Letter: Smoking can mean death

Tuesday, April 29, 2003 | 9:01 a.m.

I read Jeanne Crayton's April 23 letter in the Sun with great interest.

My wife smokes, and when she gambles she smokes even more. I quit over 30 years ago after seeing a loved one die from a lifetime of smoking cancer sticks, a most horrible death.

In my prime, as a smoker, I would smoke a pack of cigarettes in a few hours while drinking at a bar with my friends. The more I drank, the more I smoked.

I go to smoke-filled casinos because its either stay home alone or go to them with my wife. I love to gamble but hate the smoke.

I was amused one day when a women sitting next to me held a little battery-operated fan pointed at a chain smoker next to her. She told me she watched her mother die a few weeks prior from lung cancer brought on by a smoking addiction.

Many a time I'll see an empty cup on a seat next to a person playing a machine. When I inquire, they ask me if I smoke. When I say no, the cup comes off and I sit down.

You're right, Jeanne Crayton, smoking is freedom -- freedom to die a horrible death.

JOHN TOMINSKY

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