Robert S - I was going to write a post on this for clarification but as you are here ... and as I've now found the comments section won't let me post this much, I have to post it here anyway.
I really do know that we won't agree. Every debate I've ever had with people who feel as strongly as you against smokers and tobacco and people like me who feel strongly about my right to be left alone in peace to smoke if I choose - without being outcast - has just gone on and on.
Someone with your views used to post here a lot and it just wore me down to the point where I didn't want to blog anymore.
I felt under siege, even though the person hadn't intended to make me feel like that but no matter what we discussed, it ended up coming back to the same point. I thought he was an intolerant anti who wanted to world to himself - he thought I was a selfish smoker who had no social rights at all.
I found endless debates to endless comments took far too much time out of my day and it wasn't good for my health.
Inevitably, I've also found, that two very strong opposing views will end up as a slanging match. I'm as guilty as anyone for that.
Your own personal experiences of tobacco do not mirror my own. I guess we're all different. I would not trust Big Tobacco. It is not my friend nor the friend of any smoker. It has done nothing for us in this battle. My guess is that because smoking bans show more people take up smoking.
(I suggest for stats and figures on this sort of claim you should visit
the Velvet Glove, Iron Fist blog linked on the blogroll to the left)
Big T, however, is not the smoker's enemy like the anti-smoking industry which actively works to cause smokers to be shunned and avoided in their communities. I am not the only one who says this "war" has moved from the industry to the consumer.
The anti-smoker industry - made up of fake charities like ASH and Smoke Free, businesses that make No Smoking signs, and Big Pharma also commission false studies, and tell lies (look up how deceptive ASH was about the cost of the tobacco display ban which was gained by an FoI request.)
The anti-smoker industry now competes directly with Big T to supply the smoker with nicotine - which btw, you can find in everyday vegetables as well but this is never promoted because it would detract from the "Smoker as addict" aspect of "Denormalisation". A tool about as ethical in use for Public Health as water boarding is to interrogation.
I too have done my research over a lifetime, and more particularly the last 10 years, and based more on what I think from my own experiences as a lifelong, third generation tobacco consumer. I hate Big T so much, I am investigating the possibility of growing my own.
The reason I write here about intolerance and the danger of following such anti-smoker ideology so blindly, is because no matter what you or I believe about tobacco, our views or rights, can both be accommodated by choice - separate venues, segregation etc...
I've never argued to be "allowed to smoke where ever I like" but I do ask for tolerance and a place to go with other smokers. I really fail to see how this is "wrong" or "selfish" unless as I suspect, this is not about health but hatred of smokers, enforced ideology, social engineering, and the death of a culture that has been with us for thousands of years.
Tobacco is a herb. It is used in many medicinal treatments - There is a post further down below this one about some of the ailments which moderate tobacco use can help which includes endimetriosis (I'm sure that's spelled wrongly for an MA but I tend to leave these things to show that I am not perfect nor pretend to be) and irritable bowel syndrome - and tobacco as an ingredient in travel sickness pills.
Incidentally, the reason I carry insulting tag lines like "twat, lying twat," or "bastards" is because that is usually my first thought when I read the latest piece of anti-smoker propaganda.
It's also in honour of the sweary bloggers like the now finished Mr Eugenides and Obnoxio The Clown, and the Devil's Kitchen - all of whom are far more creatively profane that I could ever hope to be.
And thanks for thinking that someone might listen to me but for those sort of tags - I actually think no one is listening at all to any smoker and there is the reason I keep shouting even though no one pays me, I lose work because of it, and I am not following my ambitions because this very acrimonious political issue bogs me down.
When the anti-smoker industry backs off with its junk science, daily abusive propaganda calling for more smoker exclusion, and its generalisation that tobacco kills and smokers harm others, then I hope I'll be able to get my life back and stop blogging.