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I've written a few articles on this topic because I am an avid proponent for smokers' rights. I'm old school. I've been a smoker since 1975, and thus remember the days when people could enjoy a cigarette, cigar, or pipe just about anywhere. More importantly, nobody minded. Nonsmokers had ashtrays in their homes for guests who smoked. Rooms in hotels and motels did as well. If you smoked, you smoked. If you didn't, you didn't. A person could negotiate the price of a car, sign loan papers, or sit under a hair dryer at a salon all while smoking at the same time. Nonsmokers thought nothing of it. Then, out of nowhere came 1993 and the EPA's proclamation that "secondhand smoke" was a deadly carcinogen.

Imagine for a moment that a mystery plate of meat is placed upon a table before you. You feel adventurous and start to eat it. You decide that it doesn't taste too bad; in fact, it tastes pretty good. You realize that you were hungrier than you previously thought, so you finish the entire dish. Ten minutes pass. Suddenly, you are told that you just ate the testicles of an unkempt baboon from Kenya. You begin to feel disgusted; appalled at the thought of what you just consumed. A feeling of nausea develops. You run to the nearest bathroom and hurl.

This analogy, in a nutshell, is what the nonsmoking public has experienced since being told that others' smoke is harmful. Those wishing for a smoke-free society counted on it. The absolute hysteria surrounding a practice that was perfectly acceptable as recently as the early 1990's is now complete. Smokers, once recognized as equal citizens, suddenly were regarded as murderers. Child abusers. Selfish drug addicts. Criminals. Disgusting, filthy people no longer welcome in public settings. The parallels with Adolph Hitler's tactics of 70 years ago are uncanny.

If you have read my other articles regarding this issue, you know where I stand. "Secondhand smoke" is a lie. The science is not supportive in any shape or fashion to believe such a preposterous claim that it is in any way harmful; let alone "deadly."

The logic behind the notion that passive smoke is a health threat is akin to claiming that sharing the same room with someone eating a red-hot burrito who farts downwind of you will cause heartburn or that if your neighbor half a block away sprays his lawn with dandelion killer, it will drift to your yard and solve your weed problem as well.

The nonsense, junk science, distortions of truth, and ridiculous claims are all one and the same. Smoking bans protect nobody. They are designed for one purpose: to marginalize smokers.
Meanwhile, as the nicotine patches and Zyban sales rise, the pharmaceutical companies are laughing all the way to the bank.

Learn more about this author, Patrick Sills.
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