Smokers Suck

We like to say that smokers have a disgusting habit, but I want to explore what that means. I don’t think my sense of smell is any better or worse than anyone else’s so I don’t think it’s just me assaulted on a daily basis by dozens of people smoking cigarettes between my bus stop and my office door. On a good day this is a five minute walk, and yet it is utterly ruined with the foul stink of people who do not care about the negative effects they’re having on literally hundreds of people.

Without resorting to a dictionary, we say something is disgusting if we don’t like it, don’t have respect for it, if it has the potential to ruin something else. We say we are disgusted when we encounter something that we’ve been forced to internalize and we’d like to have removed. It’s that “gust” sound, like there’s something in our guts and the act of throwing it up is preferable to keeping it in. Disgusting things are poisonous, sickening, and rob other experiences of whatever joy they might bring.

This is true for cigarette smoke and cigarette smokers. The only way to detect cigarette smoke without seeing it is to smell it, and therefor ingest it. Now it’s inside you, and certainly against your will. If it were only one whiff, that would be almost acceptable or at least tolerable, but the first one is just a promise of more. Not only is there something inside you that you want out, but there’s going to be more of it.

And I suppose there may be some smokers who sneak away to an isolated place, smoke their cigarettes and then field-strip the butts and deposit the ash and leavings in their proper place. I’m not talking about those smokers, I’m talking about the ones standing on the street, flicking ashes, then dropping the burning butts on the ground. And then if we, the non smokers enduring this repugnant display, are lucky, they’ll then grind the butt into the concrete with their shoe. 

So, while that first stinky sniff only promises more misery, the sight of a smoker is just a reminder that here is a human being who does not care about anyone, or probably anything, except getting his drug fix. Right there, out in the open. Have you ever watched someone shoot up heroin? Have you ever watched someone gleefully view pornography? No, because junkies and perverts have enough self-respect to hide their addictions from the rest of society.

But not smokers. And the irony is, watching someone shoot heroin does not put heroin in your own veins. If you see someone watching porn, you can look away. But once you’re within a 100 foot radius of a smoker, you’re forced to take in that disgusting air until you, not he, move on.

Smokers never moves on. Until they die of cancer. I don’t want to see that, either.