by John Bear
Daily Lobo columnist
It has been brought to my attention that a terrorist organization known as the Coalition for a UNM Smoke-Free Campus is being allowed to operate freely in and around the University.
This is a travesty of justice and cannot be allowed to continue.
It is strange that in the United States, a country that prides itself on tolerance toward those with differing lifestyles, nonsmokers are given carte blanche to break the balls of smokers.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
For example, I cannot count the number of times I've been standing outside, sucking down a menthol and escaping the harsh reality of existence for a sweet three minutes, when a fresh-breathed cretin walks by and does the fake cough thing.
Allow me to explain something to all of you nonsmokers. Smokers are not proud of their nasty habit. Most of us hate ourselves for coughing up five bucks per diem to a large corporation for the privilege of stinking up our clothes and bodies and eventually perishing in a manner most unpleasant.
When you walk by a smoker and pretend to cough, you are making him or her cry a little bit inside. Knock it off.
Don't get me wrong - I am not one of those tobacco heads who believe that smokers should be able to light up whenever and wherever they please. Not at all - I like to sit in a restaurant and eat my food without breathing in the billowing smokestacks coming off a cigar or, God forbid, a Kool.
I have been to places, like Las Vegas, where one can suck down a carton of cigarettes anywhere he or she chooses. I gazed upon horrible things like people smoking inside the kiddy park on top of the Circus Circus Hotel and Casino - disgusting. I don't want to be the one responsible for killing a bunch of toddlers with my secondhand smoke. I am a smoker, not a monster.
But we have taken the no-smoking movement too far. I blame California, a state that believes it is so right about everything that many products bear warning labels that state the product "is known by the State of California to cause cancer." I remember being a graffiti tagger in high school and being terrified of developing some horrible disease every time I depressed the nozzle on a can of black Krylon spray paint.
The problem with California's near-fascist anti-smoking ordinances is that the rest of the country will mimic them. In fact, the closer you get to southern California, the more it looks like southern California, and not by accident. I flew to Phoenix to watch a Nine Inch Nails concert a few years ago and was somewhat dismayed to see palm trees all over the place. Soon, we will have them here, and you won't be able to smoke within a 50-foot radius of them for fear of giving them secondhand smoke-induced palm-frond cancer.
As far as no smoking in bars, forget about it. If all those people sitting in bars sucking down Cuba Libres were so concerned about their health, they wouldn't be sitting in bars sucking down Cuba Libres.
Of course, we must consider the health of the employees. After all, we don't want our favorite mixologist succumbing to emphysema. But once again, if somewhere there exists bartenders who are concerned about their health, I have yet to meet one. In any case, nonsmoker storm troopers beware. Smokers, in case you didn't notice, are a tightly wound group, easily pissed off and capable of acts of extremism when deprived of our favorite highly addictive neurotoxin.
Perhaps nonsmokers are merely jealous. Smokers get what is known as a break. We huddle in groups and suck our poison sticks, and we talk. Yes, we talk about all kinds of things. Trust me, over the last few days we have discussed this threat to our lifestyle.
Bear in mind that because of these numerous daily breaks and chat time, smokers are part of a completely decentralized collective, similar to al-Qaida, but twice as moody. The further you push us underground, the harder we will strike back.
The smoke-free hooligans are hard at work - smokers, we must unite, and together we will crush these fascists.
Then we will take a much-earned break, outside, right by the door.
