Not Smoking Becoming Hazardous
Bans on smoking are becoming hazardous to the health of non-smokers. Maybe it’s just here in California where about the only place a smoker can light up is at home and in selected regions outdoors. Are we non-smokers to be victims of our own victories?
Many of us fought hard and long years to get smoking banned. We watched our aunts and uncles, sometimes our parents, suffer and die from lung cancer. We had our own battles with the deadly addiction. I persuaded my husband to quit in his early twenties when he wanted to become a SCUBA diver.
“If you give up cigarettes for a year, you’ll save enough to pay for your gear,” I chirped. He agreed, quit smoking cold turkey — and went out to buy a wetsuit and tanks immediately. I have no one to blame but myself because I handled the finances. It took a few more years before I found the incentive to quit: the price of cigarettes in Florida rose to a quarter a pack … or was it 50 cents? Whatever, it was too much at the time.
I couldn’t quit the way my husband did. Too much coffee klatching in the mornings with neighbors who smoked. But I didn’t buy any more cigiboos for myself. I bummed smokes from my friends and paid them back in packs, until guilt made me stop entirely.
When I had to enter the work force, cigarette smoke in the office made me ill. I’d already discovered I am allergic to tobacco. A smoky room precipitated headaches. When California banned smoking in offices, I cheered and did my little whoopee dance. Only to find the smokers clustered around building doors. Gack! Choke! Finally they enforced a 50 foot smoke-free zone at entrances and/or relegated smokers to the loading docks out back. Then restaurants eliminated smoking inside, but this being sunny San Diego, most have patios along the sidewalk, by the front door–smoking allowed.
Now that there’s a ban on smoking in all public buildings and ones coming for beaches and parks, the smokers have nowhere to congregate and puff away but the sidewalks. This is creating a gauntlet of poisons for the public to run. I’m used to holding my breath when I exit Starbucks, until I’m free of the outdoor seating, but yesterday the odor persisted into my neighborhood as I encountered an overweight bruiser puffing away on a cancer stick while she shuffled along the sidewalk.
I’m not sure I can make it all the way to the park for a breath of fresh air. I guess I’ll just have to stay home all the time. Hey, wait! Who said the smokers would inherit the outdoors?
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