Here is the way I see it. We are all impacted by the choices we make. Back in 1959 I first started observing smokers while working in the grocery business. After doing so, I chose not to smoke for the following reasons:
- Money. In 1959, cigarettes cost $5 a carton. That was expensive back then. Today, cigarettes cost $5-$9 a pack; not a carton, a pack. A married couple could spend as much as $13,140 for a years worth of tobacco products.
- I did not want to taste and smell like an ashtray.
- I did not want to burn holes in my clothing and car upholstery.
- Lastly, my no smoking decision ultimately focussed on not wanting to commit suicide by slowly killing myself one cancer stick at a time. I was only 16 years old when I decided not to smoke.
Now that I am almost 72, I guess I could start smoking. It normally takes cigarette smokers 30 years to move from either “rebellion smoking” or thinking they are really cool, because they smoke, to breathing from an oxygen tank, followed by death. At that rate, if I start now, I will be 102 years old before smoking polishes me off. Of course there is still the money issue. I think I will still say nope to dope. I am talking about legal dope like cigarettes and marijuana. Nope to dope. That is still my motto.
Having said that, I hasten to admit that each of us should be free to make our own personal choice about smoking. After all, the USA is promoted as a free country.
All I ask is, if you want to smoke, smoke, but keep all your smoke to yourself. I do not appreciate waiting in line at a traffic light while a smoker hangs their cancer stick out their open window and allows their stinking second hand cancer producing killer smoke to drift into my car.
If smokers like smoking so much, then they should roll up their car windows and turn their car ventilation system to recycle air. That way they can enjoy all the benefits of smoking as their smoke gets repeatedly recycled through their car interior. Because they work hard to get smoker’s delight, they might find they can destroy their bodies even faster if they keep all that smoke inside their car.
So smokers, if you want to kill yourself, don’t let me slow you down. I will not impose my choice on you. In fact, if you love smoking, why not light up 2 or 3 cigarettes at once. If one is good, think how much better 3 cigarettes will be and actually for big mouth smokers you might be able to fit 4 cigarettes into your mouth. Once you have all 4 cancer sticks fired up, enjoy yourself. This could prove to be an all time peak tobacco experience.
All I ask is that you leave us non-smokers out of your accelerated rush to pain, suffering and death.
While I am at it, let me tell you what else I think. Authorities need to create two more traffic tickets. #1. We need a $1000 ticket for those who smoke and assault others with their second hand smoke because they refuse to roll up their car windows.
#2. We need a ticket for those who smoke with kids in the car, including pregnant women. For smokers who are into abusing and killing kids with second hand smoke, a $5,000 ticket might help them change their dangerous behavior.
Don’t take my rant for it. Check out what the American Cancer Society says about the negative impacts of second hand smoke.
Lastly, if any of my smoking friends are reading this article, try not to be mad at me. I am not mad at you. I just want the two of us to be able to make our own individual well informed choices about smoking. I promise not to make your smoking choice. You decide. In return, please do not make my smoking choice by forcing me to breath your second hand smoke.
And that’s the way I see it.
Mind if I smoke? No … mind if I fart?
Mind if I light one up?
Another perk we get to enjoy is the pile of cigarette butts that can be found in parking lots, alongside curbs, and at intersections. All a result of a smoker’s decision that their ashtray needs to be dumped — apparently for our benefit.
“Cancer stick hanging out open car window forces others to breath in thoughtless smoker’s secondhand smoke.”
Speaking of choices, you could (a) roll up your window; (b) use your position on the Public Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC) to pursue ticketing “those who smoke and assault others with their second hand smoke because they refuse to roll up their car windows;” (c) direct your passion about smoking toward the Lakewood City Council, in particular your PSAC liaison Marie Barth who voted Feb.18, 2014 to allow smoking in all of Lakewood’s 12 parks.
Joined by Moss and Simpson, Barth opted for Brandstetter’s position that smoking be allowed as along as those with the “cancer stick” as you call it, were 50 feet away from where people gather.
Though Brandstetter is reported to have said in the Tacoma News Tribune January 19, 2014 that “he has a hard time envisioning how authorities would enforce a smoking ban,” the question now becomes how effective will be the alternative he and like-minded members of the council advocate: education.
As we approach the summer season and the increased use of Lakewood’s parks, what exactly does the council have in mind, Barth in particular who said (TNT, 1/19/14) “she’d like to see designated areas for smoking and a campaign listing health risks associated with tobacco use.”
OK, what’s the plan? Flyers? Pamphlets? Distributed and policed by whom? Park personnel? City councilmembers? Police Department? Public Safety Advisory Committee?
And at what cost?
What do you want to bet there is no plan?
The Lakewood City Council missed its opportunity to do its job.
Consider:
Lakewood’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board members, after eight months of discussion, unanimously recommended at the end of 2013 the ban on tobacco products and electronic cigarettes on park property.
