Smoking

We've got the smoking laws backward.

I'm walking down the street with my baby girl in arms. A guy walking in front of us lights up and trails a long, thick cloud that lingers in the air as we walk through it.

Now, I don't mind for myself. I'm friend with some smokers and I can cope with it. Ninjas have iron lungs. But my little girl is still in the spongy pink alloy stage.

We banned smoking inside businesses and 25 feet from their entrances. This leaves everyone smoking either in their homes or in the middle of the street.

How about a better solution:
* It's legal to smoke in businesses that allow it
* It's illegal to smoke outside in public air space
* Any business or home that allows smoking is required to have a ventilation system that prevents air pollution outside in the public air space.

This way, the outside air would be clean, inside air in places that allow it could be as tainted as they like and the senseless dope who dropped a smoke bomb in my baby's face would still be alive.

If I were a smoker, I'd probably stand in the middle of the street and smoke. If you aren't allowed to do it inside of businesses or 25 feet from an entrance, you don't really have any other option when you are downtown on a smoke break. Make it a political statement, stop traffic, scream at the sky and talk to invisible people. Hey, if all the smokers did it, they would tell you to smoke inside.