Cough cough! Second hand smoke! Ban smokers?

Smokers versus non-smokers are squaring off and it's going to a vote right here in beautiful Baytown, Texas, a predominantly blue-collar town. The smokers feel their rights as Americans are at stake and the non-ex-smokers say the smokers are violating their air space and their health. Some want to stop smokers from smoking in public…any public. Smokers who own businesses want to make the call themselves without laws stopping them.

Here is another of my perspectives.

Raising the price and taxing the fire out of tobacco products is not going to stop anyone addicted to nicotine. I myself was addicted for many years, but haven't had a smoke in 30 years, or do I want one.

Back in the early 70's a company named Laredo marketed a cigarette machine and kit that allowed everyone to roll their own, so they didn't have to pay that exorbitant .50 per pack. Outside the USA those same Cigs went for .23 per pack, so with a little fancy 'rithmatic, it can be estimated that they were already marked up times 2+. The Laredo machine caused some unexpected results that were many times quite humorous, but that’s another story.

I feel just as strongly as any non-smoker about the smell and dangers of cigarette/cigar/pipe smoke.

Smokers know that smoking has no benefits. It's very expensive, it makes you and everything you come in contact with stink, you can't go anywhere without your smokes and lighter, it is dangerous to your health, you are an outcast everywhere because you smoke and the newest bad thing added to the list is it causes hypothermia on cold days! Smokers live for that smoke right after they eat, because that's as good as a cigarette tastes anytime.

Drunken smokers occasionally light the filtered end and find out later they smoked more than their daily allotment, because the next day they have sore throats. Check their shirts and there's burn marks and holes...also in the car and on the couch.

Yuppers! Smokers know all this better than anyone, but raising the price and causing the whole community to be divided over the issue is counter-productive. We need to be patient as a culture and keep educating the young people on the dangers of tobacco use.

The insidious addiction of tobacco usage cannot be dealt with socially by upping the price till it creates a black market.

Tobacco users are increasingly being viewed as criminals and the old question comes up: "What vice or enjoyment will be next?" I'm told in Golden Colorado, a homeowner cannot smoke on his or her own front porch because folks have taken second hand smoke to the extreme. Tobacco users know not to smoke in peoples face and they don’t spit tobacco juice where non-users will find it offensive.

We need education, not more dad-gum laws that only make people mad and lawyers richer. I've said this before and I'll say it again; if we are not careful, we are going to tune and refine until no one has any liberty or freedom left.