GOING UP IN SMOKE! . Review on General Tips on Smoking

This started off as a

response to Harry Khulamunh's bulletin soliciting support for the Ban on

Cigarettes initiative. See https://mouthshut.com/account/ViewInboxMessage.php?m2mid=4137315

Harry also wants the MS

Mall to do away with the Gift of Cigarettes(possibly because it causes

Virtual Cancer and other unmentionable virtual maladies in our virtual minds).

Here’s my two bits:

khulamunh Saheb:

Without delving too much into the pros and cons of smoking(and there’s volumes

that has already been said for both positions), a ban on smoking is a

surreptitious undertaking for the enactment of even more severe discriminatory

laws yet to come. Laws, such as the one proposed, transform a great multitude

of productive, law abiding citizens into criminals overnight – based solely

upon their exercising the Right of Choice; a habit once regarded as socially

‘fashionable’ but now seen as harmful and perhaps even as(righteously?)

obnoxious. Paradoxically, those who sit in judgment show no scruples reaping in

the profits from this industry, long considered a major source of national

revenue.

OK. So we ban smoking

because the “majority” considers the habit offensive. What next? There are a

great multitude of responsible, educated, opinion makers in our nation(and

elsewhere) who consider wearing a ‘Pagadi”/”Shamla”, beard/long hair, as

extra-mainstream attire and being just as offensive(if not more so). And if

(when!) appropriate legislation is passed to “abate”/”sanitize” such

extra-mainstream practices, we will have(again) created a fresh category of

non-conforming criminals lawfully subject to criminal sanctions based upon

arbitrary public opinion! Nice way to homogenize a nation, eh?

khulamunh Saheb:

This won’t stop there, my dear friend! It will continue on forward to

segregate the population into “acceptable” and “non-conformist” Class Systems.

And if you have no clue about where we’d be heading, I suggest you read George

Orwell’s Animal Farm.

But being a reasonable

person, I’m willing to make a deal on behalf of Smokers: We will go along with

the “Ban” if the government shelves all public transportation as a first real

step toward providing clean air and curbing pollution that has been more

detrimental to the health of our entire population than cigarette smoking has

to the small section of smokers. So whaddya say?

P.S. Between you and

me, I’d love to quit but you know how everyone hates a quitter!;)