Originally Posted by
jachot
Wally Bird,
I can not tell you how many times I have come home after being around smokers and have had to wash my hair and my children's hair to get the smell of smoke out. I'm not an anti-smoking zealot just a person who has seen both of my parents die from lung cancer. They stopped smoking after the kids were born because I asked them to but not soon enough to save their lives.
I can get over the smell but I can not get over all the lives that are lost both from first and second hand smoke. I'm all for your right to smoke if that is your choice but please don't call us zealots for not wanting to be around it.
And I'm all for your right not to be around smoke or smokers.
As someone mentioned some smokers are inconsiderate, but that's a characteristic not limited to smokers IME. I reserve the
zealot description for those who would eliminate entirely the option for smokers to smoke if they want without affecting others. You surely remember that when most/all airports (and other public buildings) did provide smoking areas, that you didn't have to walk past and through a gaggle of smokers/smoke at the entrance. And there weren't heaps of butts on the sidewalk etc.
But this is somehow seen as an improvement ?
Give smokers somewhere to smoke away from you and others who are bothered by it and most will happily comply. Give them nowhere to smoke and most of them will do it anyway; likely where
you have to pass by or through. Excuse them for not feeling terribly upset about that ^ .