Adapt or Die

All right, already. Both ends of America’s coast, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, have joined up in a nutty fruit bar experiment.

Now, New York wants to ban cigarette smoking in parks and on its beaches. California went that route sometime back.

Let’s see. We can no longer smoke in restaurants, bars, public transportation, public buildings, and now the Antis are adding public parks and beaches to the list.

This, obviously, gets into the issue of the so-called dangers of second hand smoke. I will have more to say on that in the future, but just on the basis of what I have read, this is an outrageous affront.

One woman said she wanted “to breathe fresh air,” and therefore did not want to be around smokers.

Uh, I hate to tell you this, but there is no such thing as fresh air in America. It is loaded with pollutants. It is laden with all manner of bugs, germs, and debris. You are breathing it in whether or not you are inside or outside.

It is a thousand times worse in some of the developing nations. Go to, say, Thailand, and you can drop dead from exhaust fumes.

At least we are not that bad off, yet.

The Antis have mastered the wolf pack mentality to a T. They are surrounding the issue of tobacco, and clipping off the weak links, one by one.

A very reliable source wrote me the other day, and I have to tell you I have made a mistake. We can no longer separate pipe smokers from cigarette smokers, or any other users of tobacco. I was wrong, and I admit it.

We have to combine our strengths to fight this overt attack against our free choice. Politics makes for strange bedfellows. I do not like cigarette smoke, but I do see the wisdom in joining forces.

Pipe smokers are too small a demographic to fight the fight alone. We need to unite all users of tobacco in this effort to curtail the assault from the Antis on our choices and freedoms.

If the Antis are successful in this effort in New York, then it will move out to other cities and towns across the nation. If the Big Apple falls, you can bet the smaller apples will follow down the road.

I believe that if we lose this fight overall, we will not even be allowed to smoke in the privacy of our own home without some sort of huge penalty, tax, or worse, exclusion from health insurance policies!

This is a serious affront. Be sure to read the New York health report on this. You can find it here.

We are looking at the future right now. If this goes through, then all users of tobacco products will be under duress, with little room for redress. The courts are against us, for the most part, as is the public in general.

I do not advocate smoking around children or adults who are opposed to smoking. I always ask if it is all right to light up my pipe when I am out in public. I comply with the wishes and feelings of those around me.

But, I do not believe that it is within any state’s purview to dictate my choices, as long as I agree not to harm others, upwind or downwind.

Be assured, this only the tip of this iceberg. It is floating out way.

And, please believe me when I tell you that I hate bringing bad news all the time. But lately, it has all be bad, with no relief in sight.

Tobacco product users must unite in this fight to save our rights to make free choices in our own behavior.

As an old Army buddy who survived the Bataan Death March told me once:

“Adapt or die.”