Last March, my missus called to say she was quitting smoking. I told her that was great to hear, but I privately doubted it was actually going to happen. She’d made such claims in the past and never lasted more than a few days. Well, this week marked one year of her being a non-smoker and I couldn’t be more proud of her for kicking an addiction she’d had since 17 years old.
Addiction is the key word in the above sentence. For some people, having one or two cigarettes a week with a glass of wine may be a habit of theirs. But for millions of others it is an expensive, unhealthy and smelly thing they have to do to get through their day. With all due respect, making them feel like crap because of this makes you an ass.
The self-righteous just love to hate a smoker. Sitting outside at a Starbucks the other day a middle-aged lady asked myself and another table of 30-somethings if we minded if she lit up. Before I could answer, “Of course not”, she was met with, “Yes, we’d prefer you didn’t- it’s gross,” from the other table. I gave her a look of sympathy as she got up and trudged off to the parking lot. It would have been polite to have let her have one cigarette in peace since she’d had the manners to ask in the first place, but in 2012 it’s apparently in vogue to be all up in other people’s business.
This is just one example of people’s willful humiliation of smokers. I’ve lost count of the amount of passive-aggressive looks or overly-dramatic coughs I’ve seen dished out by the self-appointed behavior police. Perhaps such intolerance and disrespect is bolstered by the loathsome TobaccoFreeCA commercials, which generalize all smokers to be a bunch of littering baby-killers.
Look, nobody is denying smoking is bad for those who do it. In 2005, my mother had a heart attack thanks to her twenty-a-day habit. Anyone considering starting should realize that it’s a terrible idea that will cost them money and shorten their life. I also agree that smoking in the presence of young children or pregnant women should be avoided.
Working in a pub during college, my shirt would stink like an ashtray after each shift. It was pretty foul. Banning smoking inside bars, restaurants, offices and airplanes was a great idea. Not only do we now need to do less laundry, we no longer have to sit in smoke-filled rooms. Health awareness has seen smoking rates in the US cut by half since the 1960s and, gladly, this percentage will continue to decline.
With such strides, it seems only fair to draw the line at directly haranguing those who do smoke. Whilst I don’t like the smell or taste of cigarettes at all, I do respect other people enough to let them have an open-air cigarette in peace where it’s perfectly legal to do so. The problem, though, is that enough is never enough for the anti-brigade. They become emboldened by every law passed in their favor. TobaccoFreeCA describes smoking as “irritating” to others. Well I find people who don’t indicate when changing lanes irritating. I find people who talk loudly on cell phones irritating. I find people who don’t say “please” or “thank-you” irritating. Nevertheless, I don’t make it my mission to ruin their day because of these things.
Before you say, “Well, those things don’t kill people”, first consider that not indicating while driving most certainly does, cell phones apparently emit cancer-causing radiation and rudeness raises my blood pressure. Secondly, ask yourself if you really believe the miniscule amount of smoke inhaled by someone lighting up outside a Starbucks really makes a difference to a healthy adult’s lungs? TobaccoFreeCA says it does, proudly quoting the US Surgeon General while asserting, “Even brief exposure to secondhand smoke is dangerous.” Not even they can say whether “brief” means one second, one hour or one week, and what exactly do they mean by dangerous? Dangerous like living in a country where the air we breathe is thick with smog? I sure hope everyone in support of their campaign has double-glazed windows, never barbeques and drives a Prius.
Were fleeting whiffs of second-hand smoke the devil it is made out to be, then tourism in countries like France, Italy, Spain and Israel would literally be a dying business. I’d never leave the house if I thought about all the things that may pose a risk to my health. To reaffirm, smoking does cost lives and it does raise healthcare costs. Additionally, unlike hereditary conditions, it is a self-induced state. Stopping all smoking inside public places is a good thing (for the third time). Regardless, if I’m stuck in traffic at 8am and I see someone with their window open, smoke plumes billowing, I don’t think they are contemptible. I think they are likely someone who wishes they didn’t smoke. Think about it – if you’re anything like me, then 90% of people you know who smoke wished they didn’t and have tried numerous times to quit.
For those with loved ones who suffer at the hands of cigarettes, you have my deepest sympathy. Encouraging them to quit, when and how you see fit, is your choice and responsibility – they’re your people. But this ends at the general public, where it’s selfish and disrespectful to make people feel bad for something they have little control over. Sensationalist shock ads encouraging us to tell total strangers they shouldn’t smoke are irresponsible avenues leading towards an even more anti-social way of living.
If you’re one of the people who prides yourself on speaking up against smokers (that’s smokers, not smoking) then you’ll probably hate this article and hate me. I’m totally fine with that. Just bear in mind it’s absolutely not my intention to try and change entrenched opinions on this matter, it’s more of a nod to let smokers know that not every non-smoker thinks they suck.
