Letter to the Editor

Winnipeg Free Press

Tue, Feb 8, 2000

Anti-smoking saga a juvenile and repugnant affair

I'D LIKE TO KNOW, first, who decided we all have to be perfect and, second, who assigned Health Minister Allan Rock (Health Minister of Canada) to define it for us?

The anti-smoking saga perpetuated by Mr. Rock is becoming a juvenile and repugnant affair. The suggestion of using a bent cigarette to graphically emulate impotence is stooping to such immaturity and grotesque behaviour that I cannot even assimilate the concept without revulsion.

Mr. Rock says he wants to protect people from second-hand smoke. Protecting the rights of people includes many elements, however, including consideration for those folks who smoke. We should be entering this new millennium with more accommodation and compassion for our fellow man than ever before; yet, as the majority of Canadians that do not smoke, we seem all too happy to offend and violate the unpopular smoking minority.

I would like to remind Mr. Rock that some of the people who smoke in this country are veterans of war who lost limbs and friends to give him the right to impose his punitive prejudices upon them. He should have to be the one to come down to our veterans' legions and hospitals and deliver the news that they will have to roll their wheelchairs out into the -30ºC weather of Winnipeg to indulge their incurable habits.

I am a non-smoker who also deplores inhaling second-hand smoke. But I equally deplore spending three hours on a confined airliner with a perfumed person next to me, or standing in an elevator with Mr. Aqua Velva, or trying to relax at the ballet surrounded by a permeating collection of over-chemicalized patrons. What legislative impositions is he willing to place on them? If we are not careful, it will not be long before Mr. Rock and his like will be telling us what food to eat, what sexual habits to engage in and how to raise our children, all for the sake of their mandatory pursuit of perfection according to the Gospel of Allan Rock and His Life.

It is time we found a happy place for everyone on this stale and stagnant issue, before we are all stained by it like the smokers' teeth Mr. Rock wants us to have to look at every time someone pulls out a pack of smokes. Anyone heard of ventilation?

STEVE OETTING,
Winnipeg