Society hates smokers — and it’s really obnoxious

Image courtesy of Vaping Daily

At this point we should all agree that smoking is bad for you and that inconsiderate smokers are some of the more visibly (and fetid) ill-mannered people one can regularly encounter. However, the pendulum may have swung a bit too far away from protecting people from the danger and towards society at large just being a dick to users of tobacco. Tobacco is a killer, but some of the tactics in the War on Smoking are unnecessary and mean.

One of the most obnoxious examples of societal rudeness to smokers is the fact that the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, banned the use of all tobacco products on campus, including outdoors.

All tobacco products. Including chewing tobacco, snuff, and vapes. Vapes; which are tobacco products only in the loosest sense of the term as

1. many vape products contain no nicotine (the only tobacco related ingredient in vape liquid);
2. any nicotine in vape liquid is usually not even from the same tobacco plant the world knows and loathes, from other plants entirely (like eggplant or tomatoes) or even completely synthetic.

This is where the public health argument breaks down. Someone smoking outside while walking to their car poses very little, if any, threat to anyone except the user. But I can understand that a ‘public health risk’…