is minimized. They don't outlaw the pool, they simply require minimums in order to have a pool.
All I'm asking for is a little consistency. When you want to prevent “secondhand smoke,” require restaurants and bars to maintain atmospheric smoke quantities within a safe range. If that is ineffective,
then outlaw smoking. People need their release, and if you don't give them that release, I promise that you'll see a dramatic increase in people going batshit crazy from stress. The evidence in this is the new-found use of the word “disgruntled” being ascribed to people whom we never thought would be labeled as such, such as teenagers and college kids.
Besides, I still think it's ironic that we're outlawing tobacco. It was the cash crop that essentially started this nation, and yet we now think it's the scurge of the century. It's almost ungrateful to nature that we outlaw such a devicive plant, since only 200 years ago it was saving our asses. Moreover, it's still the number one black market commodity traded worldwide. We should be reveling in it-- not outlawing it.
By the way, I don't smoke. I think I've had a total of three cigarettes ever, and no more than one a year. Essentially, I've been exposed to more radiation in a chest x-ray or even my cumulative cosmic ray exposure from air travel than to that of cigarettes. I've never even had the urge to take up the habit, but I sure as hell am not going to bust down your door and keep you from sucking that nasty shit deep into your lungs. Go for it. It's a free country-- well, it used to be. Sorry that you're one of the many who have recently come to realize that our great society is, simply put, not quite what it used to be.
