Stop The Madness!

I was sitting my apartment being smothered by my neighbor's cigarette smoke, which is so thick in the air that I'm literally coughing and choking, my throat is sore, and my eyes burn from it. Not only does it permeate my apartment (she says she quit, but yet here it is), but it's made worse because they are menthols. I am literally nauseous from breathing the polluted air.

It made me wonder how many people die from cigarette related illnesses each year, so I started researching.

According to the CDC, each year, an estimated 443,000 people die prematurely from smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke, and another 8.6 million live with a serious illness caused by smoking. (http://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/aag/osh.htm).

Each year approximately 16,000 are killed in alcohol related crashes (http://dui.lifetips.com/cat/61352/drunk-driving-facts-stats/index.html).

In one year, 31,593 people died from gun violence and 66,769 people survived gun injuries (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC))(http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence/).

Smoking and cigarettes kill almost 10 times as many people as drunk driving and gun violence combined! And that doesn't even account for the millions who suffer from smoking-related illnesses!

We fight against drunk driving, and we fight against gun violence, which is good, we need to fight until no one dies from those things.  But statistically, we are all more likely to die from diseases caused by smoking, even if we are not smokers ourselves.

How many of you realized this?  That you are more likely to die from smoke-related disease?  Honestly, I find it sickening.  I was actually shocked by the numbers, but these statistics are all from reputable sources.

We have to fight harder as Americans to have clean air and to put an end to cigarettes and smoking.  I realize that won't be a popular stance with many people, but if it's illegal to drink and drive, and illegal to shoot someone with a gun, why isn't it illegal for them to kill with cigarettes?

My neighbor told me many times (which is a big part of why I ended our friendship) that her right to smoke should override my right to breathe clean air. She claimed to have quit, but I can smell it, so I know she didn't. This is the same neighbor who is on oxygen for COPD, but yet smokes with her oxygen tube on. She's actually caught herself of fire, TWICE! She first caught the oxygen tube on fire and burned the inside of her nose, the second time, she caught her head on fire and is permanently scarred on the top of her head (second or third degree).

The reason cigarettes are still legal is all about money. Cigarette companies make billions of dollars a year and they pay lobbyists to pay politicians to keep them legal. We've all known for decades that smoking causes cancer, and we need to be smarter and we need to fight harder to keep our air and our lungs clean. I'm sick, literally and figuratively, and I'm tired of having breathing and lung problems caused by other people's smoke. Why should people like me have to suffer at someone else's hand? It isn't right, it isn't fair, and we need to find a way to end it.