I am fine not smoking in an establishment that DECIDES to be non-smoking, just like I am fine not smoking at a friends house who isn’t a smoker. I’m even fine not smoking on an airplane.

But I am not fine with the fact that I can’t open a small business (a small bar or something) which allows smoking inside. Adults can decide if they want to enter an establishment which allows smoking. If you don’t like Diva House, do you go to a club that plays Diva House? No.

In all honesty, it’ll be a sad day when there are no smokers, because all you non-smokers are going to have to pay a shit load more on your taxes.

For all of you who love the Canadian health care system and love to rail against smokers and the tobacco industry, chew on this:

“This naked money grab is justified by one central myth: that the industry gets a free ride on public health care. The facts say otherwise. A 2000 study estimated that Canada’s direct health care costs due to tobacco are about $2.68 billion a year. A similar 1991 federal government study reached roughly the same conclusion. By comparison, the federal and provincial governments reaped about $7.69 billion in tobacco taxes last year, up 57 per cent from a decade earlier. Some free ride. If anything, smokers help subsidize health care for the rest of us.”

With all the “health care is broke” bullshit going around, it certainly isn’t smokers who are stressing the system.

ugh, I ranted on this more at:
http://smokehard.com/2008/smoking-a-global-update/

This one isn’t too useful to me since I don’t smoke but it is pretty interesting. I dig the creepy photo warnings. I took a picture of the huge SMOKING KILLS warnings in the UK (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lukefrancl/745872183/) but this is a whole new level.

Looking forward to future installments…

The use of Post-Its should be used as a lesson for product designers: if you make your products hard to use, your users will invent solutions that may end up running counter to the desired effect.