Stroke 'Em If You Got 'Em

This summer, my city government voted to ban smoking in public places, including bars, forcing smokers to sidewalks and outdoor patios. Now, it's November - a few bars have shut down, faulting the smoking ban, and the weather has become less favorable for the smokers. It seems the sky is falling; at least, that's the impression you get if you listen to the pessimistic bar owners or the news-desperate rag known as the Lawrence Journal-World. Let's examine their latest profile, "As cold weather creeps closer, veteran questions smoking ban":

Cigarette by cigarette, Speedy -- himself a veteran of wars in Korea and Vietnam -- is getting more ticked off at the City Commission, which passed the ban.

"What the hell did I fight for?" he'd asked earlier that day, sitting with a pink electric blanket on his lap at his home on Haskell Avenue a few blocks from the bar. "If they want to dictate, go over to Iraq. I ain't kidding you ... I'm 72 years old, by God, and I'll die where I want to. And it ain't going to be out smoking in a (expletive deleted) snowdrift."

...

After his stroke 16 years ago this month, a nurse told him he'd be dead in four months if he didn't stop smoking. Today his brand of choice is Gunsmokes, which he buys in bulk on an Indian reservation.

He smokes up to two packs a day, depending on whether it's a day he goes to the bar.

"I ain't dead yet," he said.

Okay, Speedy - fair enough. It's certainly a pain in the ass for you to get wheelchaired outside the bar so you can use your one functioning limb to lift a cigarette to your mouth. It's a big hassle that was forced upon you by the city commission, and forcing these things upon you is certainly not something that would have happened in your day. And you've been to war, which means I can't mock you for some reason. And you frequent the Crosstown Tavern, a place that I'm too terrified to step foot into. Speedy, you are a hard motherfucker.

Speedy, I hate to tell you this, but it wouldn't be such a pain in the ass for you to go outside to smoke if you weren't in that wheelchair. And you may not need that wheelchair if you didn't have that stroke. Speedy, can you guess a major risk factor for stroke? Whoa! Easy on the expletives, there, Speedy! But yes, you're correct, smoking is a major cause of strokes. Actually, passive (aka "second hand") smoke can also increase your risk for stroke. So, I'm sorry that things are tougher for you now, but not really, because the extra trouble for you means there's less chance I'll end up like you (the paralyzed part, not the hard motherfucker part).

And you bar owners? I understand your commerce-oriented complaints, and I even sympathize with you when you bring it up in the back room at Henry's and speak about how you're going to get it on the ballot and hopefully overturn it in 2005, but inside I really think you're full of shit and atherosclerosis, because I've read things like this. And that $5 a year I had to spend on Febreze when indoor smoking was legal? I promise I'll spend it on your booze.