Las Vegas Sun

November 14, 2009

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Letter: Selfish tobacco fiends should stop whining

Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2006 | 7:37 a.m.

With all the whining by the nicotine addicts, you would think that we had banned their habit. Let's get one thing straight - Question 5 is not about their freedoms - it is about public safety.

Like any addict, they will whine, obfuscate and rationalize their habit, even denying empirical evidence that smoking serves no useful purpose other than the declining health and death of its adherents. While factories and motor vehicles pollute, they are necessary for society; smoking is not.

If smokers want to be selfish, polluting our air, stunting their children's growth, overburdening our health care system, denying their loved ones of their presence in old age, all the while littering our roadways (which they arrogantly assume are their own personal ashtrays), that's fine - just don't subject rationally minded people to their poison in public.

Find a way to enjoy your poison while not poisoning others - a fish bowl over your head is a start, or just take up smokeless tobacco. But for the selfish nicotine addicts, that's just an unwanted breath of fresh air.

Dan Heffley, Las Vegas

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