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I am developing a serious, intense resentment of smokers.
I am going to rant here for a while. It is possible the terms of this rant will include people who read this. The thing is... there's only so much I care, because you see, this is essentially the perspective of someone in the category people not you, and if it bothers you to hear how an activity you partake in causes major problems for other people, well, the problem essentially is that you partake in an activity that is bad for you and bad for everyone else, and I'm not going to apologise for bringing it to your attention that it is what it is.
If you read this and you're offended because you smoke... how about next time you go to buy a packet of ridiculously expensive poison-sticks, you buy some nicotine gum instead, and you quit smoking, for the benefit of yourself, people who love you, and people who share the air and the planet with you? If you don't want to go through the suckitude of overcoming nicotine addiction, that's cool, you can stay on the gum for life. You walking past an asthmatic child while chewing gum has zero risk of triggering a life-threatening asthma attack for the child. Or me. Smoking, not so much.
Save the money you normally spend on cigarettes, which is likely to be a lot, and spend it on something really cool and shiny. (Seriously: If you're a smoker, keep a tally of how much money you spend on cigarettes. Then think about all the things you could have done with that money instead of near-literally burning it.)
(Edit: Actually, this also applies if you're a regular drinker of alcohol, except that the sentence ends with: "... instead of near-literally pissing it away.")
And now the rant.
This transition to active resentment is caused primarily by the fact that our neighbourhood appears to contain a lot of smokers, with all sorts of schedules, resulting in the effect that we can't open a window in our own bloody house, ever. Because it's guaranteed that within 15 minutes, tops, smoke will be drifting in from outside.
Since I like being able to breathe, the window gets closed.
This ends up with some really annoying secondary effects - like needing to run the air conditioner a lot more, either to prevent our house being a stuffy, overheated hell, or, sometimes, just to get some non-smoke-filled air into the place after another damn wave of smoke has filled it because we dared to open A WINDOW IN OUR OWN BLOODY HOUSE.
There is a special circle in the hell of my hate for the neighbours who smoke way, way, WAY too much pot, way, WAY too often, as well. Particularly because of the fact that this can happen at any hour, day or night - 4am, 3pm, eight o'clock in the fucking morning - random pot smoke attacks.
That's why I'm developing my intense and profound resentment - the lack of breathable air in the vicinity of my home. But really, annoyance at the sheer unremitting selfishness of smokers has a lot of other trigger points. Most of which revolve around...
Smoking in public spaces.
I'm lucky - I live in Perth, where for some years, it's been illegal to smoke indoors in public buildings, in theatres, even in sporting venues. When I went to the rugby, at Subiaco Oval, I enjoyed the whole game without anyone nearby lighting up.
And then the game ended, and I left, and I had to hold my breath and hurry the first 50 metres out of the gates, because of all the stupid addicts who have to smoke right outside.
If you go into the city, indoors you're fine, outside there's smokers all over the place, polluting the air with their special blend of asthma triggers and carcinogens.
And then - and then - they complain about how unfair on them it is when it is suggested that smoking should be banned anywhere else. Complaints about freedom and personal choice and fuck you, smokers. Why should your "freedom" to "choose" to smoke be more important than my freedom to choose not to? Given that, you know, your choice causes cancer and other ailments, and mine doesn't, I really think that my not-smoking should take priority over your smoking. Mine, and every other passer-by, including the asthmatics and the newly-quit smokers and all the people who aren't committing suicide by slow poison that for some reason they feel the need to share.
Recently I read an article about a proposed ban, in Wales I think, on smoking in cars containing children.
If you don't think smoking in a car with a child in it is child abuse, then you are wrong, and don't bother commenting to tell me otherwise, because if we're friends, it will disappoint me to learn that you are that goddamn thoughtless and stupid, and if we're not, then it will preclude any possibility of that happening, and also I don't care what you think.
What really enraged me was the comments on the article, with, among other things, their self-righteous hypocrisy. Especially the "smokers' rights" campaigner who piously declared that the vast majority of smokers wouldn't smoke in a car with a child anyway.
Well then banning it won't affect them, will it? So shut up.
Despite the fact that, as a motorcyclist, I am one of the few people who actually suffers exposure to secondary smoke from people smoking while driving, I am, overall, okay with people doing it. But not if there are children, you worthless scum.
If it were up to me, smoking would be illegal in all public spaces. And enforced, with harsher penalties than there currently are, especially for those putrescent pustules who light their cigarettes standing directly under the "No Smoking Anywhere On Hospital Grounds" signs outside Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, or for that matter the ones who light up under the "No Smoking" signs at Perth Train Station.
People can smoke at home. (As much as I wish my neighbours wouldn't, or at least wouldn't do it outside, I am not out to ban that. I'll just continue resenting it.)
In public spaces? For all the addicts who can't bear not to smoke, we could have smoking rooms - we can expand safe heroin injecting rooms, which are a good idea, to have enough room for the smokers to go in there too, in city centres. Just have an Addiction Centre, with good ventilation (filtered to the outside world), clean needles, medical supervision, and lots of resources available for people who want to quit before they kill themselves.
Because I agree with Isaac Asimov: your right to smoke ends at the point where it interferes with my right not to smoke.
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