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From: barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Thank you for your flames
Message-ID: <1002@ames.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 21-May-85 20:14:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames.1002
Posted: Tue May 21 20:14:54 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 24-May-85 20:32:42 EDT
References: <101@utastro.UUCP> <735@oddjob.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 32

>The only problem with your reasoning (ie, I don't smoke in public)
>is that you and all other smokers are forcing the rest of us to assume
>the multi-billion dollar cost of your smoking tobacco:
>
>	a)  higher health/life insurance costs
>	b)  increased spending for government health programs
>		(ie, Medicare/Medicaid, VA hospitalization, etc.)
>	c)  huge loss in workplace productivity; not only are smokers 
>		sick much more often than non-smokers, smokers steal their
>		employers' time by taking numerous "smoking breaks" during 
>		the day
>	d)  federal subsidies to tobacco farmers
>	e)  increased incidence of fire and smoke damage 
>	f)  additional custodial staff to clean up after smokers

	Would you like to see this logic applied to junk food? Overeating?
Booze? Sunbathing (skin cancer)? Skiing (my knee's getting better, thanks)?
Promiscuity (health risks)? Need I go on?
	God help us when we lose our freedom to be wrong, to be stupid,
and to act against our own best interests. I know no man is an island,
and that I indirectly pay for the foolishness of others. But I'll pay
that price willingly in return for the freedom to engage in a little
foolishness of my own.
	I sometimes wonder if the really fanatic anti-smokers aren't
secretly a little sorry that *all* us smokers don't die an early death
from cancer or heart disease.

-  From the Crow's Nest  -                      Kenn Barry
                                                NASA-Ames Research Center
                                                Moffett Field, CA
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