When I breathe in cigarette smoke, my lungs go into spasms commonly known as ‘asthma’. This causes me to have trouble breathing for a couple of hours afterwards, which – thanks to the fact that only one of my lungs can actually provide oxygen to the rest of my body, stuffs things up even more than usual and makes me damn tired. Of course, I can take medication for the asthma, but that causes my heart to go a little nuts and – guess what? – that makes me even more tired.
Strangely enough, given this small health issue, hearing smokers bleating about their ‘right to smoke’ makes me want to scream abuse at them. No matter how much I try, I fail to see how a drug addiction makes a person’s rights more important than anyone else’s right to not be injured.
Wondering what brought on this rant? My local ‘mall’ (that’s a wide, paved pedestrian strip open to the sky with shops on either side, for my international friends) is being considered for a smoking ban. Well, halle-bloody-lujah, cos I hate having to hold my breath while walking to the supermarket just so that other people can have their right to smoke. Except people are fighting it, because it’s SO UNFAIR. You can probably guess what I think about that, right?
Get the hell over it already! Your right to smoke does not outweigh my right to breathe.
Ya know, I’m thinking about fighting for my right to have sex in the mall. After all, it’s far less dangerous to other people, promotes healthy exercise, and supports the government’s call to increase our population. Seems fair, doesn’t it?
Filed under: Rants | Tagged: cigarettes, smoking, smoking legislation |
Nomesque Life 
I’m one hundred percent behind you on this one (well, maybe not so much on the sex thing!). I have been even more conscious of smokers since getting pregnant. At my local shopping centre you can’t walk out any of the exits without walking through a wall of smoke.
I say take it further and ban smoking in all public places.
We have a smoking ban in and around malls, hospitals etc.
Well put and yes, do the sex thing. It would hit the telly and alert people maybe to the stupidity of things.
well ok, but as long as it’s jungle monkey sex, not the tame kind!
And what about my right to cycle through there? I’m sure they’ve banned that in there and it’s much less dangerous to other people than cigarette smoke (unless they’re looking at my tight shorts!).