Smoking Bylaw

I am very impressed with the city's move to pass the no smoking bylaw. Being a non-smoker, I am looking forward to being in restaurants, malls, and maybe even on the rare occasion a night club without having my eyes burn and having to cough and sputter (even though I still live with 2 smokers :P). I am happy about it!

My dad on the other hand is really really really mad. He is a smoker, and has been since he was 18 years old (he's 50 now), and I am pretty certain that as long as he has lungs and a hand to hold a cigarette in, always will be. He figures that the non smokers are persecuting the smokers by not allowing them the right to smoke whenever/where ever they want. He believes that 2nd hand smoke is not damaging to those who inhale it....yeah I know, he's a very stubborn man.

There was an article in the Star Phoenix (on Saturday I think), by Les McPherson, about the smoking bylaw. How it is silly to ban smoking on public restaurant patios. My dad read that and heartily agreed with it. He loved how Les pointed out that 10,000 deaths per year are caused by physician mistakes, compared to ONLY 3,000 caused by 2nd hand smoke inhalation. Well if you ask me 3,000 is a lot of preventable deaths. It is a little surprising the number of deaths caused by doctors, but how can we prevent those? I am reminded of watching Oprah one day when this woman after she had a baby, and the doctors sewed up a big ole piece of gauze inside of her, and she got really sick from it, almost died. Anyway, getting off topic....

Any way I look at it, not having to inhale cigarette smoke is a good thing. Not that inhaling other pollutants is any better. Cigarette smoking is something that can be stopped, and even if my dad was right, and it's not so bad for us, I think we as non-smokers have the right to NOT inhale something that is so gross!