Smoking Wallingford

I would like to speak about smoking. Tobacco, that is. And I want to speak about it in Wallingford.

I am a former smoker. My last smoke was over 29 years ago. In fact, ending my use of tobacco was my wedding present to Lois. Although I still dream about cigarettes from time to time, my urge to light up is not particularly strong -- although I am sure that if I ever weakened and did so, that first cigarette would lead an unending parade of them, marching me to the grave.

Perhaps I should add that for a couple of years before I stopped, I had found smoking unpleasant and messy. I dropped ashes everywhere, including on my son; I burned holes in my clothing while driving (talk about your distracted drivers!); I woke up mornings with a mouth like flannel. Quitting was a good thing.

So that's where I come from regarding smoking. Oh: one further fact. My mother, an occasional smoker, died of lung cancer at the age of 86 which was too young.

Everyone should give up tobacco. That is simply good health advice.

People can be nudged in this direction by a number of legitimate means. Employers have moved to smoke-free workplaces; many businesses have declared their premises off-limits to customers while they are smoking, either with posted signs or by removing amenities like ashtrays (although that did carry a certain risk of having butts ground out in carpeting). Health care programs can include cost incentives to encourage non-smoking.

Governments have outlawed smoking in almost all public buildings, and the same is true of most spaces in which public transportation occurs. Many homeowners and car owners maintain smokeless cars. Meanwhile, taxes on cigarettes have climbed to stratospheric heights: a pack of 20 now costs $8.25 and can go for $14 or $15 in New York City, with its higher levies. Cartons become unimaginably expensive. Imagine spending $100 a week for ten packs. That's $5,000 a year.

 Yet there are still many smokers, though more and more they smoke at home or outdoors away from others.

But now, thanks apparently to a federal circular received by Housing Authorities, Wallingford is considering banning smoking in its public housing units.

 I've been expecting something of this sort for years.  Smoking is now being seen as such a public nuisance that most people will go along with a proposition to limit how people can indulge in their own homes. The rather spurious reason is that apartments contaminated by smoking cost more to clean, which is certainly true. That's no real justification for making this rule, though.

We just seem to go all absolutist when it comes to bad habits, especially if we can tie some moral factor to these habits (such as second hand smoke).

I suppose Wallingford will move forward with this plan. Several other towns have already made no smoking rules for public housing. They will probably grandfather in existing smokers.

But I can see the writing on the wall: "we will not rest until we have rid the world of this filthy habit, no matter what it takes and no matter how extreme we must become."