[ree-Xi]

Has anyone here ever walked through the wall of smoke in front of a building (hospitals are huge offenders), only to cough and choke and their eyes begin to burn?

I always wondered where that cloud came from. Was it foggy out? Was there a garbage can on fire? Well hell if I knew. I just knew it made me sick. Wait - there are a bunch of people hudled over near the front door - smoking!

If 3-5 seconds of second hand smoke so graciously deposited into the general outdoor breathing air is enough to make someone cough and sputter, how much of an intellectual jump does it take to imagine that years of living (being trapped) with a smoker (let's say 2 self centered parents or even a spouse) will have a negative effect on those who are subject to the closed interiors of homes and vehicles?

Why do smokers habitually keep their windows shut? I swear there was a half inch of tobacco dust on everything in my house and our car when I was a kid.

As a person with a genetic, progressive, terminal lung disease, it irks me to no end that people with normal healthy lungs choose to do the equivalent of sucking on the end of a 67 dodge's tailpipe. Just DON'T DO IT IN FRONT OF PEOPLE WHO DO NOT WANT TO BE EXPOSED TO YOUR POISON.

Studies, theories, don't show them to me. I have seen enough throat, esophageal and lung cancer, heart disease, and strokes in people who were chain smokers. I am not a scientist, nor do I understand statistics much, but you have to be an idiot to think that there would be NO NEGATIVE EFFECTS on someone who has been forced ( or choose) to breathe in your cancer sticks.

Go ahead and smoke. Just not in front of me.

---someone HAD to bring up the one thing that gets me going---