Just in time to support the Coloradan Nazi Party [before anyone accuses me of invoking Godwin's Spurious Law, understand that a primary tenet of nazism, as laid out by Hitler himself, was that smoking should be banned outright], Surgeon General Dick Carmona released his latest findings from debunked junkscience propaganda dating back several decades; these belated findings included a spectacular bit of news.

Ready for it?

Secondhand smoke forces the same amount of nicotine, et cetera, upon nonsmokers as the smokers themselves are able to get from a cigarette.

More, really. See, because, when I smoke a cigarette, I'm right there with it; but, as the aflatoxic smoke dissipates through the air and reaches the nonsmoker's lungs: Shazam, Baby!

So: you're welcome.

No need even to thank me. I don't mind doing it. I was smoking anyway; I was spending three bucks on each pack either way. Knowing that you nonsmokers are getting at least as much out of each cigarette as I am, and all for free...it makes me feel good to know that I'm being this philanthropic, feeding the nicotine addictions you all necessarily have.

I mean, that's the point, isn't it? If you're getting as much nicotine or more than I am per cigarette...it shouldn't take a genius to figure out that you, more than I, have no chance in all hell of quitting...except that you've quit by not starting; and I think that's economically prudent.

Now, don't think you're taking advantage of me too much. After all: At three bucks a pack, the price of cigarettes in Colorado is still pretty low against the national average; and, fortunately, the antismokers selling their proverbial souls to kick the price of each pack up by eighty cents in the last hike, I don't have to worry about the prices rising again; stipulations hidden within the final taxhike amendment included a replacement factor--the taxhike was passed under the condition that the taxhike alone--the eighty cents per pack--would fund all antismoking bullshit, removing the larger, more substantial, and more appropriate funding; additionally, the taxhike amendment contained a tiny paragraph mentioning that, in the event of some natural disaster somewhere in the state, that eighty cents per pack would be stolen from the antismokers, leaving them nothing, and instead going to aid whatever big horrible important threat to life had reared its ugly head.

As a smoker: I, for one, feel all warm inside, having donated eighty cents per pack to the housing and healthcare of all those morons who forgot to leave New Orleans in time, and ended up as refugees here in Denver. Or, I feel all warm inside because I just inhaled three-hundred-degree smoke. In any case, though...

Of course, there are those who would disagree with Dick, complaining that all secondhand smoke does is cause cancer. In fact, a quick glance on the 'net will show you some of those. Watch for statements like Wow; I always thought I'd maybe felt kinda sick because I saw a cigarette once; now that Dick has recycled antiquated junkscience funded entirely by antismoking activists, I know I got sick because I saw that cigarette, even though my name wasn't in Dick's report, and I'm conjecturing entirely; also, evil universal forces cause my toast to land buttered side down, and Oswald was framed; excuse the crayon, but there are no sharp objects or smoking allowed in here....

Okay, so I'm joking. Of course cancer is caused by secondhand smoke. In fact, that's why cancer is on the rise, now that firsthand smokers have dropped from 55% of the national population sixty years ago, to as little as 20% [depending on the antismokerfunded reports] today; and that's even with aboveground nuclear testing having been banned fifty years ago. But we can overlook the nukes; everyone knows that secondhand smoke is way worse than global thermonuclear war.

Sure, other countries, in which a far larger percentage of citisens smoke indoors and out, might have lower instances of cancer. But who cares about countries lacking the industrial and patriotic advances enjoyed by the US: hundreds of millions of petrolburning, smokeexhausting automobiles; skylines' worth of factories converting resources into smog and providing pretty sunsets; artificial sweeteners making Diet Coke yummy and liverkilling without all that added fat; sunny beaches injecting ten times the millirads per hour of happy, healthy radiation as any of those poor, neanderthal bastards cramped deep within Chernobyl ever got; spaceshuttles which almost never explode before expending more carcinogenic fuel on liftoff than any ten Peterbilts can produce in a year...I could go on, but I'm too filled with nationalist glee just thinking about all the things you Americans could be breathing, instead of my smoke.

But I have good news. See, secondhand smoke is murder. Just like meat, fur, abortion, and crows. And that's great. Because I like meat and fur and abortion and crows. I like, based on this information, murder. So, if smoking is murder, then I'm excited to be a part of it.

Of course, there have been some setbacks.

Yes, Children: beginning yesterday, the smoking ban for the state went into effect as expected. Now, as I've mentioned, I'm perfectly in favour of this ban, for a number of reasons, many listed over at NotS there. But there are additional advantages, which I didn't really want to brag about, back in March.

There's the obvious one. Cigarettes are three bucks a pack. A pack lasts me at least...uh...three packs a day...a day being, in my case, about thirty-six hours...divided by three...a pack of cigarettes lasts me for about twelve hours. Is that a bargain, or what? Twelve hours, at three bucks...that's, like, twenty-five cents an hour? Compared to the prices at a restaurant? Can you imagine sitting at a restaurant long enough to stretch that value out to two bits an hour? We're talking six bucks a day. You can't drive to a restaurant for six bucks a day, let alone sit there for twenty-four hours. Even if you walked, you'd get there and sit down and get coffee for $1.59 and a cheeseburger for $7.99 and--but then you'd have to stop for a bit; you're up to nine or ten bucks already, at around 8% sales tax; and we haven't even tipped the server yet. I like to give my waitress a tip; hell, if I'm in the right mood, I give her the whole thing. But that's another story; we won't discuss it now.

So, we're already at, say, twelve bucks. In fairness, that's about my average total for VillageIdiot anyway, according to the DiscoverCard statements. But, what am I really getting for that twelve bucks? If it were cigarettes, I'd be getting forty-eight hours. The trick is that, even if VillageIdiot let me sit there with coffee and a cheeseburger for forty-eight hours, I'd probably just eat the burger right near the beginning, and want something else by a couple days from now. So, really, that sucks a bit.

So, not being allowed to join you secondhand smokers in the restaurants is irksome to all of us; but it's saving me oodles of money. Of course, since I still don't like to brag, I won't go into detail on my inspired process of deducting all my cigarettes from taxes since I smoke them within my selfsponsored longitudinal study; it's this experiment I've got going on where I smoke 730 packs per year for a hundred years and then measure the effects against the control group, who merely breathe all that patriotic goodness mentioned above.

Yeah. I do feel a bit bad that I can't murder you all in the act of quelling your supersmokerlevel nicotine addictions. But, there again, with all the money I'm saving, I'll soon be able to buy an island in the South Pacific and allow mandate smoking everywhere, just to make the lives of my secondhand smoking denisens a little better.

It's just the kinda guy I am.