Another hit at Smokers.

I have always called them the most inconsiderate people on earth and this article made me persona non grata among those that smoke.


We, as a society, are terribly accommodating. Almost regardless of the behavior we will attempt to come up with a diagnosis and treatment that can explain away whatever the ill-advised action or lifestyle that we witness

From the time the head leaves the pillow until the procedure is reversed in the evening, human life is an unyielding series of decisions. Each and every action is the result of a decision. We decide how we want to dress, how we want to smell, what we want to eat, how hard we want to work and we even decide how nice and accommodating we want to be to our fellow man.

Throughout history, bad lifestyle choices have been allowed to be punished through the natural course. If you decided to not work, you eventually had to pay the consequences of that choice. If you decided to not treat an injury, you would deal with the resulting health issues and pay the price.

As a kind and progressive society we now try and intervene and explain to individuals that there is a good possibility that their bad lifestyle decisions may not be their fault. You are, after all, a product of your environment and there is a possibility that your environment caused you to make these choices.

For the morbidly obese we have Food Addiction, for Perverts, we have Sex Addiction, for misbehaving children we have ADHD, for the lazy we have Chronic Fatigue Disorder. If you have a problem that on the outside seems purely because of decisions you make, we will step in and try and make you feel better by applying a label or diagnosis to your problem.

It seems that society only leaves two types of people out in the cold. Pedophiles and smokers get no sympathy from anyone. They are the current day Lepers and society does everything in its power to ostracize and punish at every opportunity.

The smokers certainly don’t like being segregated. Like an animal that has been cornered, these Nicotine addicts lash out at society and make their presence known at every opportunity.

What we have to determine is whether these smokers should be treated as regular people who just happen to have a drug addiction or, because of their anti-social behavior, do we need to treat them as the degenerates that it appears they wish to be.

There can’t be a more inconsiderate group of individuals than smokers. On a daily basis I see more impact on society due to the behaviors of smokers than any other demographic.

Smokers expect that they should be permitted to leave their work and partake in their drug of choice. Smokers expect that in any public outdoor place they should be able to ingest their choice of drug regardless of the proximity of witnesses, it is none of their concern. Smokers believe that the instruments of their drug addiction aren’t subject to the same laws as other addicts. From littering to destruction of property, smokers cannot be considered law abiding citizens.

Smokers say they are hopelessly addicted to a substance. Smokers demand adequate consideration for their addiction. Why does society treat smokers differently than other drug addicts?

Piles of hypodermic needles left on the road by cocaine addicts would cause uproar, but the piles of cigarette butts on the same road will be ignored.

What part of nicotine so pollutes a smoker’s brain to make them believe that a 1 inch piece of paper in the form of a cigarette butt is any less of a piece of litter than a 1 inch post-it note? Again, what if our other addicts felt the same way? I bet a smoker would be annoyed if a sex addict littered the ground with used condoms or if a methamphetamine addict left jars of chemicals everywhere.

How about the trash cans and window ledges everywhere that have burns in the shape of cigarette butts? Smokers must have no property of their own because they have absolutely no respect for property owned by others. Trash cans that cost several hundred dollars, window ledges on multi-million dollar buildings, these are two things I constantly see destroyed by cigarette butts. I can’t imagine rational adults being so wildly inconsiderate so as to burn and destroy another’s property all during their normal behavior. Normally, when adults engage in the destruction of property there is a reason. Sure, it’s an irrational reason, but when we destroy someone else’s property we know it’s wrong and if we are caught we expect to have to pay the penalty. A smoker has no idea that they are burning someone’s property. I wonder if I took a torch and burned the window ledges of a smoker’s house whether they could call the police. I could always claim that I am a torch addict and surely there would be no penalty.

What if those same window ledges were covered in needles, burned spoons and other paraphernalia? After all, the cigarette butt and associated flame is merely the paraphernalia that is required for the addict to get the nicotine in their blood stream.

I would bet that smokers that also happen to be addicted to crack cocaine would never think to leave their crack pipe on the trash can outside of the convenience store.

Sure there are smokers that don’t behave this way, but being a smoker in and of itself is inconsiderate because of the added burden on society. The rest of us pay the enormous costs to cover the medical care of the hopelessly nicotine addicted individuals. We make sure that the indigent get just enough cash through government handouts to provide them enough of their necessary drug to keep them from forming an uprising and causing a revolt.

My suggestion is that the next time you encounter an inconsiderate smoker; you should strike up a conversation and explain how you are also an addict. Tell the smoker that you are addicted to spitting. If you smell cigarette smoke, launch a wad of spit on the smoker. Your clothes will require cleaning to remove the smell of their smoke. Make it so their clothes require the same cleaning.

The addicts get to have all the fun. Go out and find your addiction and have some fun with it. Personally, I am addicted to payback and I would like to see smokers get some of what they shell out on the rest of us.