Smokers Are Slobs

Why do smokers feel they must share their filthy habit? I am a volunteer campground host and am fed up with smokers.

A man walked into my campsite to ask me a question. He walked up to my three-year-old granddaughter with a lit cigarette n his hand, I told him we don't allow smoking in our campsite and to get the cigarette away from my granddaughter. He replied that this was a public park and he could smoke anywhere he wanted to. He then took a large drag on the cigarette and blew the smoke at us. What was his question? He was burning a log too big for the fire circle and wanted to know if he could leave the site with the log burning? I had to extinguish the fire at his campsite and breathe the sickening cigarette smoke while I did my job. He is a typical smoker, a slob who feels he has more rights than anyone else on earth.

We are miles from the nearest highway and even further from the nearest industrial smokestack. You can smell the freshness of the morning dew and the sweet scent of the hard wood forest which surrounds us. Then you catch the unmistakable whiff of the foul smell of a cigarette. Your enjoyment of the outdoors has been taken from you by a selfish person who feels she just has to share her nasty habit with you. She sees that no smoking in the bathroom sign and sucks in one last big lung full of smoke, throws the cigarette on the ground and enters the bathroom to exhale. She did not smoke in the bathroom; however, she shared her sickness with all who were inside and would enter later. Then who cleans up the butt she threw down? This is litter and many times is still burning waiting for a young child to pick up and burn themselves, or destroy the forest.

I only wish I was making this up but it is regular occurrence which I witness on a daily basis. Smokers are for the most part slobs who have no concern for the people around them. They obviously have no concern for themselves or they would have quit smoking. Even the cigarette industry have given up trying to dispute the health risks of smoking. The tobacco growing states have joined most of the other states in passing laws to prohibit smoking in public places to protect people from second hand smoke. Smokers simply have no argument other than their own weakness to the habit as to why they smoke.

Then there is that filter which never goes away. Many campers tell me they always put their cigarette butt in the firepit. I then tell them it does not burn, if it did it had burned when you smoked the cigarette. I have spent hours picking filters out of firepits. That little piece of cotton like material is filled with carcinogens. The next person who starts a fire in that pit could get them in their food. Birds and other nesting animals pick them up and use them in their nests, their young ingest the material and die. The tars and other toxin in the filter material leach into our waterways and water wells. Yes, you could be drinking left over cigarette toxins right out of your faucet.

Who among us has not seen a smoker open their car window and push out their lit cigarette butt? How many car accidents are caused by smokers reaching for their cigarettes or lighting up? How many forest fires have been started by a cigarette butt? How many people have been made homeless by a careless smoker? I have not looked up the statistics although I would say they are in the millions and one is too many. How many billions of government dollars of have been spent treating smoking related illnesses? These dollars rob those who need healthcare for diseases not of their own doing. Maybe it is time to totally isolate the smokers.

Smokers say they have a right to smoke. I could debate that but instead will grant they have that right. Although if they have that right, I also have a right to live in a world free of cigarettes and the multitudes of damages they cause. All rights come with responsibilities and restrictions. The smoker's right comes with a responsibility to respect the nonsmokers right to be totally cigarette free. To accomplish this, the smoker will only be allowed to smoke in an enclosed, non vented fire proof area which is totally owned by the smoker. She will be required to change her clothing and shower immediately upon leaving the smoking area so the smell will not travel with her beyond the smoking area. She will have to launder her own smoking clothes so no other person would be subjected to the odor. The filter must be placed in a sealed container plainly marked as a poison and disposed in a hazardous waste facility. She will be disallowed any healthcare benefits for cigarette related diseases.

There it is, the perfect solution to those who think they must share their filthy habit with everyone else. Yes it is harsh but what the smoker is doing to us, the nonsmoker is also harsh and it is past time to get tough.