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04/09/2004: "Stand Up!"

Ronald Harwood, Oscar-winning screenwriter and playwright, backed out of an agreement to direct a revival of "The Dresser," his drama about an aging actor struggling through "King Lear," because The Manitoba Theater Center is a smoke-free environment. "I had no intention of allowing myself to be forced out into the street in winter to partake of one of my great pleasures," Harwood said to the Associated Press earlier this week, "I have recently visited Canada and had to suffer the most draconian anti-smoking regulations in restaurants and public buildings." Go Ron! Click more.. below.

Harwood said recent trips to Toronto and New York, where smoking is also restricted in public, has curbed his enthusiasm for those cities. And he wasn't relishing slipping out for a cigarette next January in Winnipeg, either. Ron, I approve. You're sixty-nine years old and you don't need to be standing out in the snow smoking because some loudmouthed minority claims to be concerned about your health. That doesn't make any sense. Besides, I don't know about your mother, Ron, but my mother has passed away and I don't need another one, especially if my surrogate mother doesn't mind killing me with the cure.

I don't know much about Canada except that, when I took a shortcut between Detroit and Buffalo, there seemed to be more doughnut shops than gas stations, but when an in-your-face, up-yours, mind-your-own-business city like New York falls victim to rule by these big-mouthed minorities, it's time for backlash.

Do the loudmouthed, anti-smoking minorities care about smokers and their health, or are they just repressed jerks who have finally found an opportunity to push other people around? Well, is it healthier to stand outside in a blizzard to smoke? No, case closed.

A rapidly anti-smoking ex friend of mine used to say, "your right to smoke ends where my nose begins." Was it the smell of cigarette smoke that bothered him? Well, anyone who came within six feet of him anytime before lunch would have to question that because his aftershave would make your eyes water. Oh, how about secondary smoke then? It's dangerous, right?

If you will grant me that the average public space, say a restaurant, is as well-ventilated as the average home, then you may apply the following data from Encyclopedia Britanica:

"Passive smoking--i.e., a nonsmoker's inhalation of smoke produced by smokers in an enclosed space--also appears to heighten the risk of developing lung cancer. Several studies have found that, over the long term, the nonsmoking spouses of smokers experience a lung cancer risk that is almost double that of spouses neither of whom smoke. It should be emphasized, however, that smokers continue to have a much higher lung-cancer risk; the lung-cancer mortality risk for a heavy smoker is 20 to 30 times greater than that of a nonsmoker." OK, sounds scary enough.

Now, look at the numbers. If heavy smoking is an average of 25 times as much risk as not smoking at all, and living with a smoker, that's 24/7, is only 2 times as much risk as living with a non-smoker, then the hour or two you spend in a restaurant that has a smoking section, even 5 times a week, is statistically trivial. So, what is your problem, anti-smoking whiners, that is so important that you want to ruin everyone else's good time? Whatever it is, it's yours. Deal with it.

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