Pima County gets a big, fat slap on the back for finally being on the cutting edge of something. Too bad we are on the cutting edge of one of the most inane trends wafting across the globe.
No more smoking on any Pima County property. This means you. This also means outdoors.
Pima County parks remain exempt from the ban, despite at least two news stories that stated otherwise. But the ban does apply to parking lots, outdoor county-sponsored events, and those grimy little cubbyholes behind Dumpsters where smokers had been previously “allowed” to puff in a Quasimodo-type stance so no one would see them and complain.
It’s not just the traditional cigarette that’s banned, either. The ordinance applies to “cigars, pipes, smokeless tobacco, water pipes, hookahs, e-cigarettes, chewing tobacco, snuff and other products containing tobacco.”
Tobacco-users who double as county employees “may face disciplinary action” if they are caught using tobacco-related products, according to the text of the ordinance. The text also says the ban applies to nonemployees who are visiting county facilities or attending county-sponsored functions, although the punishment for disobedience is unclear.
The idea of banning smoking outdoors on any property still reeks. Yes, we know. Smoking is stinky. Smoking is yucky. Smoking gives you bad breath, yellow teeth, wrinkly skin and smelly clothes. A Pima County Health Department flier says so. It also says smoking “may” make you cough, make it tough to keep up with your friends, make you breathe all raggedy, give you cancer or even kill you.
We got it. Got a cigarette?
The ban on smoking in enclosed workplaces that kicked in statewide on May 1, 2007, cited secondhand smoke as the reason behind the prohibition. Although the air has cleared in bars, restaurants and within 20 feet of any establishment’s doorway, window or mouse hole near the corner floorboard, that is not enough. People are still smoking!
Apparently, crouching behind the Dumpster for a quick puff should also be taboo. The excuse the county is using for this new, improved ban is that it will cut health-care costs. A letter from UnitedHealthcare to Pima County’s human-resource director decried how insuring smokers is so very costly, even though most of them drop dead at a much-younger age than nonsmokers.
That same letter failed to mention, however, that most health-insurance companies tack on a hefty surcharge to smokers’ health-insurance premiums.
That might mar the excuse.
Everyone is also keeping very mum about why people smoke in the first place. Here’s where the real whopper kicks in.
Many in Tucson and its surrounding environs tend to take pride in their compassion for people and things. We’re always seeing yellow bumper stickers encouraging us to “Be Kind.” We let people stream across the border willy-nilly in the name of human rights. Some would let rattlesnakes attack their kids before they dared do anything harmful to dissuade the snake.
“We have to have compassion,” many wail. We have to understand that all living beings have the right to be here. We must live and let live, respect and let feed, coddle and love, except when it comes to smokers.
Smokers are evil. Smokers are bad. Smokers should be shot in the kneecaps and left to rot, without a cigarette, in the desert.
This thought process illustrates the gross hypocrisy that has come to roost in our fair land. Smokers are not evil. They are suffering from that fine concept known as addiction. Sorry, but throwing a 1-800 number at smokers so they can engage in a free smoking-cessation program is not the answer. Nor is banning all tobacco products across county-owned property.
It’s not only smokers who think such draconian laws banning outdoor smoking are ridiculous.
“I think all of the controls are stupid,” says nonsmoking Tucsonan Elizabeth Bjay Gardner. “Do it for alcohol, too, then. Or ban driving cars or planes flying over your house spewing out jet fuel, because I’m sure that’s going to harm your lungs and health more than those smokers you pass by.”
And we won’t even get into the stench, rot or health problems that can come from food addictions, alcohol addictions, heroin addictions or playing around with cocaine. We don’t have time for such things. We’re too busy hanging the smokers.
After all, we are on the cutting edge of what is new. What is now. And what can be astoundingly asinine.
This article appears in Nov 29 – Dec 5, 2012.
Nicotine addicts, like any other addict, are prisoners of their own making. Their disgusting habit goes far beyond their prolific littering, hacking in the quiet of the morning while smoking the first cigarette, and that annoying ritual of pounding a pack of cigarettes once handed to them over the counter. There is simply no sympathy for smokers. You’ll get the peace of your own making…eventually.
@Yes Bob: Is self-righteousness also addictive?
Is this a reprint from “The Onion”?
I wonder if the author thinks it’s OK to keep paying county employees for all the time they spend huffing on cigarettes when they could actually be doing … oh, I don’t know … their JOBS?
