Smokers should die a slow painful death 
Nathan McKinney / Opinion Editor 

Time to blow smoke in the face of non-smokers 

There is nothing better than packing a fresh pack of Marlboro’s and lighting up a cigarette after a night of partying or taking a huge exam. 

Yes, I have heard the whining before. “Oh my lungs, I don’t like smoke ...” WHO CARES? 

Smoking is something that is a legal right that everyone gained when they turned 18, and now everyone and their brother is trying to take it away. 

Smoking is being taken away left and right and it is even happening at this campus. There is a petition going around right now to take smoking away at Legends. Why? 

Smoking areas have been made already, and I am not ready to see Legends, one of the only clubs in Boone, go under because there are some health freaks that are afraid of the second-hand smoke. 

I have heard the arguments against smoking, but you can also die from walking across the street, toxins from cars and too much food from the Food Court. Seriously, it is time for smokers to have their space too.  Who are they really bothering? 

It’s not like they are just lighting up and blowing smoke in your face; they are trying to relax after a busy day. They aren’t trying to ruin your day, all they are trying to do is relax. 

Smokers, this is a cry for you to finally stand up for yourselves and decide not to take this anymore. Cigarettes have increased to $2.85 a pack at Food Lion and may possibly go higher if Congress has their way. 

Every day, Congress is making the cigarette companies pay for health problems faced by smokers. Because of this, the price of cigarettes seems really high to the average college student. 

We pay a lot for books and other stuff.  Legislators use this against us.  They raise the price on cigarettes so that we cannot afford to smoke. 

They are choosing our rights for us.  Because they cannot currently make smoking illegal, they are trying to make it impossible.  This is blantantly unjust. 

I hate hypocrites, and most of these people calling for a change in cigarette smoking smoked when they were our age. I believe they are doing quite well, so why not let us have the same opportunity? 

 Let’s start with Legends.  Let’s smoke on the floor or anywhere we want.  What’s the worst that can happen?  They escort you to the proper area. 

Secondly, if someone asks you to put your cigarette out because it bothers them ... blow smoke in their face, so they actually have something to complain about with second-hand smoke. 

I like to smoke, it’s great to do; I am going to die sometime so who cares if smoking is going to make it sooner.  Smoking calms you down, and it is something to do in Boone, where the opportunities for doing stuff are far from endless. 

Smokers should die a slow painful death 

Smokers bewilder me with their pleas for pity and their fight for justice.  My rights end at your face.  Your rights do likewise, although if you want to tickle me behind my ears that’s fine.  Besides that, you have no right to inject your poisons into my blood. 

Now, I don’t necessarily hate smokers.  I only hate their weak arguments for smoking. 

If you like to smoke tobacco, then by all means, enjoy it.  If you like to shoot up heroin, then partake to your heart’s delight. 

In fact, I would prefer it if people tied up their arms and shot up during dinner, instead of smoking.  Heroin needles don’t tend to interrupt my eating experience the way smoke does. 

It swarms around my body and clogs my sinuses.  Maybe at racetracks that wouldn’t be such a problem, but when I am trying to enjoy a meal it tends to be disturbing. 

I don’t want people to freak out because they can’t have a cigarette for the 30-minute duration of a meal.  If a person has lost so much bodily control that the absence of nicotine and tar from the chicken kiev destroys the pleasure of eating, then please, fulfill your needs. 

There is, however, a difference between smoking and receiving a needed tobacco fix.  Smoking nicotine permeates my environment; while nicotine, on its own, does not. 

Smokers that absolutely need nicotine in a public environment have a number of options.  Patches are cool and sticky, and pictures of Spiderman could make them very marketable to minors. 

Chewing tobacco has a down-home sort of image.  It also supports the mountains of North Carolina more than smoking tobacco. 

I think that injecting nicotine would be tres chic.  If I saw someone shooting up nicotine, I would think they were really hard core.  Look at how trendy heroin has always been. 

Smokers need to stop playing the martyr.  People burned at the stake for differing scientific views are martyrs, smokers are just stinky.  People who jump in front of bullets aimed at handicapped children’s heads are martyrs, smokers are odoriferous.  People stuffed into blenders because of their religious beliefs are martyrs, smokers are a buy-one-get-one-free deal on cancer. 

If non-smokers would think rationally about the issue, they wouldn’t try so hard to outlaw tobacco.  If smokers would think rationally about the issue, they wouldn’t give non-smokers so many reasons to want it banned. 

Whether it’s smoke in a restaurant or cigarette butts on the lawn, smokers often have no respect for the atmosphere around them.  When smokers throw their leftovers on the ground they open themselves up to attacks from environmentalists.  Environmentalists are starving for problems to complain about, and they have plenty of time and power to make their complaints heard.  If smokers are going to bother anyone, they should target the National Man-Boy Love Association.  I don’t know how much time NAMBLA members have on their hands, but they certainly don’t have the lobbying power of environmental groups. 

When smokers learn to respect the environment which they share with all of humanity, I believe the battle to ban tobacco will subside.