Westside Story – Smokers Kill

The old saying, where there is smoke, there is fire, can justifiably be changed to where there are smokers, there is fire.

Cigarette design has improved cigarettes making them less likely to cause fires. Improved; Yes! Foolproof; No! A carelessly discarded smoldering cigarette can start a fire within 20 minutes to 18 hours. Even ashes flicked out a car window start fires.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that one in five deaths in the US is related to smoking. That means 20% of all deaths are preventable and avoidable.

The 20% equates to a total of 480,000 deaths per year. Included in the 480,000 are the 41,000 people who die because of secondhand smoke.

When it comes to wildfires, cigarette fires kill 1,000 people and injure 3,000 individuals each year in the United States, according to the Fire Protection Association.

Recently the West Coast wildfires in California, Oregon, and Washington generated enough smoke to make being outdoors downright dangerous.

At the time, the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency (PSCAA) and local health departments recommended everyone stay indoors.

One of the causes of fires is smokers do not use their heads.

When wildfires are roaring out of control producing dangerous air quality levels, I say, make smokers stay outdoors. The way I see it, if a little smoke brings pleasure to smokers, a lot of smoke should bring even more pleasure.

Vape smokers behave in a harmful manner to themselves. They often inflict their stupidity on others, causing innocent victims to fall ill and die.

Anyone thinking to smoke is smart and fashionable may have their head stuck in a cloud.

My attitude towards public smoking may seem mean spirited, harsh, and heartless, but let’s examine the facts.

(1) The majority of individuals who smoke and vape introduce harmful smoke and chemicals into the air, forcing non-smokers to breathe their suicidal byproduct. The detrimental byproducts of smoking can linger in the air for several hours.

(2) Smokers and vape smokers regularly indulge in smoking with their windows open. The smoker’s self-produced poisons waft into nearby non-smokers’ cars, injuring innocent children and adults. Often smokers hang their cancer-sticks out car windows because they do not like the smoke and cigarette smell in their cars. I say, if a smoker does not like the smoke and smell, stop smoking.

(3) An abundant number of cigarette smokers habitually throw their cigarette butts on the ground. These same careless and thoughtless smokers throw their cigarette butts out of moving cars.

(4) The reckless acts of litterbug smokers, supported by their stupidity and uncaring attitude, frequently cause brush and forest fires resulting in injury, death, and the loss of homes and business property.

If you are interested in learning more, click my LINK: Cigarette Butts as Litter—Toxic as Well as Ugly.

Smoking is ugly, smelly, and toxic, the opposite of beautiful and health.

During my high school career, I earned a C in science, so I know how to think like a scientist.

Based on my solid scientific academic foundation, I developed a brand new theory explaining the cause for the recent upsurge in brush and forest fires on the West Coast.

When smoker litter stupidity was combined with rare and constant 18 – 28 mph winds, the totality of circumstances produced a perfect fire-friendly environment. The winds had the power to move the cigarette butts off the pavement and gravel roadside into the dry grass, brush, and trees. The winds could keep the smoldering cigarette butts burning.

This is what smoker stupidity looks like. The flames caused by smokers are heading towards people and homes.

(5) Smokers injure and kill their own children. Their thoughtless addiction causes fire at home, the harmful health effects of secondhand smoke, and a small child’s opportunity to eat cigarette butts.

(6) While smokers are allowed to assault non-smokers with their smoke, thereby causing injury and death, criminal law prohibits non-smokers from punching a smoker in the face. Why is our law so discriminatory?

This seems like a good time to create an innovative saying smokers should inhale, such as NON-SMOKER’S LIVES MATTER.

According to the CDC, smokers enjoy many benefits from smoking. Smoking causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), including emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Smoking also increases the risk of tuberculosis, certain eye diseases, and the immune system’s problems, including rheumatoid arthritis. The most apparent benefit is smokers have a 64% higher risk of earlier death than non-smokers. Premature death can mean a decade is burned off a smoker’s life.

If smokers follow my suggestion, they can move the 64% early death rate up closer to 100%. They then will become truly successful in their effort to kill themselves with tasty tobacco products.

If smokers can succeed in killing themselves sooner rather than later, there is an obvious benefit to non-smokers. A dead smoker can no longer kill a non-smoker or set fire to millions of acres. The number of house, brush, and forest fires will plummet.

If I have insulted any smokers with my frank opinions, facts, concepts, and suggestions, I am not sorry. Smokers insult and assault non-smokers every day. Smokers dirty our planet and foul our air. Smokers kill adults and children. Smokers never say, “I am sorry.”

I recognize my writing today is highly controversial and confrontational. Because of that, I felt strongly tempted to push the delete key on my laptop. Had I pressed the delete key, my article would not have been published. Two things prevented me from pressing delete.

#1. I am tired of having a tobacco addict’s and vape smoker’s smoke in my face. I do not mind dying, but I do not want to die ten years early because of a smoker’s secondhand smoke stupidity.

#2. My wife and I spent several hours over three days picking up cigarette butts tossed onto Lakewood’s streets. The unnecessary, inconsiderate, putrid behavior of smokers eradicated my hesitancy to submit this column.

I hope by writing about the stupidity of smoking, I can generate some discussion, constructive thinking, along with more positive non-smoking change.

There is a specific element of the smoking world; I might well owe an apology. My comments do not apply to smokers who smoke inside their own private childless homes as the only occupant, or only with other smokers. These smokers keep their doors closed and windows shut. These same smokers smoke in their cars with their windows rolled up tightly, and their vehicle airflow is set on recirculate. These smokers do not throw their cigarette butts on the ground.

I apologize to any smokers who are both thoughtful and considerate as they pursue their personal joy in smoking.

I defend a smoker’s right to choose to enjoy savory tobacco products exclusively partaking of the benefits and pleasure of lighting up, while not sharing your smoke with others. These high caliber smokers are to be commended for combining smoking with thoughtfulness.

The rest of you smokers can choose to hate me, or you can choose to thank me for my harsh and unsolicited advice if it causes you to quit smoking.

It is your decision. You bet your life it is.