Michael:
I am not paid -- and have never been paid -- by any antismoking or anti
tobacco organizations. The opinions I've expressed are my own and are in
the interest of participating responsibly in public dialogue about public
policy.
I will note that it seems absurd to me that people complain about the
supposedly negative impact of a smoking ban on some business, as though that
is the ultimate value in this or any discussion.
Positive change can involve pain and even real sacrifice, at least
temporarily. The longterm result in this case is a far healthier culture.
The real issue here, again, is a kind of violence that apparently you and
many others hold quite dear, and which you will defend because you find this
form of violence comforting, irregardless of harm to others.
Our overuse of fossil fuels is a similiar violent addiction regarding which
we maintain an expensive but necessary intentional ignorance. Would that we
could address even the smaller forms of violence we hold so dear, then we
might be able to find the courage to take resonsibility for the larger ones.
The issue is about a form of violence that inhabits aour culture like a
cancer, Michael. It is not about "a right to smoke whenever and wherever
one pleases" or about temporary difficulties for businesses.
Of course, local businesses are one relatively small dimension of the
economics of this issue, as I think you well know. The real economics
involve the tobacco industry and the amount of money we spend on trying to
make people well who are made chronically ill or who are dying from tobacco
overuse.
Again: no pain, no gain. A better world does not come about by merely
continuing the status quo, but through change and growth.
-- pedaling through rain-cleaned air today.....
-- Gary Hoover
Kingfield
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