I really think Second Hand Smoke has gone the way of Global Warming.
Town Meeting members in Belmont voted overwhelmingly Monday in favor of a warrant article that bans smoking in public parks and on athletic fields.
First up let’s just say that public lands are public property and subject to whatever restrictions the people want, I see nothing legally wrong with banning smoking on these lands, and its entirely in Belmont’s rights. Still its bullshit like this that really annoys me.
The article was the result of a citizen petition started by resident Pam Makrides.
“What motivated me was the lack of protection for my 18-month-old daughter,” Makrides said. “I would take her to the park and see people smoking. When I asked them to stop, they said, ‘There’s no law against it,’ so I had no choice but to take my daughter home.”
Are you kidding me? Something tells me that there weren’t young adults hanging on the monkey bars having a butt, and blowing smoke at the toddlers. I suspect that on the same park were benches, and people sitting on them having a smoke, and Ms. Makrides felt the need to storm across the park to tell them how she thinks they should live their lives, and somehow her daughter had a relevance to this cause.
But how did she take her daughter to the park? Did they walk along the sidewalks, or drive on the roads. You know, the roads with all those gasoline-powered cars. How does she heat her home? Gas? Oil? She have a gas stove? She ever burn food when cooking? Does she have a wood fireplace or stove? Do her Neighbors? When I lived in Belmont I had a fireplace in my apartment, I didn’t feel the need to use it, but my landlord told me I was welcome to. Has she ever had a cookout when the weather is nice? Have her neighbors ever?
Has she ever considered that she is exposed to far more carcinogens from any of these sources than she is from a person smoking a cigarette near her in an open space, let alone somebody a hundred feet or more from her.
Sorry, when people cart out the junk science, and double-standards, that’s when you know its simply bigotry against a legal activity. Smoking is hardly good for your health, and if you do smoke, you’re probably better off quitting, and if you don’t smoke, that’s a good habit to keep. That being said, I’m sick of totalitarian jerkoffs fuming on like somehow the wiff of a Marlborough as you go about your day is some sort of death ray that will strike your body filled with cancer before you can even roll the windows of your Prius up.
One of my next door neighbors back in CO smoked a pack of unfiltered cigarettes a day and worked at the Uranium mill for 40 years. He finally died at the age of 94 of old age. Smoking does not equal instant death.
Man, I can only imagine how differently Uranium was handled back when he started working there too.
My Grandmother is 85 and has been smoking since her teens. She certainly has Emphysema, but at this rate I doubt the smokes are going to be directly what punches her clock. Certainly she gets knocked back pretty hard when she gets a cold….but at 85, can you expect much different from a health-food freak? Humans ain’t built like 1911s. You can’t live a moderately healthy lifestyle for 100 years and expect to look “as good as new”, or even as good as many of my Older safe queens.
She doesn’t want people smoking near her baby but she probably has not problem holding said child and breathing carbon dioxide in her face, eh.
Wasn’t carbon dioxide just declared a pollutant?
Crap like this makes me want to take up smoking just to piss these people off. No, smoking isn’t good for you, but it isn’t the horrible death sentence that they make it out to be. One of the many conditions that my Granddad had when he died was a small bit of lung cancer. He’d smoked when he was younger, but he had quite more than 50 years prior to his death. He’d also been a machinist for most of that time. They still blamed the tiny spot of lung cancer on the smoking. As if he hadn’t been inhaling far more toxic things since quitting them.
Every time I read something like this makes me realize how far we have fallen from being independant, self motivating, self reliant, don’t screw with me and I won’t with you people.
We have become such a controlled look to big government sheeple that whenever someone does something you think is wrong, you run to the government or lawyer and whine until you get your way.
Where oh where did Freedom and Freedom of Choice go?
I for want want it back! RTF NOW!!
“I want want it back! RTF NOW!!”
Get Pregnant and kill your baby….I guess that’s really more an option, than a choice….
I don’t know. I really dislike being around cigarette smoke, particularly now due to some medication I’m stuck on making me overly sensitive to it. (I get really queasy and throw up, and supposedly if I smoke or am around a lot of it, I could flare up again which could land me in the ER again depending on severity and what is going on.) I suck, since I’m also fairly sure I won’t be able to drink without setting myself off even after the other medication gets out of my system. That really bothers me. I like a good hard cider or a cocktail quite a bit.
So I obviously stay away from bars, some friends when they are smoking, and areas outside around smokers. I honestly miss the nannying of New England, where I could go see a concert without having to wonder if I will be forced to leave part way through if it gets smokey.
As for outside areas, it would be nice if there was a guaranteed spot for people who can’t be around smoke to go. I mean, it’s not like I will say something to a person smoking in a public place. I honestly try not to even make a face or a big deal of getting the hell away from the smell. I see both sides of the issue though, and I absolutely despise anyone who starts waving the, “Do it for the chyyyyyyldren!!!! The poor poor CHYLLLDRENN!” flag.
And no, a this point I’m not freaking out about ZOMG second hand smoke. It’s an entirely personal and selfish desire of mine not to have to deal with queasiness and vomiting on top of the usual digestive issues. If I could no longer shoot guns or have real fur items, I think I might die since drinking is out…
Some people find it rather shocking (particularly people from church – Mormons) that I have no problem with people smoking, drinking, using drugs, etc even though I don’t do them myself. Furthermore, when I say we should get rid of all of the anti-smoking, -drinking, -drug laws some begin to think I am the devil incarnate.
I have enough ammunition in my home that if distributed in the optimum manner could wipe out the entire city I live in. Yet there is no law that limits the amount of ammunition I own, and every day I wake up and the city is still here, and unless there was a range trip the day before, the amount of ammunition hasn’t decreased. Make it legal for anyone, of any age to buy alcohol and tobacco and how I raise my children won’t be any different. The government is a poor nanny and a crappy parent at best.
I’m allergic to cigarette/cigar smoke. BBQ smoke and car exhaust don’t get me at all. But I walk past someone smoking [or someone who just came in from smoking] and it’s just coughcough hackhack sneeze.
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