Once again, California is ahead of the curve in their forward-thinking, environment-loving, citizen-concerned actions regarding the health of everyone in their state. I unfortunately live in the land that time forgot, Georgia, where change moves at a snail's pace (if you're lucky), and human rights, and certainly health, take a back seat to anything that doesn't make the politicians more money.
So, what have they done now out there in the great state of over-inflated movie stars and french fry-powered cars? They have now pass a new law that prohibits smoking in ANY public place! Yep, you read that right...ANY PUBLIC PLACE. That means sidewalks, beaches, public streets, the front OR back of stores and restuarants, and any place that a smoker might be seen or where their revolting smoke might offend anyone.
Georgia "recently" banned smoking in restaurants and bars, but you gotta love the idea of banning smoking almost everywhere except in the smoke-filled comfort of your own tar stained home.
Now, I know that all you civil rights people are frothing at the mouth to sink your nicotine stained teeth into this new law in hopes of dashing it out like an old blunt, but really, the only folks who should be worked up over this new law are the cigarette makers and sellers.
As if it wasn't hard enough already to convince people that sucking on a small portable muffler and stinking like last weeks rancid garbage is cool, now the young and impressionable minds who you have been working so hard to deceive can't even partake your cancerous rot sticks even if they want to...unless their parents are "cool" with it in their homes...which ain't too likely for most folks.
Gone are the times when you could smuggle a pack of smokes from your old man only to light 'em up behind the theater (yea, I'm old!). Now, not only will you still get busted by your old man, but you can also receive up to a $500 fine for causing such a stink!
I remember fondly, riding in the back seat of my mother's car as a young child, gasping for air like a fish out of water as my mother calmly puffed away on one ciggy after another. Now, even in the car, you can receive a fine because the mere sight, and of course the eventual offensive smell when you open your car door, can cost you almost as much as a full tank of gas...which ain't too cheap these days either!
So, great job California for taking these offensive stink sticks off the streets and restricting them to the only place where they should be allowed - the smoke filled dens of future cancer suffers.
If only my mother had been as desuaded from smoking, and limited in where she could use those things, maybe she never would have died from pancreatic cancer caused from the very thing that California is trying to ban. You go Governator!!