Let’s just get this out of the way right up front: Nobody on the planet is going to try and say “You know, smoking is actually good for you!” Even the cigarette companies aren’t that stupid.
But it might be time for non-smokers to realize that as much as they might hate it, smoking is, in fact, legal and they don’t, in fact, own the entire planet.
Apparently, the town of Belmar, New Jersey is the latest burg to consider banning smoking on its beaches and boardwalks as opposed to corralling puffers into designated smoking areas. But more than a few people are crying “foul.”
Unless and until the federal government — having wussed out on this issue for years — is willing to step up to the plate and say, “You know what? Smoking is deadly and we have cow-towed to tobacco lobbyists for years — while raking in huge bucks by sin-taxing tobacco-related products — but we are now ready to put the good of the citizenry above our own greed and ban cigarettes entirely,” we have to acknowledge that smokers have rights too.
Yup, they have the right to fill their lungs with deadly carcinogens. Why? Because it’s completely legal.
Over the past decade, smokers have seen the area in which they can partake in their deadly habit shrink exponentially. First, the occasional bar or workplace would ban smoking. Then entire states made it illegal to smoke inside buildings. Now, some towns want to take things to the next level by making it illegal to smoke anywhere within their boarders. In some states, it is now completely with the right of an employer to fire an employee for smoking… within their own home!
Non-smokers have spent years campaigning for their rights, but at what point do their cancer stick-addicted brethren get to say, “Hey, we let you reclaim 95 percent of the world… but come on, fair is fair!”
Interestingly, many consider laws such as the one being proposed in Belmar a nearly unenforceable policy given budget restraints. And while that town’s Mayor cites “littering” as the main reason behind the ban, he fails to address how cigarette butts cast aside on the beach are any worse than, say, Subway sandwich wrappers. Is a food ban next? Wouldn’t cigarette butts be covered under a “no littering” policy? And if that policy is not being enforced, again, who will enforce the “no smoking” ban?
To be clear: Nobody — including most smokers — is saying that it’s a habit that should be encouraged. But at the same time, there are limits to how much those who partake in a completely legal habit should be punished. In Belmar, New Jersey, it just might be that drawing a literal line in the sand and saying “you may not smoke here” will be the straw that breaks Joe Camel’s back.