As a person who grew up with chain-smoking parents and never had the urge to smoke, I resented all the smoking breaks that colleagues were allowed to take while the rest of us continued to work throughout the day. Not to mention all the time off they took because, since their lungs were wracked by tar, they were prone to catch any bug going around.
I applaud the county for this measure. I think the author ought to try giving up her addiction rather than make the rest of the world CATER to her addiction.
@nunaurbiz: So pleasant it is to read still another “self-righteous” post here.
Thanks, much…
” e-cigarettes, chewing tobacco, snuff ” so they are also banning things that keep people from actually lighting up a cigarette and blowing second hand smoke into the air–might as well sneak the real thing than try to reduce the harm to yourself. Many people use electronic cigarettes to help them quit smoking, but because some of them (not all mind you) contain nicotine ,NOT TOBACCO, it is included? To tell you the truth I could use an electronic cigarette not 5 ft from you and you would never know it–also how do they plan to keep people from using chewing tobacco, snus, snuff or any product that isn’t smoked and therefore shows no signs of use? This has nothing to do with health care and EVERYTHING to do with posturing.
Really, now you’re going to ban SMOKELESS tobacco from being used like that. REALLY? like….REALLY? are you serious? How about…..No more exhaling your breath on public property. Carbon Dioxide kills too 🙂 All of this is getting ridiculous – seriously. It seriously has gotten to the point where its like……two people could be on trial….one could be a nicotine user, the other could be shooting up heroin in front of everyone….and they’d stone the nicotine user to death – even the heroin user would stab them with the needle.
How is someone using smokeless tobacco hurting you guys, like really. and as a company – they should just ban smoking breaks if thats the issue, its the company allowing them to do it. How many times do you go to the bathroom at work? All that time wasted. tsk tsk. Believe it or not, not just smokers waste time at work. Infact, most the smokers i know at work – work 10x harder than the non-smokers. Funny huh.
and @Nuna – just because your parents decided to smoke – and you didnt like it, doesnt mean it should be banned all together. People with immuno disorders get sick easily, i dont see you banning them. I guarantee you are addicted to something, whether you realize it or not. You realize nicotine is very similar to caffeine – yet we intake caffeine so much we become extremely desensitized to it. It’s literally in almost everything we drink now. This is taking rights away from people – and even as someone who no longer smokes , and has a extreme dislike for them, i dont see doing some of these anti-tobacco measures as right. This is taking freedom away from people.
Theres lots of other things that people don’t enjoy seeing or smelling or hearing. I don’t particularly care for seeing fat people jog – i’m not going to ask for them to ban it. I don’t like seeing teenage girls wear furry boots with a jacket but yet have a halter top on and shorts. I don’t like really strong smelling candles – they give me headaches. Various restaurants stink as well. People eating fast food tend to pass gas more, and i don’t want it smogging up my environment. Seriously people – think about what you’re doing with peoples freedoms. One day – I pray you’re on the side of having one of your rights taken away, and see how you like it.
That ‘pussy’ cat must mean self-responsible.
Yawn– more nicotine junkies whining on about how their right to keep on killing themselves in public is being infringed. It’s as tiresome as ever. Tell you what, tobacco hounds– you lobby to let me engage in target practice with my .45 anywhere in public that I please, and I’ll back your right to blow smoke in my face. If that sounds like an extreme bargaining position, consider this– as a cancer survivor, I interpret the lighting up of a cigarette in my presence as a hostile, threatening act, comparable to pointing a gun. I can tell you folks from experience that chemotherapy and radiation are a lot less pleasurable than sucking smoke, but of course quite a few of you are going to find that out for yourselves. In fact, I’ll make you an even better offer. Next time you feel the urge to to open a deck of ciggies, give me a call instead. I’ll drop over with the firearm of your choice, and you can shoot yourself in the head. As suicide methods go, it would be a lot less prolonged and painful than the one you’ve chosen.
Blowing smoke in your face huh? Nonsmokers whining about nothing. How about the next time a nonsmoker or hell, anyone talks to me with halitosis I throttle them for offending me with their wrank ass breath. Cry me a river about the breaks too. Take a non smoke break and if you’re boss says anything then bring up all the breaks the smokers are taking. That’s what happened at my work and smokers now only get 2 breaks and their lunch. So shut up with all your self induced crap. I’m certain you have an addiction of some sort. If somebody is holding you down and blowing smoke in your face, please post it on YouTube because I’d love to see that.
