By Bob Abernethy
Reader Brian Gray wrote in opposition to the proposal to make the beaches and the pier smoke-free zones based on his assumption that smoking is a “right” (SMDP, March 15, page 4). Prior to noting the fallacy on which his argument is based, it is necessary to explain my potential bias. In the summer of 1963, an 11-year-old street kid from Brooklyn (whose both parents and three of four grandparents all smoked) began pinching his mother’s “Luckies” and his dad’s Camels. I smoked for almost 39 years — mostly hi-test Kools.
My last cigarette was on Feb. 15, 2003. I extinguished the butt with my right hand as my left hand was opening a door on 16th Street that was to become home for the next two months. The bruise on my ankle had infected. Two of the three arteries that supply the lion’s share of blood to the extremity were hopelessly compromised. The staff at UCLA-Santa Monica Hospital performed a bypass to try to restore circulation to my left foot. They were as successful as they could have expected to be. Now all that remained was to gain control of what turned out to be several infections.
The second surgery resulted in the various small wounds being debrided into one large one. At that point, I was transferred to UCLA Medical Center in Westwood where Dr. Thomas Watson would make several attempts at a free flap closure of the wound. It would require a graft of skin running from the underside of my wrist to just short of my elbow and extending half way around my forearm, about 10 inches by 8 inches. Before the free flap could be completed, the progress of the infection into the ankle joint was discovered. Surgery five was the guillotine amputation of the foot with surgery six the final revision. I was transferred back to UCLA-Santa Monica for rehab. I hopped out of the hospital 58 days after walking in.
I recently celebrated a year of being smoke-free. Not one day of it has passed that I have not craved a smoke. I know that, in my case, to smoke is to die. That is not what keeps me away from tobacco. The distress that my wife endured during my confinement and subsequent disability provides the impetus to keep me clean. Annette deserves much better.
In 39 years of smoking, I heard all about lung cancer. I heard about heart disease. I sometimes heard about emphysema. Once in a blue moon I may have heard about circulatory problems. Not once in 39 years did I ever hear of a linkage between smoking and loss of body parts. It would not have mattered if I had. I am addicted to tobacco, which brings us to the fallacy in Mr. Gray’s screed.
Rights in their exercise require an application of free will. Addictive substance use can never, by definition, be classed as an exercise of a right. Our society enables the use for any number of reasons, not the least of which is the several dollars per pack in tax revenue generated. Despite irrefutable proof of harm and health hazard no government so fully invested in tobacco revenue will regulate the use of the weed. It is not a matter of “choice” because the substance is addictive in nature. That fact alone is more than ample justification for regulation. So when Mr. Gray says smoking is a right, I can only reply, “My foot!”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 18, 2004. Read the original PDF.