Smoking

A friend of mine mentioned smoking on her blog, and I agree with pretty much everything she says. She has two posts that discourage smoking: No On Tobacco and Smoking Sucks.

When I went to Disneyland, a companion of mine took me to a designated smoking area so he could have a few cigarettes. I saw two children standing nearby, playing some video games on a Nintendo DS. They were only about eight or nine and seemed oblivious to how much harmful smoke they were breathing in. There were two people smoking on a bench, and I'm pretty sure they were the children's parents. It broke my heart to see that both the parents were smoking. When I was a kid, my mother used to smoke around me, but my father never did. It was hard enough with just her, and I can't imagine what it would have been like if both of my parents had smoked. I wanted to tell the children to stay away from their parents when they were smoking, but of course, I couldn't. The kids wouldn't have listened to me, and it was none of my business. But I know I'll never forget how depressed it made me feel, especially since I also second-hand smoked when I was young.

An amusement park for children should not have any designated smoking areas. No place really should. People should either try harder to quit, or not start smoking in the first place. What really bothers me is that a lot of heavy smokers know smoking is bad for them, yet they don't even try to quit because they believe they're too addicted. I'm sure that if all smokers tried a little harder to quit, they could. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not pretending to understand their addictions, either, since I've never smoked a cigarette and never will. I just think a lot of smokers would be surprised if they realized how quickly they could kick the habit.