A couple of weeks ago, I pulled into my neighborhood Safeway strip mall to pick up a couple of things before work. Parked next to me was a beat-up old van with two women who were smoking up a storm. There was also a baby in one of those carrier things. I felt bad for that baby. Basically, the baby was trapped; forced to breathe all that awful secondhand smoke.
A little while later, as I was coming out of the store, the two women were walking in–still smoking! Well, I don’t know what came over me, but I said, “You shouldn’t be smoking around that baby.”
Needless to say, they were shocked. And then the one woman told me it was none of my business. I told her it was. (I kept on walking though, they looked kind of tough.) She then said something about me not paying for it. (The kid? The doctor bills?)
By that time, I was getting in my car. I wish I had said something about, “It takes a village … .”
Hindsight is 20/20, I guess.
When I told people about it, their reaction was positive, although they also said something about putting myself in danger.
Anyway, now one of our state legislators is trying to make it child abuse to smoke around kids. I’m not sure how laws would change anything, but I do know I’m glad I did what I did.
Maybe this “mother” will think about it. Maybe she’ll complain to somebody about the crazy bitch at the grocery store trying to tell her how to live. And maybe someone will actually say, “You know, that crazy bitch is right.”
Maybe.
This article appears in Nov 29 – Dec 5, 2007.
Nobody puts baby in a smoky corner.
When I was a baby many years ago my parents smoked like stoves and so did many others. It never hurt me one whit. If you presume to invade the parent -child relationship you can’t stop with issuing instructions, bitch. You’ll have to chip in on the child support.
Honestly, it is none of your business.
It is true that we are all entitled to our opinions, but behavior like that is what is called being a “smoke Nazi”.
Don’t understand the phrase? It is similar to how outspoken vegetarians vilify the meat-eating population and tell them to go to hell (in related news, read Danehy this week).
Smoke Nazis righteously and piously go out of their way to wag a finger at people for using tobacco when it does not dramatically affect the person snubbing them.
“Needless to say, they were shocked. And then the one woman told me it was none of my business. I told her it was.” Explain how was it your business? Honestly, it isn’t.
Imagine if I walked around getting in the face of people who drive Hondas, Kias, Hyundais and Acuras and telling them they are bad or homophobic people because
FACT none of those foreign automakers offer domestic partnership benefits to GLBT employees. ( http://www.gaywheels.com/gff/nongayfriendly.htm )
Hey, it’s my business to tell you that you are a bad person for not agreeing to what I believe in, isn’t it?
Same principle applies.
Live and let live.
What you SHOULD have done was kind of lean in their general direction while letting out a series of fake, mocking coughs.
Sometimes I go out looking for smokers. Right before leaving the house I eat a big meal full of beans, cabbage and garlic. Then I go up to the smokers and let loose. If they say anything, I just lean in their direction and deliver a series fake, mocking coughs.
That learns ’em all right!
Stimulating fart smells on people seems more appropriate than vocalizing concern about things that are not your business to begin with.
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In some sick sense anyway.
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Maybe not really.
I didn’t think we were supposed to call each other names. Oh, well. being a bitch is sometimes a good thing.
Just as a note. I do not believe in the type of legislation that is being proposed, but I do believe in healthy children. There’s nothing Nazi or bitchy about that.
Their health is affected even if Joe Camel’s wasn’t. We do pay for sick kids even if we don’t write checks to the doctor. I am lucky. I have health insurance, but my monthly costs are high to cover those who don’t.
Anyway, if you got in front of people who drove all those above mentioned cars, they would most likely run over you.
Rita Connelly:
So you believe in healthy children. There’s nothing Nazi about that unless it’s somebody else’s children. If you had walked up and told me to put out my cigarette and delivered a delusional health lecture I would have knocked your block off.
Smokers pay exorbitant and unfair taxes that far exceed their cost to the health system which is precisely the same as nonsmokers.
