My mother has lung cancer.  She has smoked most of her life and is paying for it now, and she will be the first to tell you she was aware it might happen.  I am also a former smoker who quit in 1991, so I know how hard it is to kick the habit.  Not too many days go by without me feeling a familiar twinge.  It’s certainly an insidious habit.

But despite my ambivalence to smoking in general, I oppose smoking laws that go overboard.  The more we pass laws the more we restrict rights and affect people’s lives.  I mean how stupid is it to ban smoking in a damn cigar shop?  Or a cigar bar?  Can anyone really claim they are there and don’t accept the risks?  Sure, in a restaurant I can see and accept bans.  In a mall?  Fine.  But sometimes the extent of this law makes me irate.

A good case in point is the 60,000 residents of  health care facilities, particularly nursing homes and long term treatment centers.  These people who have limited mobility already, are now forced to take excessive and unsafe steps to be able to smoke.  The Seattle Times noted today:  

Soon after the state’s new smoking ban passed, Lake Vue Gardens nursing home in Kirkland told residents who smoke that they’d have to start puffing off the premises.

Their old smoking spot — a covered gazebo in the courtyard — was now officially too close to the windows of nonsmokers, many of whom suffered from respiratory problems.

…

For safety’s sake, the Lake Vue smokers were outfitted with reflective orange jackets and flashlights. Poles with flags were installed on their wheelchairs, along with reflective stickers.

But the off-site solution lasted just a few days, until one smoker ran into a pothole and fell out of her wheelchair.

I don’t think the law was intended to force people who can’t get around well to risk injury because some feel good bleeding hearts want a touchy feely smoking ban.  More…..

After the initiative went into effect in December, long-term-care providers responded in a variety of ways:

Many of those unable to comply with the 25-foot rule decided to stop admitting smokers.

Some also are telling current residents who smoke to quit, indulge off the property or move out.

Nice, all you democrats who advocate health care just disenfranchised some elderly smokers because the homes don’t know how to deal with the law.

After the pothole accident, the smokers started to congregate in a nearby corner of the parking lot, but then a van nearly backed into a 35-year-old resident who also was in a wheelchair. Christine Kasprzyk was unhurt after her close call.

"I thought, oh, my God, this is ridiculous," said her mother, Carole Kasprzyk. "To be put in harm’s way just to have a cigarette."

This piece of dung that passes as a law is ridiculous.  The fact is that hotels can have exceptions for a certain number of their rooms, but a nursing home with permanent residents cannot.  Is this how we treat our citizens, lower then the tourists?

All the outrage over the wiretaps of suspected terrorists: sure that’s a huge breach of rights even though the likelihood of it affecting anyone is remote, but here is a clear piece of legislation that directly affects people and no one cares.  It’s beneath protection because it’s a filthy disgusting habit.  Well it is still a legal activity isn’t it?

And frankly all this law really proves is that no one has the balls to address the problem at it’s source.  You hate smoking that much?  You want to save all those people from the evils of tobacco?   Then ban the damn cigarettes.  As long as they are legal to buy, it is wrong to criminalize the people who are using them. 

You wanna stop smokers?  Dry up the supply of smokes, otherwise give them some consideration, or at least a safe way to exercise their right to smoke.