First of all, I’m not in any way advocating smoking. I’m not a smoker and have never had any desire to become one. But as a non-smoker, I sympathize with the smoker’s cause. In today’s world the average American smoker is demeaned, berated and treated like a second-class citizen. For example, Starkville’s ban on smoking inside public establishments relegates local smokers to shiver in the rain and cold on rusty or wooden chairs while their contemporaries bask in the warmth and comfort of central heating or air conditioning, enjoying the finest perks of service and comfort.
Even though the ubiquitous public advocacy Web site thetruth.com says smoking kills 50 people every hour and five million people died from smoking last year, I can’t help but believe that smokers are not suicidal nor mentally unstable and therefore should be treated just like everyone else.
Not only are smokers people deserving of equal rights, they are patriots. Consider this: If Mississippi raises its tax on tobacco products to help fund our public education, then smokers are partly footing the bill for the education we as Mississippi State University students so eagerly seek. This could even be portrayed as promoting smoking on a state level. Will this mean concerned parents, family members and knowledge-loving adults will take up the cause of our future by lighting their pipes and cigars with the ever-burning lamp of knowledge? Maybe not, but the value of the smoking population should not be forgotten.
Many of our most prestigious and valued Americans have been smokers. Look at famed writers like Mark Twain, notable scientists like telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell and Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, who helped invent the atomic bomb, and famed actors like John Wayne or James Dean and the many ways they’ve contributed to our culture and lifestyle. Many of our most notable and influential leaders have also smoked, including Douglas MacArthur, whose name is synonymous with his corncob pipe and former President Franklin Roosevelt, who was famously depicted with his cigarette holder, which helped him carry America on his feeble polio-stricken back out of the depths of the Great Depression and through World War II.
Even today, President Barack Obama, on his campaign for office, took up the habit of smoking again, despite his previous attempts to quit.
This is not to say that we should try to imitate or emulate the smoking behaviors of these notable Americans, but we should remember that just because a person smokes, that does not mean they are below anyone else. I don’t like the smell of cigarette smoke, but I also don’t find it so off-putting that I avoid the presence of many of my friends and coworkers who do smoke. Often they’re interesting creative and intelligent people who know the effects and possible consequences of smoking. Many I’ve talked to would never smoke near children and feel self-conscious smoking around others in general. They tell me they started years ago, not because of Joe Camel or because they wanted to look like some celebrity, but because someone around them got them started, they took on a stressful job, or maybe even out of spite.
Regardless of their habits and origins, they all have one thing in common: They’re people with a habit, not monsters bent on irritating non-smokers, not self loathing seize-the-day nihilists. They’re people just like you, me, John F. Kennedy, Popeye and Frank Sinatra.
Kyle Wrather is the managing editor at The Reflector. He can be contacted at [email protected].