Stomping Out Cigarets. Nicole Gelinas repeats the claim of the New York State Health Department that "188,000 New Yorkers have quit smoking since 2000 — mostly due to tax hikes." That is not credible. Tax hikes in the past have never produced a steep drop in smoking. Far more likely is it that smokers are finding that they are tired of going out into the cold (literally and figuratively) to smoke, tired of being resented by coworkers for taking cigaret breaks when nonsmokers get no such breaks, tired of being edgy and uncomfortable in the many social situations where they are not allowed to smoke, so have decided their lives would be simpler if they just stop smoking altogether instead of risking pneumonia to duck outdoors. They know that smoking is expensive, but that never stopped them. They know that smoking is bad for their health, but that never stopped them. What is stopping them now is that society has stopped smiling on smoking, stopped adjusting around that disgusting, stupid vice, and made life hard for smokers, as till recently smokers made life hard for nonsmokers.
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Smokers are also realizing that their clothes smell better, their dry-cleaning bills are down, they're coughing less, their breath smells better, and they have more money in their pocket because society won't let them chain-smoke. Keep the pressure on. Let's set a goal of 0% of Americans smoking and pursue it by ceaseless pressure on smokers to stop subverting their health and that of everyone around them. Unless smokers find a way to keep every trace of their smoke from invading the air that other people have to breathe, they should be actively persecuted until they give up their noxious, weak-willed behavior and join the civilized world.
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(Responsive to column "Cigarette Burn", New York Post, December 6, 2004)

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 3:44 PM