Smokers, Bloody Smokers

Yes, apparently there are a few things getting on my nerves today, and I don't even have time to mention the three jam-packed buses that drove by without picking up passengers, meaning that the dozen or so people waiting (not so) patiently had to sit (or stand, since there were nowhere near enough seats) there for 45 minutes before a bus finally came along with room for them. By that time, I'd already walked most of the way home, and contented myself with giving the driver the finger, for which I felt bad, since it's not really his fault that the management of the bus company and the government who's responsible for it are completely corrupt and stupid.

But I digress: probably the reason I was already in a bad mood was having to put up with gross, disgusting, selfish people who can't spend ten minutes at the beach without lighting up a cigarette (or cigar) and stinking up the fresh air for everyone around them. Not to mention using the beach sand (or even the water) as an ashtray. It's almost always an annoyance, but today I got it especially bad: on one side of me was a corpulent businessman who spend his whole afternoon conducting business from a beach chair while waving around an enormous, smelly cigar, and on the other side were three doofy men of a certain age, i.e., the age where they acquire bellies almost identical to those sported by pregnant women, and feel an even greater compulsion to display them publicly.

This particular crew got through an entire pack of cigarettes in an hour, and then switched to rolling their own. They did no swimming, no sunbathing, nothing you would normally associate with going to the beach. It was almost as though one of them had phoned up the others and said, "Hey, whaddya doing this afternoon? Wanna go down to the beach and smoke a whole bunch of cigarettes?"

I take that back. On a couple of occasions, one of the men did wade out into the water until it was knee-deep, and stood there smoking a cigarette and flicking the ashes into the surf. Very in touch with nature, it was.

It's not just the beach, though; in recent months I've developed a new hatred for smokers, and I say that with full knowledge that some of my best friends, etc. etc. Although that's becoming less true, too. Fewer and fewer people smoke these days, and those that persist in clinging to the habit tend to be those with particularly weak wills or low self-esteem. They're either teens or twenty-somethings desperate to fit in and look "cool," or they're pathetic old addicts too beaten down by life to think about doing something so rudimentarily sensible as to stop poisoning themselves. And, of course, others.

I've always tried to avoid going too much on a rampage against smokers. After all, I once was one myself, and it's such a pernicious habit that if I'm not careful, I could always slip back into it again (though please take me out and shoot me if I ever show any signs of actually doing so). Plus I wanted to avoid the stereotype of the ex-smoker who becomes messianically opposed to others doing what he used to do. But what's weird is that it's been a long time since I smoked, and yet my antipathy for smokers is getting more, not less intense.

I think it might be because I've finally begun to get a taste for a world in which people are no longer allowed to randomly poison anyone else in the room: in New York, California, Ireland, Canada, and many other sane places, smoking has been completely banned in buildings open to the public. England and Australia will be following suit soon. And now that I know that breathing fresh air has become a right rather than a privilege, I want more! I want people banned from smoking on the beaches, on the streets, in the parks, anywhere, in fact, except within the foul confines of their own smelly houses and cars (with the windows rolled up, natch). The yappy girl across the street comes out on her porch to have a cigarette and the smoke comes drifting up to my window. It's all I can do to refrain from yelling, "Oi! Get back inside and stink up your own house!"

Do I sound uncharitable? Probably. I know in my heart that smoking is a terrible addiction, just like drugs or alcohol, and that many people will die because they're unable to kick it. I try to adopt a similar attitude toward the drunks and junkies passed out in the streets around King's Cross: while they're unpleasant to look at (and sometimes to smell), they're also deeply troubled human beings who are wrestling with a life-threatening condition. Some of them will recover, some won't, but they're all human beings and deserve at least some sympathy.

But at the same time, they don't deserve (or benefit from) indulgence. To free them completely from the consequences of their actions only makes it easier to keep on killing themselves, and the same goes for smokers. There's a limit to how many laws we can pass regulating drug, alcohol or tobacco use, but there should be no limit to other means of persuasion, such as ridicule and social ostracism.

If you think about how most people start smoking - the teenager who's trying to impress her friends or is so bored or insecure that she needs something to do with her hands - or about why they continue - the 20-something Williamsburg hipster sucking down on his fag as frantically as any 12 year old who saw a movie where it looked "cool" - you'll quickly see how nearly every smoker, at least in the early years, does it mainly for the image. And if we go along with it, i.e., refrain from pointing out how ridiculous and pathetic they look, then we're essentially saying, "Sure, go ahead and kill yourself and poison everyone else around you while you're at it. It's just one of many equally valid lifestyle choices."

If you still smoke, and are still reading this, you might be getting pretty mad at me by now. Mainly because you know everything I'm saying is true. So do yourself a favour and quit before it gets too hard and you're too old and life is too shitty. And then you can start nagging the rest of your friends and save me the trouble.