Should Smoking Be Banned in Public?

Imagine you are a smoker. Imagine that you have been a smoker for sixteen years. Imagine what a pain it becomes find a spot in someone's house or a restaurant where you can actually smoke. The laws against smoking are becoming stronger as time goes by, and you are running out of places to puff.

You have to go to the back room, outside, on the balcony, the porch, the weather is nasty, the mosquitoes are tearing you a new one, and while you smoke, you are out there all by your self while your friend is putting his best moves on the good looking girl at the party, leaving you with the wicked witch of oh my God please kill me, and you really aren't even enjoying the thing. It's just ridiculous. It becomes such a hassle to smoke, you finally decide to quit smoking altogether. And you eventually succeed. Well, let's just assume that you succeed, because you're probably weak in real life. Weak and soft.

Now imagine you are walking into a restaurant and as you enter the walkway to the entrance, you breathe in a billowing cloud of smoke and start gagging. Imagine that this happens again and again, everywhere you go, movie theaters, the local grocery store, every entryway, you find smokers gathered around for one last quick puff before entering the non-smoking building, and you realize ''This is what I've been doing to people. I have been ruining the quality of life for others while feeding my addiction all these years'' You quit smoking because it is so unhealthy, and hey, you want to live forever and ever. Now you find yourself choking on human exhaust fumes.

If you have ever been a non-smoker and were forced into close proximity to a smoker right after they put one out, the rank smell is enough to make your eyes water. Naturally, the smoker doesn't care. Like any other junkie, and that is what they are; a junkie, like anyone else that is slave to an addiction is a junkie, the smoker cares only about his fix, not about you, your child, his or her own children, or even about himself. All that matters is the next smoke.

The junkie is well aware of the discomfort he causes in those around him, he simply doesn't comprehend the level of disgust he engenders. Ending his ability to ruin the health of innocent passersby would be a good step towards ending the power this insidious affliction has upon the world. Most smokers don't even enjoy smoking, it isn't as if it's marijuana after all, with it's accompanying euphoric mellow buzz. It is simply a routine habit. Remove the ability to facilitate the addiction and it will disappear completely.

If you wanted to go a step further and ban tobacco altogether, it's doubtful there would be much protest from anyone other than Big Tobacco. Although it's likely they might be happy with a license to grow and sell cannabis legally; They already have the packaging trademarked.