An open letter to cigarette smokers

Dear smokers. I know you and I don’t get along that well.

This bloke has the right idea (image: www.ecouterre.com)

I’d like to ask you some genuine questions, from someone who has never had a cigarette.

1. Why do you throw your cigarette butts on the ground? (#notallsmokers)

I know you very thoughtfully then stamp on it, grind it into the footpath / road / grass / beach
in case a random passerby treads on it and bursts into flames, thanks for that. But, pun intended, why don’t you pick it up?

Congratulations. You are adding to the several trillion cigarette butts discarded each year.

If I threw my empty bottle of whatever on the ground, trod on it and walked off, would you think that was odd? If yes, then what’s the difference?

But what am I supposed to do with it? 

Good question. That is your problem. You’re the one who is smoking. Find an ashtray, a garbage bin or preferably put it in your pocket. However, throwing it on the street / beach / pot plant / garden / drain or wherever, like everything else with your smoking – including the disgusting smell, risk of cancer etc – becomes my problem.

The street is the worst option. Street = drain = harbour or beach or river, causing untold damage to marine life for the simple fact butts are obviously not biodegradable. Surprisingly, they don’t magically evaporate in water, in fact all that lovely cadmium, lead and arsenic leaches into our environment within an hour of contact with water. They also don’t evaporate in air, evidenced by bushfires started by some moron lobbing a butt out of a car window.

2. What do you think happens to that cigarette butt you have just thrown on the ground?

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More likely a bloke with a bastard leafblower blows it down the drain and then see above.

3. What do you do at home? Is your floor / backyard / balcony a Great Pyramid of Butts?
Hopefully you dispose of cigarette butts properly, well, as properly as one can…
so why don’t you do that when you are out?

I know, I know… you non-smokers don’t get it, it’s an addiction, smoking is not illegal,
the government makes a fortune out of us smokers… 
blah, blah, blah.

Again. I don’t care. You have no rights as a smoker. Perversely, actually you do.
You can sit outside a nice restaurant “enjoying” your cigarette, the view and the “fresh air”,
while I have to endure your recycled smoke and that stench. Why should I be forced inside?
I know Australian state governments have acted on this to their credit, but this doesn’t go
far enough. I’m talking to you, Europe.

If smoking just stayed your problem, I’d be happy. Butt it doesn’t. So I’m not.

©Steve Williams 2016

*This piece also appeared in The Huffington Post Australia:
I Wish Smoking Was Just Your Problem. Butt It’s Not

Smokers’ rights? I call bullshit

Two words I always find amusing when used in the same sentence are “smokers” and “rights”.
It’s dead simple, they don’t have any.

Shazza enjoys a post-rant smoke

I remember a hilarious comment in response to a story about the NSW government in Australia banning smoking in commercial dining areas. I can’t recall the author’s name, so let’s call her “Shazza”.

Her erudite contribution was: “Non-smokers have all the inside space…”. What, in the world?
So us non-smokers should just shut up and never leave the lounge room? Why should smokers have territorial rights to a restaurant terrace with a panoramic sea view or even an outside table near a random pot plant? At least Shazza did suggest allocating a separate outdoor seating, eating and drinking area. They already have — it’s called your home.

Unfortunately, outdoor smoking areas have one major design flaw — smoke by nature is fairly unpredictable. I recall seeing a large yellow rectangle painted on the ground in front of a city office building complete with the words “Smoking Area”. I like to think they were taking the piss.

Just yesterday my wife and I wanted to enjoy lunch in a rather pleasant outdoor area of a cafe. Once we heard the click of a cigarette lighter we knew our enjoyment would be zero, so we left. Why should we have to? I wanted to breathe the cool garden air, not secondhand toxins from the pits of tar-filled lungs.

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but another reader (“Trevor”) who commented on the same story would make a worthy study:
“This is rediculous arent smokers banned from enough places, but drinking alcahol and getting blind drunk is totally acceptable? If you dont like it dont stand near us…”. Trev may have imbibed the odd vat of beer before hitting return.

Love the old “dont stand near us”, with an “alcahol” comparison chestnut being fired up.
At least “alcaholics” don’t have the potential to give me cancer. Vomit yes, fruity aromas, possibly violent assault and / or inappropriate displays of unwanted affection and / or slurred, off-key renditions of an Elvis classic, but not a potentially terminal illness.

Of course smokers have rights — in their own house or car or similar totally enclosed box
where I can’t smell it or them.

I realise it is a potentially tragic addiction for a lot of people,
but(t) there is absolutely no way it is a “right”. That is just a smokescreen.

©Steve Williams 2014