On smoking and Freedom of Choice

I’m a smoker.
I’m a heavy smoker, and I admit that I have an addictive problem towards these sticks of cancer that I hope one day to overcome.

I’m a rebel.
I’m a heavy rebel, and I admit that I have an addictive problem towards this deep inner character that I hope to never overcome.

Tell me that I can’t do something, and if you don’t add a good reason to it, I’ll do it over and over again until you give up trying to convince me. Tell me that I can’t go somewhere without a valid reason, and it will be on the top of my to-do list. It’s how I am, how I’ve shaped myself to be, and I wouldn’t change it if my life depended on it. Tell me that I’m stubborn, and I’ll be flattered that you noticed…then ask you to mind your own business.

And that’s why ‘No Smoking’ signs make me want to light a cigarette and blow in everyone’s face. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m against people breathing clean air. But, there has to be room for us who want to breathe in nicotine polluted carbon dense air with a bit of that lovely tar tinged aroma.

Still, live and let live, right? Wrong.

What drove me up the wall was the decision for places to suddenly stop selling cigarettes due to the widespread notion that it was against the religion. No offense, but the reasoning for this should also be applied to butter, chocolate, candy, coffee and fast food. Cigarettes kill? How about cholesterol, which theoretically (and medically proven) causes more deaths a year than nicotine. I’m not even including car accidents and your every day stress-induced high blood pressure.

Add to that the places where you can’t smoke anymore, including prestigious malls and cafes. Want to know what their smoking section looks like? It’s either a balcony where no one in his right mind would sit during a winter day, or it doesn’t exist altogether. It’s like they’re trying to force us to quit, and, believe you me, it’s not working.

Let me take a second to remind everyone reading that you can’t force things on people. You can’t keep pressuring them and then expect them to do what you want. Life doesn’t work that way, because the usual response you get is a punch in the face or, if the pressured person is polite, the finger. Everyone has the freedom to choose what their habits will be, whether it’s smoking, drinking or simply picking their nose. Pressure them to stop, and you’ll get the exact opposite reaction. I, on one hand, am starting my own League of Freedom of Choice, where everyone is welcome as long as they mind their own business, and anyone against us will be bitch slapped ‘til they cry uncle!