Published: November 04, 2009 11:16 am      

To smoke, or not?

It seems almost amazing that tobacco was once one of the crops the original 13 colonies used as a main export.

It’s been since grade school since I’ve heard that. Now all that’s said about tobacco is connected with anti-smoking.

Recently, an article was published inside this newspaper about health officials seeking a smoking ban in Oklahoma restaurants and bars — a ban that would not allow the separately ventilated areas allowed under the 2003 legislation. Although this proposed ban is intended to protect non-smokers from second-hand smoke, wouldn’t smokers feel rather persecuted by this?

For decades, smokers have gone to the bars and had a smoke with their beverages while enjoying the honky-tonk music or enjoying a game of pool or good company.

Now it seems, the whole bar scene will change — no more smoke lingering in the air as one looks longingly across the room at a leggy blonde standing by the juke box playing a sad, sad song while sipping on a longneck bottle.

Wow, there’s a lot of music videos that would instantly become dated.

Banning smoking in public places all together would not be all together a bad idea. There are people that don’t partake in smoking and work in bars or night clubs that allow the poisonous gasses to fill the air.

Then there are the patrons who don’t kiss butts and go home with the stench of a stale ashtray attached to their clothes.

Beyond the aesthetics of banning smoking in public places, health is most important.

According to Dr. Alan Blum, a family medicine professor at the University of Alabama and director of the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society, smoking is the leading preventable cause of death and disease.

A statistic from Marilyn Davidson, government relations director for American Heart Association in Oklahoma City, shows harmful effects of second-hand smoke kills 38,000 people a year and increases the risk of coronary heart disease by 25 to 30 percent.

Hmmm ... gets ya thinking, doesn’t it?

What about economics? The price of a single pack of a popular brand of cigarettes ranges between $5 and $6. For our purposes, lets say the price is $5.50.

A person who smokes one pack of cigarettes a day spends $38.50 per week, $165 per 30-day month, and $1,980 a year on a product simply lit on fire and inhaled.

Am I trying to say the ban is a good thing? Am I trying to persuade people to quit?

I’m just telling what’s on my mind.

Good thing I’ve set a quit date.