I have no problem with being told that I can not smoke beside you while you are eating your salad but being told that I can not smoke in the park or on the patio or in my office has nothing to do with any danger to the health of others.
But it
does pose a danger. And each new study shows the danger to be even greater than previously thought.
If someone chain-smokes on their balcony right below another's apartment, the other party can be exposed to second hand smoke relentlessly and undesirably
in their own home.
What gives anyone the right to subject another person to those life-endangering conditions solely in preservation of their own sense of convenience?
Big signs that remind us how many people were killed by cars every time we go for a drive or pictures of clogged arteries on every bag of potato chips. We could have pictures of a cow being slaughtered on the menu beside the cheeseburgers and reminders of how intelligent a pig is beside the breakfast special. How about giant billboards of dead children in front of the munitions factory, oiled birds by every gas station and videos of working conditions in the garment factory when you go to buy your clothes.
I would be okay with that, and am actively in favor of some of those things.
I just think that the dissonance doesn't belong only to the smokers.
There is no dissonance. The evidence has spoken repeatedly that second hand smoke is dangerousa health hazard. The fact has been so well established that it is rather unconscionable for an honest person to not at least admit to the possibility of a similar risk with other second hand exposures and 'play it safe' until a reasonable amount of evidence can be collected to answer the question.
It's the most logically decent thing to do.
Let's be logically decent.
Jon
Love your enemies!