Dooley Noted: 12/19/2013
I do not promote smoking cigarettes, organic or not. Inhaling tobacco is harsh to the lungs. Add in the chemicals of standard cigarettes, and you’ve got a recipe for health risks.
On the contrary, I was viciously against the ban of cigarettes in public places. I think smokers are ostracized for their choice to smoke. I think a certain level of second-hand smoke is dangerous, but I don’t like taking away the rights of people.
My dad used to complain quite readily about the smoking ban. A 57-year heavy smoker, he quit in September after his lung cancer diagnosis.
He quit cold turkey, and the water vapor E-cigarette helped him do it. I heard him cough only three times yesterday, when for decades he’d cough nearly on the minute.
I was shocked at how my entire family of smokers started using E cigarettes to severely cut their smoking down. This discipline to me was equivalent to eating a bowl of vegetables instead of a bag of chips.
This was the discipline that can make serious health changes.
Then, it happened.
E cigarettes were banned from use in public places.
My friend Lindsay told me this last night:
“I am really trying to quit, and now I’m forced to use my E cig outside with the regular smokers.”
There is no justifiable reason to ban E cigarette smoking. To me, it’s equivalent to banning a protein shake for someone who is changing their food lifestyle.
But we don’t ban junk food. We don’t ban refined sugar or corn syrup, even though their glycemic loads pose major health risks across populations.
No one wants a sugar embargo more than I, but I would never push to take away rights.
We can help through educating people. Our doctors can learn more and stay abreast to the peer-reviewed results. But we can’t keep taking away the rights of people because we think we know what is good for them.
These three E cigarettes you see in the photo are completely changing the health of my family. I’m flabbergasted that the right to use them publicly has been taken away.
I’d write that it’s your call, but it’s evidently it’s not.
– Dr. Kathy Dooley
