Secondhand piercing danger!

Kelly Carnahan of Delaware, Ohio, had her letter printed in today's Columbus (OH) Dispatch. "Government wants to think for smokers" is the headline, and Ms. Carnahan states she resents the government making smoke-free public places because after all we are "thinking human beings who are just plain old fed up with being told we are third-class citizens and not worthy of socializing in a public place just because we choose to smoke." She suggests "we also ban people with tattoos and piercings or just about any other differences that people have, because to me it's pretty much the same thing."

Dear Kelly: You are not demonstrating yourself as a "thinking human being" and tattoos and piercings are NOT the "same thing" . . . not even "pretty much" the same thing.

No one, to my knowledge has become ill or died due to their family member, co-worker, or customers (as in the case of waitstaff in restaurants) having tattoos or piercings. My eldest son has two tattoos and I am not, I repeat NOT, in any danger of the long list of illnesses associated with air heavy-laden with whatever it is contained in cigarette smoke. What an idiotic comparison. Would you take your six-month-old baby, Kelly Carnahan, and place her next to a chain-smoking nanny eight hours a day? Perhaps you already have. I'd put my baby next to the "tattooed lady" over the "smokestake lady" any day.

If adults want to smoke on their property and in private clubs, then go at it. Don't expect me to pay for your doctor bills ten years down the road. Don't expect me to be willing to have my offspring wait on you in a restaurant and don't expect me to sit next to you on an airplane.

My son-with-the-tattoos is disabled and lives in a nursing home. Beginning at 7 am and until 9 pm, every day, seven days a week, the residents, the majority of the residents, smoke. The nurse's aides hold the cigarettes to their lips, if they are unable to do so themselves. I heard the nursing home spends $3000 a month purchasing cigarettes.

The window in the common room where the smoking occurs only opens eight inches and the air filter that sits on the TV looks like the small one in my house that filters air to help my parrot stay healthy. In other words, it's not enough to clean the air of 10 to 20 men smoking 14 times a day. That's 140 to 280 cigarettes being smoked every day in the presence of my 23-year-old MRDD, hearing-impaired child whom I have spent decades telling "don't take up smoking, don't take drugs, eat your vegetables." I asked the state ombudsman to check it out and the nursing home, according to the investigator, is conforming to current law. The law stinks, literally.

Kelly Carnahan of Deleware, Ohio, may you live long enough to regret the "thinking" opinion you hold today.

UPDATE to this article: Today, June 29, 2004, Columbus, OH, passed into law a smoking ban at bars, restuarants and bowling alleys in Columbus. Might common areas of nursing homes be next?