The second-hand truce - Boston.com
The second-hand truce
OP-ED | Tom Keane | Tom Keane
Since e-cigarettes arent a threat to non-smokers, let people puff away
September 17, 2011|By Tom Keane
IM SITTING at a bar and the guy next to me pulls out a cigarette and starts smoking. Im inwardly seething, wondering what to do. Ignore it? Complain to the bartender and let him do the dirty work? Or confront the smoker myself? And if I do, then what - words exchanged, perhaps a fight?
And then I realize the smoke isnt bothering me at all. Indeed, I cant even smell it.
I lean over.
What is that youre smoking?
That, it turns out, is an electronic cigarette. The smoke I was looking at was water vapor - steam - and nothing else. The device itself is a small marvel, containing flavored liquid and some nicotine, and it delivers the taste of a cigarette - and the drug - as the user inhales. To complete the effect, the tip even glows. It is, it occurs to me, an excellent way to bring about a truce between those who smoke and those who dont - a way for us, once again, to occupy the same places in bars, restaurants, and ball fields.
So why wont Boston let that happen?
Smoking bans are a relatively recent phenomenon. Boston was one of the early adopters, putting in a full-scale ban - covering almost all workplaces, including restaurants and bars - in 1998. Today, 26 states have bans and the US Centers for Disease Control expects that by 2020 all states will have put one in place. And for good reason: ones right to smoke stops when it hits someone elses lungs.
Sometimes the bans have been framed as a workers rights matter - tobacco fumes in effect create a hazardous work environment. No one, the argument runs, should have to risk their health merely to wait tables. Other times the bans are a weighing of rights. Some patrons smoke, some dont, and as the number of nonsmokers has grown its easier to make those who do give way to those who dont (usually by just letting them sneak outside for a moment to get a fix). Either way, the bans are deservedly popular. Even some smokers like them; they may not mind inhaling their own smoke, but dont want to breath someone elses.
This has all come at a cost to smokers, however, who find themselves increasingly pushed aside and isolated. One doesnt have to be an enthusiast of smoking to recognize there is some legitimacy in smokers complaints that these various bans are in some ways an infringement of their rights.
The second-hand truce
OP-ED | Tom Keane | Tom Keane
Since e-cigarettes arent a threat to non-smokers, let people puff away
September 17, 2011|By Tom Keane
IM SITTING at a bar and the guy next to me pulls out a cigarette and starts smoking. Im inwardly seething, wondering what to do. Ignore it? Complain to the bartender and let him do the dirty work? Or confront the smoker myself? And if I do, then what - words exchanged, perhaps a fight?
And then I realize the smoke isnt bothering me at all. Indeed, I cant even smell it.
I lean over.
What is that youre smoking?
That, it turns out, is an electronic cigarette. The smoke I was looking at was water vapor - steam - and nothing else. The device itself is a small marvel, containing flavored liquid and some nicotine, and it delivers the taste of a cigarette - and the drug - as the user inhales. To complete the effect, the tip even glows. It is, it occurs to me, an excellent way to bring about a truce between those who smoke and those who dont - a way for us, once again, to occupy the same places in bars, restaurants, and ball fields.
So why wont Boston let that happen?
Smoking bans are a relatively recent phenomenon. Boston was one of the early adopters, putting in a full-scale ban - covering almost all workplaces, including restaurants and bars - in 1998. Today, 26 states have bans and the US Centers for Disease Control expects that by 2020 all states will have put one in place. And for good reason: ones right to smoke stops when it hits someone elses lungs.
Sometimes the bans have been framed as a workers rights matter - tobacco fumes in effect create a hazardous work environment. No one, the argument runs, should have to risk their health merely to wait tables. Other times the bans are a weighing of rights. Some patrons smoke, some dont, and as the number of nonsmokers has grown its easier to make those who do give way to those who dont (usually by just letting them sneak outside for a moment to get a fix). Either way, the bans are deservedly popular. Even some smokers like them; they may not mind inhaling their own smoke, but dont want to breath someone elses.
This has all come at a cost to smokers, however, who find themselves increasingly pushed aside and isolated. One doesnt have to be an enthusiast of smoking to recognize there is some legitimacy in smokers complaints that these various bans are in some ways an infringement of their rights.
