Okay, so today is the Great American Smokeout, a day in which the American Cancer Society challenges smokers to quit for one day, in hopes that we will quit forever. Sounds to me like the person who came up with this idea probably wasn’t a smoker. Quitting smoking is hard enough without having to hear some jack-ass tell me that it’s time to quit. I will quit in my own time, thank you. I am proposing an alternative. I have noticed in recent years that the smoking population has been facing discrimination for our habit. Most people would argue that, since we choose to smoke, that it isn’t really discrimination, since we could stop if we wanted to. I call bullshit on that right now. Smoking has been banned in workplaces and on airplanes. I’m okay with that. I don’t want people to be forced to sit near me when I’m smoking if they don’t like it. That’s not what I’m trying to accomplish. Restaurants. I don’t mind when people smoke around me when I eat, but I know people do, and I’m okay with that. But dammit, they have pushed us out of bars. Bars are places that serve alcohol, and cater to a crowd of ADULTS. Adults, who have the right to leave if they don’t like the atmosphere. This is the part that makes me downright sick. Nobody goes to a bar to do anything healthy in the first place. Besides, there are usually no children in a bar (and if there are, you are in the wrong kind of bar). I am sick of being pushed outside and treated like a lesser person because of how I choose to relax.
Here is what I propose. If you are a smoker, then hand out a smoke or two to random people you see during the course of your day tomorrow. If you are a non-smoker, but agree that smokers have the same rights as anyone else in this country, do the same. Smokers, smoke a cigarette today for freedom. Non-smokers, if you are fed up with this bullshit legislation that tells bars how to run their business, sport a smoke on your ear for the day. I urge all people, not to be a prick about this, but to make others aware of this tyrannical law. This aggression should not stand, but it is. I am not trying to bring Joe Camel back; I just want a beer and a smoke again.