“The city of Puyallup approved a similar ban in 2005, and the city of Gig Harbor did the same in 2007. The city of Tacoma banned tobacco from its parks in 2009, and in 2012, the Peninsula Metropolitan Parks District banned smoking and tobacco products from its 21 properties” (TNT, 1/19/14).
Over 900 cities and the entire Oklahoma parks system are smoke free.
“Roughly 1,000 people in Pierce County die each year from tobacco-related diseases, according to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department” (TNT, 1/19/14).
“In the summer of 2013, Tobacco Alliance of Pierce County surveyed more than 90 Pierce County residents at community events including Lakewood’s Summerfest. More than 85 percent of people surveyed wanted their local parks to be tobacco-free. This is about the same level of support that exists for smoke-free restaurants and bars” (TNT, 1/22/14).
“Tobacco use is a leading cause of preventable death and disease in the nation, in Washington State and in Pierce County” (TNT, 1/22/14).
“The city of Puyallup approved a similar ban in 2005, and the city of Gig Harbor did the same in 2007. The city of Tacoma banned tobacco from its parks in 2009, and in 2012, the Peninsula Metropolitan Parks District banned smoking and tobacco products from its 21 properties” (TNT, 1/19/14).
Mary Dodsworth, Lakewood’s Parks, Recreation and Community Services director: “The move to ban tobacco is part of a larger initiative to create a healthy environment for park users” (TNT, 1/19/14).
Terry Reid, co-director of Tobacco-Free Alliance of Pierce County (TAP): “Our parks should be healthy and safe places for families to gather and for kids and adults to be physically active. Eliminating tobacco use from parks makes the air safer to breathe, eliminates toxic cigarette butt litter, reduces dangerous fires and models a fresh air tobacco-free lifestyle for our youth” (TNT, 1/22/14).
Terry Reid about the council’s decision: “It sends a mixed message about what is important to the citizens of Lakewood. Bans are effective policy” (TNT, 2/19/14).
Jason Whalen, Lakewood City Council Deputy Mayor (voting for a ban): “For me it’s not about the facts inherent in second-hand smoke or whether all the studies are aligned. To me it’s an issue about policy. I do believe we have an opportunity to make a statement” (TNT, 2/19/14).
And consider the impact when government assumes its proper role – comprehensively partnering with family, school and community at all societal levels, including policy-makers, all potential influences on the likelihood of substance use – in protecting and safeguarding the quality of life, education and welfare of its citizens.
Take seat belts for example.
In a paper entitled “Social Norms and Attitudes About Smoking,” Majorie Gutman, Ph.D., wrote “instituting even an unpopular policy may decrease a risky health behavior and eventually alter social norms and attitudes. Seat belts were not especially popular when they were first mandated by the U.S. Department of Transportation in 1984 and many people resented having to buckle up every time they got into a car. Nevertheless, auto manufacturers complied with the law by installing seat belts, and many people began to use them. Several years after the law went into effect, seat belt use increased, as did positive attitudes about them, bolstered perhaps by evidence confirming the number of lives they saved.”
Similarly, observed Gutman, “the increasingly negative trend in youth attitudes (with regards tobacco) appears to reflect a broader societal shift among adults and policy-makers.”
Policy-makers’ clear, unambiguous and unequivocal position on a matter – as a tobacco-free parks decision would have been, as opposed to the dubious rationalizations reflecting the majority opinion of the Lakewood City Council – impacts behavior, wielding influence especially upon youth and contributing to the likelihood that kids will quit.
Modeling matters.
Government – including the elected representatives of city councils – has a vested interest in partnering with organizations such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation which has as its “mission to improve and make a demonstrable difference in health and health care for all Americans.
“Studies show that policies that make tobacco use less appealing have the greatest chance of reducing tobacco use.”
So when the Lakewood City Council opted for a 50-foot ‘buffer’ – allowing smoking beyond that distance from playgrounds, restrooms, picnic shelters, swimming beaches, events and concession areas – the council was in affect accommodating the habit while at the same time having little impact upon the prospect of those quitting much less the up-taking potential among especially the nearby (50 feet) observing youth.
And yet take a one-minute, forty-five second video tour of Lakewood and the first words extoll the city’s reputation as being one of the nation’s best 100 places for young people.
With now perhaps the exception of those best places for young people in Lakewood being parks.
Given that “each day about 1,200 children and adolescents become daily smokers with adolescents and young adults in the United States the populations with the highest smoking prevalence,” creating tobacco-free parks is the responsibility of government that has as its self-mandated priority the development of a vision for the quality of life of its residents – fostering, emulating, modeling, messaging and carrying out its mission.
Especially to its youth.
Next thing ya know some Muslim is going to demand the burn ban law be expanded to include smoking out doors and barbequing pork ribs out doors for fear inhaling the unclean essence of pig.