Smoking Ban
Around here, there's a lot of talk about the Illinois smoking ban. (The Lou butts up against and spills over into Illinois. Missouri is such a weird state -- our two major cities are both on the border with other states. Weird.) So anyway, smoking ban, Illinois, rending of clothes and gnashing of teeth. Whatever. The ban will probably induce me to cross the river a lot more often than I currently do (which is never), so I can get a smoke-free meal.
But there is MUCH bigger news and it's not getting much press.
France also banned smoking. FRANCE! The homeland of ridiculous smoking! I've never even been there but when I think of France the picture I get in my head is clouds of cigarette smoke and dogshit in the streets. France! Banned! Smoking! In! Public! Places!
When I quit smoking 6 years ago, part of my motivation was the realization that smoking was rapidly passing from just a habit that some people have and some people don't into something that would make you a social pariah. The smoking-ban thing hadn't really started up in earnest, but I could see it coming. And now France has banned smoking in public, which has got to be the very pinnacle of this thing. If even France bans it, that's it -- you know the changed attitude is definitely here, definitely pervasive, and definitely here to stay.
I'm impressed with my prescience 6 years ago.... Oh, and those people who say smoking bans don't influence people to quit smoking? They're wrong. Obviously. Because I haven't picked up a cigarette since December, 2001.
But there is MUCH bigger news and it's not getting much press.
France also banned smoking. FRANCE! The homeland of ridiculous smoking! I've never even been there but when I think of France the picture I get in my head is clouds of cigarette smoke and dogshit in the streets. France! Banned! Smoking! In! Public! Places!
When I quit smoking 6 years ago, part of my motivation was the realization that smoking was rapidly passing from just a habit that some people have and some people don't into something that would make you a social pariah. The smoking-ban thing hadn't really started up in earnest, but I could see it coming. And now France has banned smoking in public, which has got to be the very pinnacle of this thing. If even France bans it, that's it -- you know the changed attitude is definitely here, definitely pervasive, and definitely here to stay.
I'm impressed with my prescience 6 years ago.... Oh, and those people who say smoking bans don't influence people to quit smoking? They're wrong. Obviously. Because I haven't picked up a cigarette since December, 2001.