Image courtesy of tobaccofreeca.org
[...] Lighten Up About Lighting Up. Agreed. [...]
I made a short film joking about this very topic. When it was screened all the journalists could ask is ‘am I a smoker?’. I copped a lot of negativity about apparently being ‘pro-smoking’. I’m not a smoker and I don’t condone it. But I do think that being prejudice against another person, is not okay. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq0BykzT0Ng.
Some of us cough loudly as we pass by smokers because it’s hard to hold your breath that long because of our asthma, which is irritated by cigarette smoke… I guess that is just my bad luck that I have to share a sidewalk/outdoor cafe with someone who chose to take up a bad habit?
Science side note: You can’t technically be “allergic” to cigarette smoke, it is not a protein and therefore is not an allergen, but an irritant. This means that your reaction can’t be helped by antihistamines. which sucks
Hmm. I also have allergies and asthma…. cigarette smoke is an irritant that sets off an asthma attack for me. I actually can’t control the “overly dramatic” coughs that come from inhaling cigarette smoke.
BUT, I would NEVER ask someone else to stop smoking or move when I could just as easily move myself….. It’s a whole different story if someone directly asked me if I minded, I’m not going to lie and say “no”- though I’d probably be more polite about it.
This seems to be more bout rude people in general. Arundhati has it right … no one should be rude, period
smoking is disgusting, and you may think its rude for non-smokers to step away or say, “yes, actually i do mind.” but i think its rude to subject other people to your smelly bad habit. and starbucks as an example? there is nothing more disgusting and rude than smoking while someone is trying to eat or drink. im pregnant, so it really pisses me off when people smoke around me. THAT is rude and totally disrespectful! i mean, what kind of person lights up next to a pregnant woman? If you want to smoke in your car or your home, by all means. but if you are going to smoke in public, at least step away from the crowds. if you step away from me to light up, have at it. but if you light up next to me? YOU are the rude one, not me.
I have to agree with some of the others here who have spoken of health issues. I, too, have allergies and asthma, and I think I’m well within my rights to ask people not to smoke (even if it’s perfectly legal for them to do so). If they decide to smoke anyway, I am not obliged to hang out anywhere near them. This isn’t about morality. It is about my life and the choices I’m making for my lungs.
I understand how addiction works, but I’m not obliged to stand around and pay for it. I have a friend with an addiction, and I don’t love this person any less because of it. I just can’t afford to stand around while they smoke.
If your only point was that people shouldn’t be rude about it, I think that’s completely independent. People shouldn’t be rude, period.
I don’t speak up against smokers and I don’t make moral judgements but just like I know it’s an addiction for them they should know that for me it’s a health problem. I have really bad asthma and they make the air I already have trouble with breathing hurt to put in my lungs. I go to Columbia University and I can’t count the number of times I encounter this just trying to get to class. Consideration goes both ways.
This article is great, except Fran Lebowitz has been saying this a lot more succinctly and matter-of-fact-ly for quite a while.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGcG7e03Nts
Like some of the people above, I have a severe allergy to smoke. Just walking behind someone on the street who is smoking throws me into a coughing fit. I usually have to speed up to get past them. If I’m around smoke for more than about 20-30 minutes, my nasal passages and respiratory tract get completely inflamed and I wake up the next morning with an infection. I can’t even sit around a campfire, let alone someone smoking a cigarette that is filled with toxins and poisons! When I did my semester abroad in Greece, I sacrificed a lot of fun nights out because I didn’t want to deal with the consequences of going to a bar filled with smoke. I would limit it to once a month, while my friends were happily going out multiple times a week. But smoking there was the cultural norm, and I had to deal with it. You’ve made the point that they have a legal right to smoke outside so if I have a problem I should move away, but I think I have more of a right to stay where I am because my behavior isn’t causing anyone else harm. The person doing harm should have to accommodate the people around them. An the US, smoking is not the cultural norm, so the smokers should have to adapt. I understand it’s a very hard addiction to kick, but I believe if someone is serious about it they will go to their doctor and talk about options to help them quit. I’ve also NEVER been asked by someone if it’s ok to smoke. That’s definitely the exception, not the norm. Starting to smoke and continuing to smoke is a choice, because not getting help for an addiction is a choice. My allergies and the health repercussions for others around smokers isn’t a choice. Smokers should be considerate enough about others’ health to move away to an uncrowded area when they need to light up. I’m never bold enough to actually say anything to someone, but there are so many times I wish I did.
I don’t think the point of this article was to tell people to just deal with it. I think it was to shed some light on the fact that sometimes people can be jerks and might not consider the other side of a given situation.
I’m sure that this article’s intention wasn’t to absolve smokers of huffing and puffing around asthmatics.
