Read it here (it’s the last one on the page): Opinion - Threads

I sent a ‘Letter to the Editor’ to the DC Examiner last week, and it was printed in today’s edition. Here is the text of the letter, as printed:

No parallels between drinking and smoking

From: Keaven Freeman, Washington

RE: “Ban smoking? Why not ban drinking, too?” June 22

When I read Michael Neibauer’s article, I went from rolling my eyes to laughing to being frustrated.

Is D.C. Council Member Carol Schwartz completely ignorant of the differences between smoking and drinking, or is she trying desperately to scare people into believing there is a slippery slope when none exists?

I will concede her point when she says 40 percent of all crimes are committed under the influence of alcohol. But what she fails to point out are the hundreds of thousands of people who are able to have the occasional drink without murdering, raping or assaulting someone, driving while intoxicated or committing any other “under the influence” crime.

I do understand that Schwartz was simply trying to make a point. The problem is that the connections she tries to make just do not work.

The best illustration I can give is this: I can go out with my friends and choose not to have a drink. If they have a few, it does not affect me at all.

However, if I go out and my friends all choose to smoke, there is no choice for me. If they smoke around me, then I smoke too — even if I don’t want to.

That is the fundamental difference, and also why smoking is “first, second and foremost” a health issue.

Drunk people do not have to drive or lose their temper. But a smoker has no control over second-hand smoke; he has no choice but to affect other people by his actions.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once said, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” The same can be said for someone else’s smoking and my lungs.