Smokers' rights can go up in flames
My wife, Marilyn, has a stock answer for anyone who asks, "Do you mind if I smoke?" She smiles and responds demurely, "Frankly, I don't care if you go up in flames."
Actaully, that pretty much sums up how I feel about smokers' rights, which presently are a hot topic of debate in the Michigan Legislature. It's kind of like how I feel about the helmet law for motorcycles: Figure out a way that I won't have to support hefty auto insurance rates and state subsidies to pay for your long-term care when you run out of coverage after you bust half your bones and your fake Nazi helmet is ripped off and crushed to smithereens, and you can knock yourself out - literally.
You want to smoke outside and far away from nonsmokers, go right ahead. I don't want to be seated anywhere near you when you light up.
Second-hand smoke is a killer. Period. I quit first-hand smoking years ago. It killed too many of my friends and relatives. Who knows what my lungs look like today, but with any luck at all they're a light shade of brown instead of the black I saw the first and only time I sat in on a heart operation performed by a good friend who is a heart surgeon and watched him crack open a fat guy's chest in order to get at his heart.
This man's lungs were jet black. I don't know what I expected, but when I asked my friend, Dr. Douglas Lees, what made them that wierd color, he just shook his head. "See 'em all the time," he responded. "Heavy smoker."
The patient needed four bypasses. He died a few days later.
Maybe you don't get black lung from second-hand smoke. But maybe you do. You want to take the chance?
Comments
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Smokers Rights
Pete,
I have a response to you and your wife;
Put 100 people in a closed room for 1hour, all of them smoking.......1 hour later you open the door and they are all alive.
Put 100 non smokers in the same room with a 1 car running,
1hr later open the door....they are all dead.
I hope you leave your car window open all the time when its running....get it?
Waldmeir & smokng
AS Waldmeir states no doubt smoking kills and people shouldn't smoke. however, autos kill,guns kill, overweight kills and many other things kill does that mean to Waldmeir that all these things should cease to be? We had or have, laws on the books force pubic places to ensure that they have areas set aside that is only for smokers and it seems to work very well so what is wrong with contining that system.
Waldmeir, and other ex-sokers, are willing to take away the rights, yes rights ,of 20% of Americans who do smoke. A right to use a heavy taxed legal product. These ex-smokers, and others, say nothing abut making the product illegal, nothing about removing the taxes, they speak only about how smoking is killing them.Whle I smoke cigars (one a day) and enjoy cigars and have done so for seven decades, starting when I was in service during WW 2. A war that was "supposed" toensue that we retaned the rights given our Constitution now Waldmeir, and the others, want to usurp that Contitution and make a waste of the time I, and millions of other spent to protect it. GIVE ME A BREAK. Frank Mannino
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