I am a user of electronic cigarettes, and haven’t had a real cig in months. I have lived my life on the one side, the side where I was persecuted for my habit of smoking. Now, being on the other side of the street, I simply refuse to be a sanctimonious ex-smoker. Yes, smoking stinks, and it is harmful. However, I believe cancer occurs in those with a genetic predisposition to cancer, not in just the general population. Here is why I think this. I come from a long line of chain smoking southerners, and not in a day of my young life was I not exposed to 8-12 hours of second hand smoke. Not one of my family in living memory had cancer. Not one. I know many other families just like mine was. And I remember a few families where more than one person ended up with cancer, regardless of smoking status. All the adults smoked, the kids grew up and smoked, etc…. No cancer in living memory. Most of my family lived to over eighty years old. Now, a couple of my family members did develop COPD, and emphysema, and it was the reason I put the darn things down in the first place. But I will NOT treat someone who smokes like a second class citizen. I will save that for sanctimonious assholes who like to dictate the actions of others. Nuff Said.
Hey, JayJay, I’m happy for you that you’re a genetic freak. Really, I am. I mean, invulnerability, how cool is that? Can you leap over tall buildings, too? Guess my family just doesn’t have genes like yours. All of my grandparents and both of my parents– all smokers– died of either cancer or heart disease, and none of them lived past 72. Our tough luck, I guess.
As for the rest of you twitchy black-lunged nutbars, most of you sound a bit panicky, like your backs are to a wall; guess you can see which way the social trends are going, huh? Yup, there’s more of us clean-air types than there are of you, and our numbers are growing daily. But hey, you’ve got me all wrong. I *want* you hardcases to smoke, as much as humanly possible. The more you smoke, the sooner you’re likely to die, and the world will be rid of a few more smokers. And in any case, I’m just enough a libertarian to believe that people who are determined to kill themselves should damn well be allowed to. That’s kinda what freedom’s all about, isn’t it? I just object when you try to take me with you. You light up around me or my family in an enclosed space, I’ll ask you, politely, to put it out. Once. After that, I won’t be as polite.
Enjoy your tumours, folks. Take it from me, there’s nothing like a good snort of chemo to brighten your day.
I never said smokers can’t smoke, just that they take frequent breaks that other WORKERS don’t get. If I goofed off all the times that my co-workers were out taking smoke breaks, I’d be fired.
When it comes to my tax dollars, I’d rather have county employees doing their jobs all day, not standing outside smoking cigarettes.
And as for Ms. Gargulinski, who’s being self-righteous? Look in the mirror lately?
None of the present day prohibitions are about anything but assuaging the low self esteem issues of those who put them in place. It is about a bunch of mentally ill losers whose self esteem is so low that they feel they have NO control over ANYTHING in their own lives. So the answer for them to feel good about their low life little selves is to stick their nose into the lives of the people where they no business and FORCING their sick minded control onto those people. You have to understand America, these control freaks are very sick people. And until we start treating them like sick little people that they truly are they will only climb further and further up onto our backs.
The most baffling thing about this article is at the end, when she suggests that cocaine and heroin are not being dealt with adequately. This is ridiculous and logically faulty.
Alcohol is illegal to even possess if you are under 21. Cocaine and heroin are very tightly controlled. Don’t believe me? Try to buy some, and see what happens if a county employee, like maybe a sheriff, catches you with it.
The users of ecigs have taken control of their lives. they are no longer inhaling/exhaling smoke into the atmosphere. instead they are inhaling/exhaling water vapour what 100% of everyone else is doing. There are so many ignorant and arrogant people who dont want or dont care to understand and just want to go along in their blinkered little lives.
Ecigs are harmless!!
All those comments about asking people politely “Scarred” isn’t evident in your posting so I’m pretty sure it doesn’t exist in your real life either. If your doctors were honest with you and your family members were also or if you ever read a tiny bit about cigarettes you would know that it isn’t cigarettes that cause heart disease or any other thing which you and your family seems predisposed to get. There has never been a single reputable peer reviewed study showing a causal link between cigarettes and cancer in human beings.
Any idiot should recognize that heart disease is not caused by cigarettes. It’s from eating yourselves to death with high fat processed foods, junk and probably not enough exercise as well as a genetic predisposition but hey, that is your prerogative.
Funny how you managed to ignored the posters comment {Jay} that they weren’t even a smoker anymore too. I guess it’s true that ignorance truly is bliss!
C.B.
I smoke on dem shits daily!
I find someone complaining about cigarette smoke, while standing next to a roadway, filled with vehicles pumping out carcinogens at a rate that can be measured in tons per hour, to be somewhat less than credible. Life is messy, and there is no such thing as a risk-free existence. Get over it, or don’t. First world problems. Jeez.