Airports in the US are "non-smoking" facilities. However, in order to keep all the nicotine addicts happy and as fairly treated as the alcoholics, many airports have installed smoking lounges-- they're usually next to a bar where they sell the next most popular, legal, deadly drug to the next biggest group of addicts in our country. I'm sure you've all seen them - little glass booths about 10 feet wide and 20 feet long with rows of chairs around the perimeter and one down the center interspersed with big overstuffed sand ash trays; a powerful ventilation system; and hordes of smokers packed inside like cordwood haplessly puffing away in a dense cloud of highly carcinogenic smoke.
As if smoking isn't bad enough for you, being crammed into that acrid environment has only got to make it worse, however these "lounges," as they're called, have no shortage of participants willing to partake of such an airport amenity. Looking at the people inside, sitting upright in those pedestrian plastic airport chairs, I'm reminded of junkies shooting up, or opium addicts in a den. They just sit there on task, puffing away subjecting themselves to those bleak surroundings because their physical dependence on nicotine drives them there. Looking inside one of those cancer chambers you can't help but call it anything less than pathetic. Despite the air vents, the smoke is usually so dense inside that if you happen to be out of cigarettes, all you need do is have a seat and breathe deeply. You'll surely get your fill of tar, nicotine and other various cancer causing poisons, and whatever else is in there that smokers crave.
Now, I'm never one to interfere with anyone's right to hurt themselves. In fact, I firmly believe that anyone should be free do whatever they want to themselves even if it dose cause them harm, just so long as they don't hurt anyone else or burden the tax rolls as a result. Unfortunately, in the US this right is selective - you can do anything you want to hurt yourself just as long as the government can profit from it. This ideal has unfortunately polarized the official approach to drugs in America. If the government isn't making any money from the sale of an addictive substance, they will spend irresponsibly fighting it. When prohibition was repealed it was replaced with alcohol tax. Then, instead of the government spending money to fight alcohol addiction, they started making a profit from it. The same with tobacco. Of the four bucks and up some of you pay for a pack of cigarettes, a big chunk of it goes to Uncle Sam. And while some of the revenues from tobacco sales is supposed to go into anti-smoking campaigns, the very same governing body raking in the cash mandates building smoking lounges in airports.
Okay, so we accommodate smokers in airports. For those addicted to nicotine, the drug probably offers some relief from the stress of traveling and their fear of flying. Much like alcohol does - the other drug sold legally in airports to anyone over 21. So, go ahead. You need a fix? Name your poison. The airports in America have you covered.
I guess I can accept that, as much as I disagree with it morally and for the hypocrisy it represents. Remember, I agree with Plato: we should not declare anything moral just because it's legal. However, when it comes to kids, no one would disagree with me when I say we need to step up to the plate and insure their safety as well as their right to good health. And this is why we have laws that allow alcohol and nicotine to be bought and sold, but the sale and consumption of these drugs is age restricted.
Second hand smoke is no less deadly than getting it firsthand, and this is why we have laws that forbid smoking in some enclosed public places, such as airports. Out of some liberal deference to their addiction we provide smokers with an isolation chamber where they can continue the slow process of killing themselves even while they travel. Clearly, this environment is not intended for children, and believe it or not, there is no law to keep them out of such a place.
To wit: I was changing planes in a busy mid west airport recently. And on my way to the next gate I passed one such smoking lounge, packed as usual with nicotine addicts carrying out their death wish in a cloud so thick it could easily have passed for a steam room. Inside this insidious place, sitting next to his so called "mother" was a little boy all of three or four years old. He was just hanging out playing with a couple of Hot Wheels on the windowsill while his mother and about 35 other people in there attacked cigarette after cigarette like they were affluent Chinese businessmen.
As atrocious as this sounds, it gets worse. Standing not ten feet from the entrance to this hell-hole were not one, but two, airport security personnel (cops). Two grown men sworn to protect the public who could clearly see a little boy in an environment in which he clearly didn't belong. What did they do? Not a damn thing. The "mother" finished her cigarette, took her son by the hand and walked right past the two cops and they didn't bat an eye. Where did she take him? To meet up with "daddy." This guy had not only opted to leave his son in the care of his mother knowing she was going to take him into said cancer chamber, he had also just returned from fetching a heap of boxes from the Cinnabon concession containing those big caramel pecan cinnamon buns. And he had a huge soda cup that I'm sure didn't contain anything diet. I looked at the little boy and thought, the good fats from the pecans not withstanding, this poor kid doesn't stand a chance.
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