Bottom Line: You have no goddam right to stick your delusions up the next person’s rear.You’d
better learn that before you get hurt.
Rita, you’re connecting your advocation for healthy children with an asserted right to tell people off for smoking, which is a legal choice Americans have.
Fact is, you cornered someone and told them off because you asserted a right to talk down to someone who was doing something completely legal. It’s not your child, and you are not the parent of that child.
It IS your right to speak up, but you look like a jerk for doing so.
Anybody who walks up to people to express displeasure about smoking when the smoker is in the legal right (20 feet away from an entrance) is behavior considered being a “Smoke Nazi”.
Like I said:
Smoke Nazis righteously and piously go out of their way to wag a finger at people for using tobacco when it does not dramatically affect the person snubbing them.
Live and let live.
Boy you guys have fantastic imaginations.
There was no “cornering”. There was no “Coming up to a person”. There was no” telling someone to put your cigarette out” or “telling sombody off”. And there certainly wasn’t any “sticking delusions up anyone’s ass”
And by the waythese folks were about 10 feet away from the entrance.
It was a comment, that’s all. No doubt you guys are smokers and you have every right to smoke. Enjoy yourselves.
Fair ’nuff.
Smokers get touchy when told by random people that what they’re doing is bad, because as every smoker will tell you, unwarranted comments like that comes off as unwanted badgering.
Lastly, I quit smoking. Don’t consider it a victory: an unrelated injury made me quit, and I replaced that with caffeine (I used to never drink caffeinated drinks, period). But I do remember the days of having people I’ve never met before come up to me and make comment about what a “bad person I was for ruining my health” or comments similar to that affect. Making comments in the same vein as yours — you’re not complaining because you’re worried about your health, you’re instead trying to tell me what I should do with my own life. Really, it was not their business by any means.
Do you see where I’m coming from here?
FACT: Nobody has ever proven that smoking or smelling it is unhealthy. FACT: The World Health Organization –the political arm of the international medical establishment– has blackmailed dozens of nations into signing a treaty (see FCTC) that calls tor unrelenting harassment of smokers.
FACT: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and others are engaged in bribing local officials to implement local smoking bans including outdoors and private property.
Why do we have this multibillion dollar fraud? Because Big Medicine wants to replace tobacco with prescription drugs –antidepressants, tranquilizers, sleep aids,weight loss drugs etc. We’re talking TRILLIONS over time. And they won’t stop with tobacco. They want a pervasive worldwide dictatorship.
The individual sucker can’t be blamed for swallowing this BS–it’s a drumbeat on the Pharma-owned boob tube .
Big Medicine is a problem, true, but I can’t see the connection or reasons to replace tobacco with medicatons, Joe.
The only connection I can come up with is the push for Chantix, which was connected to suicidal behavior because it messes with your head.
So, what’s up? Because sorry but this is where I get off the train in being lockstep in agreement with you in being upset with those who choose to behave like Smoke Nazis.
I don’t know why that post appeared three times, Moderator, you should remove 11,12 and 14.
I just told you the reason, dummy, Trillions in profits and dictatorial control of the planet Earth. Is that reason enough?
Joe Camel, if you ever get the opportunity to see the exhibit “Body Works” please do. Above and beyond the fact that you will get to see the real human bodies- every part of human bodies – it may make you think twice about smoking. The lungs of the smokers that are exhibited makes one wonder how any one of those folks could breathe. Of course, the one from the coal miner with black lung makes the smoker’s lung look healthy, but it is a most interesting exhibit.
Sounds purely like theoretical politics though. People will still need their smokes.
It’s just rather ironic that prescription pills have similar “gotta have it” qualities like cigarettes, only put out in a different manner.
– “Oops I’m having pizza, gotta take a heartburn pill”
– “Oops I’m having cholesterol issues, gotta take a cholesterol pill”
– “Oops I’m depressed, gotta take a depression pill”
and before you try to disconnect the two, think:
– “Man I’m pissed off!! I’m gonna go take a smoke break”
– “Man I’m depressed. I’m gonna go have a smoke and a beer at (X bar)”
– “Man I’m bored. Time for a smoke.”
