by Patrick Sills

Created on: October 11, 2009

Back in 1980, I played bass in my community college's jazz band. We went on an overnight excursion that spring to play for a few elementary schools. Our mode of transportation was a Greyhound-like tour bus. I remember being seated toward the front. In those days, smoking was no problem, as long as the window was cracked open. In fact, another musician saw the as-yet unlit cigarette dangling from my lips and commented that she was allergic to cigarette smoke. She moved to a seat further back. As she was gathering her bag, she even apologized and told me it was nothing personal.

That was all there was to it. Everything was cool, and I proceeded to smoke, as did a few others. At that time, people employed common sense. The young woman who was allegedly allergic realized that by moving a few rows back, she would be unaffected by my smoke.

My, how times have changed! What happened to this kind of logic? What happened to smokers and nonsmokers being treated as equals? This may not be well-known by many, but the gradual transformation of indifference to those who smoked to the seething hatred that has become the norm in today's world had already begun; for it was around this time that hospitals and medical clinics began to prohibit smoking in waiting rooms.

Between that period of the early 1980s until 1993, the year in which the US Environmental Protection Agency formally claimed that smokers were not only putting themselves at risk, but also everyone around them, the anti-tobacco movement; inspired by the actions of health care facilities, slowly gained power. It is of my strong opinion that as far back as 30 years ago, certain individuals dreamed of a smoke-free society. These people consisted of two basic groups: those who were offended by the smell of tobacco smoke and those who were angered because either they or a loved one became sick due to a smoking-related illness. Come Hell or high water, these groups of people would see to it that the act of smoking would one day be eradicated altogether.

A well thought-out and clever plan was put into action. It would take a few years to render results, but it would prove to be successful. The pharmaceutical companies had become quite profitable with their vast array of medications. As a result, they realized the potential for huge profits in the sale of smoking-cessation drugs. At the urging of these aforementioned anti-tobacco organizations, they began to fund research that would allegedly prove that secondhand smoke,

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