by Patrick Sills

Created on: August 31, 2008

For those of us who have smoked for a while and likewise reached middle age, we can remember the good old days. You know. Back when we could light up a cigarette without some brainwashed fanatic waving arms about and proclaiming that we were endangering his or her life. Smoking was allowed just about everywhere and almost nobody cared. Those were the days before we were thrown outside in frigid weather. It was a time when even nonsmokers had ashtrays in their homes for smoking guests. Those were the days before we were regarded as criminals. Child abusers. Selfish addicts. The social equivalent of lepers. In short, they were the days when we enjoyed equal rights. As of this writing, those who smoke have not yet been deported to Concentration camps, yet somehow I can't help but to feel that I have acquired an inkling; however slight, of how the Jews must have felt when Hitler first became Chancellor of Germany some 75 years ago.

When the segregation of smokers and nonsmokers began to unfold in restaurants back in the 1970's with separate sections, I thought it was bit like the Jim Crow policies of the South; but in retrospect, I'd accept that now anytime over what has taken its place. I of course refer to complete bans. The bans; those evil mandates that have reduced people who smoke to the most discriminated segment of today's population in the U.S., are based on the Environmental Protection Agency's use of junk science. Before 1993, we were all more or less equal in society's eyes. And then, practically overnight, the rights of smokers "ended at nonsmokers' noses," as the popular phrase goes.

I fully understand the phenomenon known as desensitization. Obviously, a longtime smoker will not react to the odor of tobacco smoke in the same way a nonsmoker does. After all, if I were to charge rent on an outhouse, my tenant would eventually adapt to the smell of bodily waste. But there is a huge misconception among nonsmokers; and that is the assumption that we can no longer smell anything. This is absolutely false. We can still smell that heavy application of perfume or the nasty scent of a skunk that was just hit by a car. What I fail to understand; however, is how the olfactory senses of nonsmokers suddenly increased to those of a shark ever since the EPA came out with their bold claim that passive smoke is "deadly." Previously, nobody was bothered by tobacco smoke in restaurants and workplaces. Today, a rabid, self-righteous nonsmoker will have no problem laying

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