It was once said that smokers dying young help alleviate the Social Security crisis, because smokers do not take as much money. Once could say that pill-takers are the opposite because they survive through things — and are boosting health insurance costs all the while because those pills are part of their insurance.
I should add re: social security, those comments were made at the height of lung cancer deaths in America. Lung cancer rates have declined since 1991, albeit risen among women.
Rita Connelly: Bless your heart, you’re a sucker for any kind of propaganda. Those rotten smokers’ lungs are PHONY. In fact, smokers’ lungs are used for transplants. The antitobacco bastards will stop at nothing to advance their agenda. Do you really believe SMELLING SMOKE IS DEADLY?
Do you remember when they used to advertise cigarette smoking on TV? I think when they stopped doing that the pharmaceutical companies started advertising.
Remember that commercial — I’d walk a mile for a Camel? Anybody who is smoking a pack of cigarettes a day now probably cannot walk a block much less a mile.
Whatever was in cigarettes then has worsened now.
Do I really believe smelling smoke is deadly? You bet. Check this out – http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/Factsheets/SecondhandSmoke.htm
Do I really believe that some purple pill will make my heartburn go away or that Lipitor will lower my cholesterol. No way.
I just heard from the daughter of an ex neighbor that I used to have when I lived in Calif. Her mother had agoraphobia and rarely left the house. Unfortunately, she lived with a smoker who also rarely left the house. She lived with this selfish S.O.B. for more than 35 years and waited on him hand and foot because that is how she was brought up. He got emphesema a few year’s ago but continued to keep on puffing like so many people with emphesema. She never smoked a day in her life but died of lung cancer recently. Walking into that house was like living in an ash tray.
Television cigarette advertising was ceased in 1971, less than a decade after the Surgeon General’s warning in 1964 and after a Reader’s Digest article in 1962(?) made people question things.
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Pill ads arrived in 1998-ish. Remember Bob Dole and his Viagra?
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I’m running these facts off the top of my head, but I’m pretty certain on most of them.
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Also, re: cigs worsening — according to Jack Shafer of Slate, tar and nicotine have fallen, not risen, in the past four decades. A tar/nicotine breakdown is here: http://www.slate.com/id/2148748/
The article continues on to discuss the issues with “smoking machines”, but in short it looks like the nicotine and tar are down. Makes one wonder what was in them before.
However, important point: There is no safer cigarette. Once I learned that the tar and nicotine differences are minute, I found no use in going with a light cigarette versus a regular cig. When I smoked, I found I preferred medium-flavor cigarettes (think Marlboro 27s) best.
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Regarding being unable to perform athletically:
In fact, I used to not only walk down the block, but walk extensive distances. In fact, I did more than one jogging event for charity without getting winded. It’s a misconception that smokers get winded so easily.
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Last topic:
It is true that it is difficult to be married to an indoors smoker. That’s why it is better if both smoke or none at all. However, in the case you discussed, it was within her right to leave or remarry.
Karyn Zoldan: You don’t have to go to the CDC for antitobacco BS–you can hear it on the evening news . Don’t you see a conspiracy when tobacco is not advertised on the boob tube and pharmaceutical product ads are incessant? Big pharma owns the boob tube.
The Congressional Research Service–an advisory group to Congress–found SHS to be harmless.They’re one of many. You no doubt have an unshakeable prejudice that dynamite wouldn’t change. But your beliefs, pro or con, on tobacco are of no consequence, You don’t make law.
” Anybody smoking a pack of cigarettes a day probably cannot walk a block much less a mile.” That statement borders on the comical and shows how easy it is to brainwash the dumb.
I wouldn’t argue with the likes of you–I’d just ignore you, as would any thinking person
JCamel – I do know two things.
Smokers’ kisses taste like crap.
