tobacco vs. alcohol

Benet is approaching retirement age and, facing bans on smoking all over the place, she regrets how smoking is affecting her social life but makes the point that the tobacco war is not about health but the profits of the alcohol industry and that lawyers are behind it.

"What really angers me is that my smoking friends and I can no longer enjoy meals at our favorite restaurants -- they've all gone smoke free!" sobs Benet. "Sure, we can go there and sit among all the drinkers having a good time while eating their meals, but we can no longer light up before, during and after courses like we once could -- we have to go outside, and baby it's cold outside!"

"The restaurant owners refuse to open up a smoking area -- saying that they're operating an eating establishment not a smoking establishment," says Benet, "but what if alcohol were banned in eating establishments -- would they fob off the drinkers with a similar response?"

"I don't think so, they'd sooner make moonshine out the back than lose the patronage of drinkers," laughs Benet, "and this is the point I am trying to make. Restaurant owners make more money out of the liquor they sell than the food they serve and because of this they are perfectly willing to turn a blind eye to the occasional drunken behavior and vomit all over the place."

"They quite happily support the ban on smoking because smokers are not as lucrative as drinkers," explains Benet. "Why would they go to the expense of providing us with a properly ventilated smoking area when we just pay for food and buy our cigarettes elsewhere?"

"Sure, they can spout the health hazards of passive smoking on staff and patrons," says Benet, "but never once in my many years of smoking has any restaurant owner, waiter or fellow restaurant patron complained.”

“Most drinking patrons were too drunk to notice, and most waiters were too eager for a big fat tip -- which they always got -- to care."

"Bearing in mind that the sale and use of alcohol was prohibited for quite a number of years prior to WWII, it's amazing that it's such a mainstream drug today, having pushed out cigarettes, cannabis, cocaine and everything else that people once freely enjoyed."

"Yes, I'm pretty sure that tobacco is going to be prohibited," says Benet, "and having had personal experience of their enormous capacity to drink as well as their utter distain for the guys who smoked, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the non-smoking lawyers I once worked with, now in their late 50s to early 70s, are behind these changes."

"Perhaps a check of the liquor industry register would turn up some interesting names," laughs Benet, "and in the meantime my smoking friends and I are showing our contempt for liquor loving restaurants by boycotting them."

Read more by Benet on this issue:

Toxic workplace drinking culture
Quit smoking leads to alcoholism?