Where you get your kicks
by Michael Maiello

Well, we've learned some pretty scary things about the tobacco companies in the past few weeks. Stuff you might never have dreamed of. For instance, they've been regulating the amount of nicotine they put in cigarettes. They've been using high nicotine blends and they've even used other chemicals to increase the nicotine dose.

Next, I'll be told that the makers of Jack Daniels have been putting alcohol in my whiskey. What I thought was a refreshing sports drink might actually make you drunk.

Okay, so the tobacco companies have been caught in a lie. They keep saying nicotine isn't addictive while they keep making cigarettes with higher nic kicks. They shouldn't have been lying in the first place, and I suppose that's the story.

But, let's be honest. People don't smoke cigarettes for the taste. They smoke because it produces a sickly buzz. If the cigarette doesn't give the buzz, there's no point to smoking it. Which would be just fine with the anti-smoking puritans. But who the hell asked them, anyway? Wait a minute-- better have a cigarette and calm the hell down.

Ahh-- I'm back. Cough. Ack. Eeew, what's that on my computer screen? Hope that didn't come from my throat.

So, they're not good for you. We're all clear on that. Alcohol isn't good for you either. And, you can drive while smoking and it doesn't cause a problem unless you drop the flaming stick in your lap.

I have to say, I'm all for a lot of smoking bans. All public buildings, for example. But I think people should be able to smoke outside, and I think restaurants should be able to decide for themselves where people can and can't smoke. As long as their employees know what they're getting into. Airplanes? I'm all for a ban. They're too enclosed and it's better if we all refrain. Airports? Come on, those things are huge. There's plenty of room for smoking sections.

FDA regulation? Only to monitor. Make sure no one puts a dead rat in my Camels. Marketing to kids? That's a tough one. You may have noticed that the television shows which appeal to people in their early twenties also appeals to kids. I'm talking "The Simpsons" and "South Park" among others. Using childish mediums for adult entertainment has been one of the trends of the nineties. It's one of those "irony" things we media savvy younger adults tend to enjoy. So, where do you draw the line on advertising aimed at the ironic young set who have reached majority and those actual minors who like the same stuff? I don't know. I guess they've found documents showing that the tobacco companies were targeting minors specifically, and that's got to stop.

But, I do think we have to be careful about the first amendment which allows people to advertise products everyone might not like. I would like to see the Partnership for a Drug Free America banned from advertising, but if I can restrain myself in the name of the Constitution, maybe we need to relax restrictions on cigarette and tobacco advertising. I'm also worried about a creeping effect. If we have to retire Joe Camel, shouldn't we retire the Budweiser frogs? All right, so no big loss there. Except that we're basically limiting free speech and controlling images, and I think the Founding Fathers would be a little disappointed in us?

"What? You can't have a camel pushing tobacco?" Jefferson would say. "Next you'll be telling me I can't light up this pipe full of hemp!"

Let people make up their own minds. The lesson is this --booze has to have alcohol to be fun, and cigarettes have to have nicotine to be fun. There are some people out there who don't want anyone to have any fun, and those people aren't any fun.

Michael Maiello likes to have fun wherever he happens to be at the time.

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