08 Oct 2006
Cigar industry heating up again

This is one of the two facts that put the lie to the anti-smoking movement's claim that it's all about protecting the innocent non-smoker from evil smokers and their second hand gas. "Cigar bars", where the well-heeled can gather and puff away, have exemptions from smoking bans in most cities that have implemented them. Rich folks puffing rich smokes: good! - poor folks sucking poor smokes: bad! How do you spell class warfare?

The other little factoid that flies in the face of their claims is the proliferation of the phrase "tobacco free" as opposed to "smoke free". I have yet to hear of the mass suffering of innocents from "second hand spit", though I will admit to finding public spitting a bit of a gross-out. Of course, I also find 700 pound middle aged women in pink hot pants a gross out, too, but as yet see no signs declaring "gross free" zones.

The anti-tobacco movement is about control - nothing more and nothing less. They have the correct answer, and they're bound and determined that everybody else will share in that answer, or else have to answer for their defiant non-belief.

Which sounds amazingly like a lot of monotheistic religions I've heard of. It's not for nothing that we are having a "crusade" against smoking ...

AP - For about five years in the 1990s, the cigar industry luxuriated in a wild sales boom when celebrities and trendy 20-somethings decided that puffing imported, hand-rolled stogies was The Next Big Thing.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

06:53 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link