I can appreciate your well-written and well-thought out article, but it doesn’t change that I can’t help the fact that even a little cigarette smoke aggravates my asthma so much that I wind up with a very real coughing fit that, while it may appear overdramatic, is quite painful to me. I wouldn’t wish a struggle to breathe upon my worst enemy, and it boggles my mind that anyone would choose to smoke not only in terms of what it does to him/herself but also the effect it has on others. I realize that cigarettes are a costly addiction that some lack the willpower to defeat, and I’m sure that’s difficult for them, but my breathing difficulties aren’t a choice and neither are my costly inhalers, so it’s hard for me to be sympathetic.
I understand where you’re coming from. Honest and true. I, however, am severely allergic to cigarette smoke. I wish that I weren’t – It made my study abroad in England… interesting. I wish that I didn’t have to be that person who asks every smoker (even those polite enough to ask first) to not smoke here. I do think that they should ahve a right… But think I also have a right to fresh air and to avoid anaphylaxis.
This is very well written, and I agree 100%. As a kid I watched my great aunt wither away to nothing with lung cancer to the point where she was completely unable to take care of herself and had to be bathed and use the bathroom all from her hospital bed in her living room until her eventual, painful death. Yet after all of that, I am a smoker today. It is an addiction, and no matter the reasons you start, stopping is incredibly hard. I’ve cut back significantly in the past couple of years, but I know that when my body says I need nicotine, bad things happen when I don’t smoke. I think the key really is being respectful of others. Even though I’m a smoker, if I walk out of a building into a cloud of smoke, I will call those smoking right next to the exit assholes (because frankly, they are). I don’t smoke near exits (except when safety is a concern at night), and I ALWAYS ask non-smokers around me if they mind, or offer to move if they walk into the vicinity of my smoke. A little common courtesy and polite understanding goes a long way on both ends.
I feel absolutely no shame in having asked my downstairs neighbors not to smoke on their porch. The smoke used to waft up into my apartment and it made me feel ill. They were kind about it and now always walk away a bit from our building when they smoke. Maybe they hate me because of it, but I don’t care!
I really enjoyed a different perspective on smokers because you are right. People are so quick to judge and be nasty to someone the second they are identified as a smoker. You mentioned that we should allow someone to light up a, one, cigarette to feed their addiction. What should I do, though, when my eyes start itching and my nose feels stuffy because I am sitting at an outdoor restaurant downwind from a table where three people have been smoking for the past 20 minutes?
My grandpa died from smoking-induced lung cancer ten years ago. I don’t support smoking, but I also cannot be a jerk and tell them outright that they’re killing themselves. Because about 90% of them know they are. And it sounds weird, but the scent of Marlboros makes me calm, because it reminds me of my Grandpa. My best friend smokes, and she knows how I feel about it. But I find that smokers may have a hard time listening to doctors and nurses who you can see out on their own breaks lighting up. When can you trust your doctor/nurse to give sage medical advice to quit when they smoke themselves? Sorry, that last one was a bit ranty.
You should dig a little deeper as “brief” was long ago defined as “as little as 30 minutes” of second hand smoke exposure. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080505094136.htm
“Even brief secondhand smoke exposure not only resulted in blood vessel injury, but it also interfered with the body’s ability to repair itself by making the EPCs dysfunctional. It is quite amazing that only 30 minutes of exposure could cause such demonstrable effects.”
As someone with allergies and asthma I’m not just being “self righteous” and “all up in other people’s business” when I chose not to be around people who smoke. I’ve had to get up and move away from smokers in patio settings before, it might look rude, but it’s worth avoiding a headache and/or asthma attack for me. I would have asked the woman politely not to, if she’s nice enough to ask, she should be nice enough to accommodate others.
But that’s exactly the point.. Smokers have a right to smoke anywhere it’s legal, and you have a right to move away from them if it bothers you… I don’t think it’s rude at all to leave a smoky environment, and as a sometimes-smoker, I’d never take offense to that… I would take offense, however, to someone berating me because they don’t agree with my choices. I would never impose my believes on someone else, and would prefer to be treated the same way.
This is really well written, and I think you make a good point here: “it’s selfish and disrespectful to make people feel bad for something they have little control over.” I understand that. And thank you for this: “For those with loved ones who suffer at the hands of cigarettes, you have my deepest sympathy.” My grandmother died of emphysema. And while I would never chastise a stranger for smoking, when I see them or celebrities posing with cigarettes, all I can think of is my Oma hacking her lungs out and using her oxygen take on a regular basis and it ruins the whole, chill out about smoking attitude for me. Dying from smoking is a long and horrible death, but I respect that people can make their own decisions for themselves.
*tank. Oh dear. I hate typos.