Thank You for Smoking

By Hans Wienhold

So they're going to ban smoking in Toronto restaurants are they? Well, knowing that Toronto has an ample supply of it's very own buttheads should certainly provide some consolation to the residents of Hamilton-East.

Anyway, what Toronto should really do is make smoking in Toronto restaurants mandatory. It's time for smokers to organize their own lobby and DEMAND that their rights be respected.

Smoker's rights activists should perhaps devise a long term strategy. They shouldn't expect all of their agenda to be implemented overnight.

Forget about restaurants for the time being. Start small, with a few laws designed mainly to aggravate non-smokers.

For example, passengers on public buses and patrons at movie theaters should be forced to smoke. If they don't have their own cigarettes then the establishment they are patronizing should be required to take reasonable measures to ensure that tobacco products are easily available.

The law should dictate that all buses and movie houses provide ash trays in convenient locations. Bus drivers and ushers should always have a carton of smokes available for efficient distribution to those who don't ordinarily smoke and to those who happen to be out of smokes at the time.

Later, smoking laws can be expanded to require smoking everywhere. Smoke alarms with the circuitry reversed should be required in all dwellings.

It is particularly important to have mandatory smoking in bus shelters.

Once smokers rights advocates gain the upper hand we can really rub it in for all of those obnoxious anti-smoking zealots.

How about this law: when serving food in restaurants the wait staff should be required to ensure that every patron has a lit cigarette on the table.

Accessible Inhalation is a fundamental right. To accommodate patrons who are smokingly challenged extra measures must be mandated. Those who are unable to smoke due to paralysis or amputation should be aided by staff who have undergone special sensitivity training in addition to any relevant technical training.

Senior citizens, who would otherwise prefer not to smoke, could be granted some form of preferential treatment as is the case in other areas. For example, seniors could be required to smoke ten percent less than other citizens.

Smokers need to exert social pressure as well. When non- smoking relatives and in-laws come to visit they should be offered a cigarette as soon as they come in the door.

If they choose not to smoke they should be asked to go outside. After all, smoking should be seen as an indoor activity.

What makes more sense; stepping outdoors for a cigarette or stepping outdoors for some fresh air? The people who want fresh air should be the one's huddled around doorways in the middle of winter.

Hospitals and nursing homes should require that anyone standing within twenty-seven feet of the building have a lit cigarette in their possession at all times.

Once movies and buses have implemented smoke freedom activists must keep pressuring legislatures for more laws.

Instead of pushing for a smoke free society we should be pushing for a free smoke society by the year 2000. Some people cannot afford to smoke. No one should be deprived of tobacco just because they cannot afford it.

Smoking is a basic right, therefore the government should pay for everyone's cigarettes. Non-smokers might balk at the idea of having to pay for someone else's pleasure but they need to be reminded that, according to the anti-smoking side, second hand smoke is almost as good as lighting one up for oneself.

The third millenium will open with the century of the smoker. New scientific evidence will reveal that smoking is actually a very healthy activity.

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