And I don’t think smelling smoke is deadly. I think breathing smoke is deadly. Smelling smoke just stinks.
Rita,
I commend your actions,however I would have gone a step further and pulled the cig out of her mouth and put it out in front of her. People like this put a burden on society and make things expensive for the rest of us.
Cigs are bad, but what is worse for a parent to do is to feed their kids fast food. The strain that fat people put on health care costs, oil prices, and food costs in this country is much more significant than the cig burden.
When will people wake up and realize that they are poisoning their kids! Eat healthy whole foods, which cost much less! Stop being lazy! Stop smoking! Then you might be able to afford the American dream rather than just charging it on your credit card!
If you think smelling or breathing smoke is deadly, call up The Congressional Research Service and tell them they’re full of mud. Congress might beg to differ.
Michael G:
If fate dictated that our paths should cross and if you should pull a cigarette out of my mouth and put it out in frontof me, you have committed an assault that I am legally entitled to defend against. I would put you in the hospital.
If a person is smoking 10 feet from the entrance to a building, that is illegal. If they dont put it out when asked, then I will.
I encourage more people to defend their rights to fresh air whenever and however they can, without resorting to violence. I am a fit healthy young man and I guess an idiot like JCamel might try to beat me up, but he probably wouldnt be so quick to hit an elderly person, a child, or a lady (who are all more effected by the smoke than I am). Step up people! Young and old, we can make a difference if we do it together, so dont be intimidated! When one person speaks up they are usually saying what many others are thinking, public admonishment works!
If you want to smoke, great! Do it in your house or in your car with the windows rolled up.
“If you want to smoke, great! Do it in your house or in your car with the windows rolled up.”
Sorry mate, but:
When in public, one can do whatever is legal. You are not above the law.
If you think you are above the law, explain why.
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However, at risk of looking like a jerk and stepping on toes, I agree on a basic level with your statement here —
“Cigs are bad, but what is worse for a parent to do is to feed their kids fast food. The strain that fat people put on health care costs, oil prices, and food costs in this country is much more significant than the cig burden.”
I concur that the growing number of obese people in America have a larger impact on society and our healthcare system than the smoking population ever did. Why is it that food portions have gotten so large??? It’s a reaction to increasing market wants, creating a endless spiral in and of itself.
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Lastly, Michael G., as for
“People like this [smokers] put a burden on society and make things expensive for the rest of us.”
Remember, in Arizona the smoking population contributed $470 million to both federal and state tax bases. In fact, removing the 39-cent federal excise tax, smokers directly contributed $378 million to Arizona.
(math: $2.00 / pack X approx. 235,317,300 packs = $470,634,600 )
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Comparatively, the beer tax is 16 cents/gallon, and gasoline tax is 19 cents/gallon (source ). Joe Camel, while irascible, is right that smokers are being hyper-taxed thanks to new laws. AZ has the 4th-highest tax rate for cigarettes per pack.
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Before you say, what about health costs?!!! I expect you to provide numbers for those costs, just like I provided numbers for my argument. Otherwise, you’re just making statements without any basis. Prove to me that smokers in Arizona cost more than the amount of money they contribute to the state.
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Otherwise, I implore you to retract your statements and reconsider your position.
Clarification:
In Arizona the smoking population contributed $470 million to
bothcombined federal and state tax bases. In fact, removing the 39-cent federal excise tax, smokers directly contributed $378 million to Arizona.Michael G : No, I wouldn’t beat up an old lady but it’s doubtful an old lady would play cop.
Your statement that smoking within a 20 foot zone is illegal may be true but so is assault and vigilantism. See my post to Rita about sticking your delusions up the next man’s ass.
I hope that lots of people take your advice to defend their rights to fresh air by grabbing cigarettes.I don’t think many smoke nazis are that brave without the law behind them. It’ll be fun to find out.
I’m a mean guy who loves to encounter smart punks like you, but I wager that virtually anyone would respond to your cigarette jerking by jerking a handfol of your hair.