by Patrick Sills

Created on: October 28, 2008

I've enjoyed smoking for a long time. Because of this, I feel that I am well-qualified to advise nonsmokers on just how to reason with the 60 million Americans who indulge in tobacco. Public smoking has become a very controversial issue and one I am passionate about; for those of us who choose to smoke are among the most persecuted and discriminated-against segment of the world's population.

At one time, smokers made up about half of the adult inhabitants of this country. When the practice became linked to lung cancer and heart disease some 45 years ago, the proportional number of smokers began to decline. By the early 1990's, the ratio of nonsmokers to smokers had increased to about 80/20. This figure has remained fairly steady into the first decade of the new century, but despite this, it is estimated that around 3000 people begin smoking every day.

My induction into the smoking community began back in 1974. I was a few months shy of 15, and I thought smoking was cool. In those days, just about everybody did. It defined maturity. Sophistication. Smoking had sex appeal. It also defined something else: addiction. I will defend smokers until the day I die, yet there is no disputing that cigarettes are perhaps the most habit-forming substance on the planet. Before long, what started out as a consumption of 3 or 4 cigarettes a day became an entire pack of 20. Since then, I have doubled that to 2 packs; so on average I have had a cigarette in my mouth once every hour for the past 34 years! Do you still question my veteran experience?

Now I shall once again attempt to unveil our side of this issue of public smoking, and hence what angers me the most. Smoking was perfectly acceptable for decades and even centuries. That is; untill 1993, the fateful year in which the Environmental Protection Agency declared that "secondhand smoke" was a threat to nonsmokers. Logic and common sense were not questioned. Instead, most nonsmokers suddenly and unequivocally decided that their very lives were in peril at the very sight of seeing somebody light up. It didn't matter that literally, the day before, there was no problem. Certainly there were a few rude individuals who would wave arms about and deliberately fake a cough the split second a smoker entered a room before 1993, but these types made up perhaps 1 person per 1000. After 1993, these people came out of the woodwork as if an infestation of cockroaches had taken control. To make matters worse, they claimed that smoke "always"

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