Every time I see an article like “Butts out at bus stops” (The Leader, Feb. 23), I look forward to a few laughs as I read the same old worn-out and invalid arguments of those who would smoke in grocery stores (yes, even over the bulk food bins) and in elevators – not to mention at gas stations and around people using oxygen tanks – if they thought they could get away with it.
Yes indeed, “reactions are mixed,” just as they were a couple thousand years ago, when somebody first suggested that the Earth was round.
What part of smoking is the leading and most easily and cheaply preventable cause of disease, disability and premature death does society, as a whole, not get?
Contrary to 17-year-old Andrew “Everybody smokes” McCormick’s comment, only 15 per cent of British Columbians smoke, yet that ever-shrinking small minority is directly responsible for the leading form of litter.
I’ll bet a carton of Players that if Black Press photographer Brian Giebelhaus had stuck around for a few more minutes, he could have gotten a picture of proud/ignorant smoker Robert Legault dropping his butt on the ground… and expecting us to thank him if he stepped on it to extinguish it.
I can only imagine still-two-years-til-he-can-legally-buy-cigarettes Andy McCormick’s obscenity-filled response when he learns that there is a growing trend to ban smoking, entirely, in all multi-unit dwellings (apartments, condos, etc.).
It is only because of ignorant/irresponsible smokers like him that such laws are necessary.
We’re all familiar with many alcohol ads that end with, “Drink responsibly.”
Well, the exact same principle applies to smoking: Do it responsibly (ie., in a way that it doesn’t affect anyone around you) and we won’t need any more of these laws.
Until then, suck it up.
Errol E. Povah
Delta
