October 16, 2007

The Rant Corner
The non-smoker's dilemma

Stew Shearer | contributing columnist
sshearer@smcvt.edu

I read the other day that the California government is trying to pass legislation that will make it illegal to smoke in an apartment or condo. That same day I came to the conclusion that anti-smoking activists have finally crossed over into the deep end.

Now I can understand landlords being a bit finicky about having a smoker living in one of their apartments. The USA Today article I read actually said that it can cost almost $2,000 more to clean a smoker’s apartment after they’ve moved out than it does to clean up after a non-smoker. That is a pretty hefty bill to pick up just to humor a tenant’s bad habit and many landlords have chosen to ban smoking from their properties.

And that is how should be, they own the buildings and if they don’t want to allow smoking inside then they don’t have to, but they shouldn’t have someone from the government telling them how to deal with it. If they are comfortable with the consequences of allowing smokers to live in their buildings, then that’s their choice. Concerning condos, however, no one has any business telling anyone what to do.

A condo is not rented, it has no landlord. At most the resident has to follow a set of rules fixed by the members of a condo community and those should be left to the residents themselves to determine. The government has no place dictating what people do in their own homes, and this attempt at doing so is a blatant violation of individual property rights. The fact that it deals with smoking does not change that fact.

And yes, it can be an inconvenience for neighbors to live near a smoker but those kinds of inconveniences are just a part of living in a community. Close your windows when they smoke outside and buy an air purifier.

Not that I support smoking. I think it is a disgusting and unhealthy habit, but this doesn’t mean I support the increasingly ridiculous tactics that anti-smoking activists are taking to in order to bring about its demise. I can accept that people have vices and that they can sometimes be unhealthy ones. The information concerning the risks of smoking has been available for years and millions still choose to do it. Get over it, they made a choice and they can deal with the consequences if and when they occur. Just don’t be surprised if I try to get by you faster when you’re walking in front of me on the way to St. Ed’s and choose to light up.

This is not a concept a lot of people like to embrace though. The idea that someone could ever want to smoke without some kind of deception involved on the part of big tobacco is something that just doesn’t register. It surprises me then that no one questions the millions who drink despite the fact that a lifetime of doing so could destroy your liver, or that no one flinches anymore when someone lights up a joint which has effects just as bad as or worse than smoking a cigarette.

But then, I have accepted that people are fickle and selective in what they ostracize. We don’t have to feel guilty about our own vices as long as we condemn a select few. After all, who cares if you drink yourself into a stupor as long you don’t smoke? What’s the big deal about smoking pot, you could be doing worse things like eating McDonald’s; ever since Super Size Me people have seemed more than pissed off enough about that stuff.

America is supposed to be a place where you can choose to make your life as what you want it to be and for some people that includes smoking. I don’t condone smoking. I think it’s a waste of money and one of the unhealthiest things you could ever do (although I hear eating microwave popcorn is climbing the list) and so I don’t do it. I know the consequences and I want no part in them, and I choose as often as possible to avoid people when they are smoking. However, it isn’t my place to dictate what choices other people make concerning their health and neither is it the place of the anti-smoking people who are likely at this very moment scratching their heads as to how else to get through to what they perceive as the impressionable masses. Here’s a clue; maybe a lot of those people haven’t been tricked, maybe they just like it.