I am all for everybody having the right to express their opinions, including myself, but this recent exaggerated outburst of self-righteous indignation about smokers should not go unanswered.
The letter comparing the unpleasantness of second-hand smoke with the presence of bird excrement is an irrelevance. For anyone to declare that smokers should be banished to wide open spaces because of their personal odour is both offensive and insulting.
As for the daft inference that throwing smokers “under a bus” would be a good thing, I would remind the proponent that punishment involving physical injury is not the way we do things in the civilized world.
I have no problem with the opinion that the smell of tobacco smoke is unpleasant and the intrusive effects of smoking in enclosed areas may well be dangerous to health. But vicious indignation and delusional remedies do not serve the cause for even more restrictions.
I was once a 20-cigarette-a-day smoker, but stopped for health reasons some years ago. However, the decision not to smoke does not give any of us the right to threaten and insult those who have not chosen to do the same.
Like it or not, it’s their choice … at least for the time being.
Derrick Johns
Oak Bay
