Keep your habit to yourself

I am writing in response to Ronald E. Ellis’ letter to the editor (Bangor Daily News, May 10) in which he criticizes the proposed law to disallow smoking in one-room restaurants and restrict smoking to 30 percent of seats in multi-room restaurants. Mr. Ellis made a sweeping appeal to his fellow smokers to “stand up and be counted!” Well, Mr. Ellis, sit down.

It does not bother me that you and other smokers are hooked on a filthy, putrid habit. I am not concerned about the fact that your lungs are slowly turning charcoal black.

I also suspect that you do not give a darn whether or not your family and friends are concerned about your slow suicide. It is also apparent that you do not feel the least bit guilty for your private history of annoying non-smokers who do not enjoy the repulsive odor of tobacco smoke.

Now that it is clear what we do not care about, allow me to tell you what I do care about. I do care that second-hand tobacco smoke has been proven in numerous recent studies to have significant adverse effects on the health of innocent non-smoking bystanders. Anyone who believes the self-serving drivel shoveled out by certain private interest groups and corporations like Phillip-Morris (to the effect that there is no conclusive evidence to point to second-hand smoke as a public health risk) is extremely gullible.

How ironic it is that in your letter you ask, “Why should the majority be forced to satisfy the whims of the minority?” I couldn’t agree with this viewpoint more. You are a smoker. You are in the minority (about 25 percent). I, being in the majority, will no longer tolerate your poisonous, nauseating habit in public. That is why I fully support the Maine Bureau of Health’s move to further restrict smoking in restaurants.

Darren Staples Student, Bangor High School Bangor