Massachusetts lawmaker wants to expand smoking ban…

…to 25 feet away from doors and windows of any public building.  Story here.

While I, as a non-smoker married to someone who is severely allergic to cigarette smoke, like the idea, I think that 25 feet might be a bit too much.  I’d be happy if the smokers just didn’t hang out right IN the doorway, or right outside of it, maybe just ten feet away would be enough.  Just as long as there was a reasonably smoke-free way to pass by and get in and out of the building without having people blowing smoke right in our faces (as has happened often), I’m willing to not force them to go 25 feet.

I wish people would realize what a disgusting habit smoking is, how it can kill, even those who never smoked, but have had to breathe in second-hand smoke.  Mike has had assorted respiratory problems all his life, and most of them have been blamed on the fact that when he was a kid, both his parents smoked like chimneys.  Mike remembers about how, when he was little, his parents would sit in the living room and puff away.  Sometimes they invited friends over, who also smoked.  There’d be this big cloud of smoke, and the only place where there was no smoke was on the floor (since the smoke all rises to the ceiling).  So he used to spend a lot of time laying on the floor, so he could try to breathe.

He tried to smoke a cigarette once, when he was about 15.  As it usually is with teenage boys, it was on a dare.  So he lit up the cigarette, took a puff, and almost immediately, his face started puffing up and he had trouble breathing.  It was very scary, he said.  He never tried to smoke again, and can’t be near people who are smoking.

Anyway, we know that smoking is dangerous and causes lung cancer, emphysema and other diseases…just like it became known that asbestos was dangerous and caused mesothelioma. Asbestos has since been banned in many places.  So what’s wrong with banning smoking in places where non-smokers have to breathe?  It’s not as if we can just stay home!