There are a few points I would like to make before I start saying what’s wrong with a few points some others have made on second hand smoking. I am not a smoker, nor do I believe that I will ever become a smoker. Almost everyone else in my family, including my aunts and uncles, siblings, cousins, grandparents, and parents either are, or have been smokers at one or more points in their lives. I seem to be the only one in my family that saw smoking as stupid and irresponsible, but that’s just what I think.
Now I don't claim that second hand smoke is not bad for the environment, nor do I claim that it is not bad for your health, however I don't believe that on its own it is a definite cause of cancer, or any other diseases. As itself I believe that the human body’s immune system is more than capable of fighting off anything that could come from someone breathing in second hand smoke for short periods of time, specifically the time it would take to smoke a cigarette or two. Even if I am wrong about this, I have another point about smoking in public places such as outdoors. Where does smoke go after it is exhaled, or after it leaves the cigarette? It usually goes up, at least as I have observed it. Then if you just add into account any slight draft or wind, the smoke is almost completely unnoticeable by people around the smoker, unless they are in the path of the draft. I can remember a time when my father and I were out at this dock on a lake, and I was swimming and he stopped to have a cigarette. A few girls came out to swim as well, and they started making comments on how smoking should be illegal because it’s going to kill them or give them cancer, and then attempted to imitate coughing noises like the smoke affected them. If you couldn’t tell just by their comments, they were attempting to guilt my father into putting out his cigarette, as if it was going to kill them. The only problem we had with their comments was the fact that the wind was blowing towards us and away from them, therefore they couldn’t even see the smoke, let alone breath it or smell it.
Not only are those reasons I don’t mind living around smoke, but there are no death certificates that list or state second hand smoke as a cause of death. Some people may say that they didn’t list it as second hand smoke, but as lung cancer. The only problem with that is that smoking is not the only cause of lung cancer. Radon gases, air pollution, human papillomavirus, and other diseases can cause lung cancer. As such I believe many instances could very well be from radon gases, as it is colorless and odorless, and many people live in houses with it without knowing that it is there. So unless you can say that the lung cancer was directly caused by second hand smoke, you will not see me saying that second hand smoke kills.
Now why shouldn’t smoking itself be illegal you ask? Sure smoking kills many people every year, but so can anything else if you put it in the hands of idiots. A small toy can be deadly if you somehow manage to lodge it in your throat, so why aren’t all toys that are so small made illegal? Why don’t they make plastic bags illegal since you can asphyxiate on them? The only reason I can give is that people should have the choice. They should have the choice to pick paper or plastic, whether or not their child is old enough, and responsible enough to not eat the small toys, and whether or not they want to smoke or not. Quite frankly if you want to make smoking illegal because it kills, you had better just petition the government to force us to live in a small padded room with machines that feed us only the right amount of the required nutrients and supplements to survive, as almost anything can kill us, even our own food choices. That would simply destroy the fundamentals of being human and making choices, as that is what we must do every day of our lives. We must choice whether or not this is going to benefit me, or if this will hurt me. Sometimes that choice is made poorly as I believe choosing to smoke is a poor decision but that’s just what happens. You shouldn’t be able to take away that choice even if it is a wrong one, unless you can prove it directly injures others around them, not including “quality of life.â€
Please feel free to comment on my position, or criticize, as I am willing to accept that I am not perfect, nor would I wish others to believe that I am.
