Dear Tobacco,

I feel a little like I've come to a place in my views about you, Tobacco, in that perhaps in my own way I could say I'm enlightened.

I get it now that you have this 'holy smokes it's a frickin' conspiracy theory' sort of power over humanity, and that there's not a lot I can do about it other than make sure you see how I feel. I have this odd awareness of how your presence is there, entrenched into our society; our ethics, our dogma, our laws, and even our wines sometimes have a slight tobacco flavour to them.

It's given me a sense of resolve. Of peace, kind of. I feel a little more like I can respect smokers more for their humanity in the face of addiction, for no doubt there are 1000's of times I've heard it is a hunger more powerful than heroin to need to be able to romance a smoke instead of quitting. It's like that phrase "Love them Anyway" from the Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments, scribbled into pop-culture by Kent M. Keith - I hate you, Tobacco, but love smokers anyway.

What I still have to recognize is that the power you have over me, in the way of being almost literally in my face every day, is a power I have chosen to internalize and use to push back at you. It's my choice, and my responsibility to not let you get the best of me, and to keep telling you that I'm on to you. I get it now.

And while your subtle reign will for a long time continue to be a reality in the undercurrant of humanity, you don't own me.

Om.

Dear Tobacco,

It was a beautiful sunny day for the funeral.

We drove into Olds a little early, so we stopped at the Timmy's in town there. It was pretty busy for a Friday afternoon, but we figured it was a good place to spend a few minutes so we weren't the first ones to the church. I cried a little when I saw the prayer card for Eric on the counter next to the till - it was such a perfect picture of him just before he got sick. It made me think of how many people his deep voice had touched, and how many lives his towering stature impacted to have his memory paid honour to at the local Tim Horton's. I well up a little now just thinking about it.

I cried hardest when his wife, kids, and grandkids walked down the center of the church behind his coffin. Jon held me tight as I struggled to not make too much noise or to draw too much attention - it was such a hard moment.

The eulogy was perfect. It was funny, sad, heroic, honest, and enduring. His son did a wonderful job.

I asked you earlier this week to not come to the funeral - I told you that you weren't invited. And while you didn't come inside while lit, I did smell you clinging to a couple of people that came to pay their respects. It broke my heart to see a few people hiding by their car just to share a guilty moment with you. Yet again it's your power that brings them into these moments of severe conflict where they might have been saying in their heads....

"How do I go to a funeral for someone who died of lung cancer and not emotionally kill myself because I'm out here having a smoke?"

Odds are they are a little deader inside thier souls at the same time they are a little deader in their bodies - you don't have to be so selfish you know, can't you let a person grieve without hurting themselves too?

Dear Tobacco,

I've come to figure something out about death. It's not really profound I suppose - when someone dies you cry at the weirdest things. At the oddest times. At random triggers. Or if you're just thinking of them, you kind of have this mental dialogue that goes "Oh. Oh yeah. He's gone now - dead. That means he's not coming back. "

Those are the moments when it's most real. Those are the times when I realize I'm actually in this life, living this path, feeling this pain. It's almost like pain is the only thing that makes it true, other than the obvious absence of the one you love. Those times suck.

I catch myself getting angry at you, and at myself. At you because you've managed to put a stranglehold of pain on everyone Eric knew, and angry at myself because I've let you go on this long without hearing my thoughts on the subject. I'm also angry because I, we, the world, can't seem to escape your infectious attraction or your inscessent shameless presence.

The power you have over us is criminal, you know. I'm not sure how you can sleep at night.

Dear Tobacco,

We're cornering you in Calgary. Slowly you're being removed from public places. Hopefully sooner rather than later we will not have to worry about accidentally inhaling your smoke as we pass through a public space. I'm happy about that. At least I'll be safer...

Still, our small act is a drop in the ocean when I think of the fact that about one third of 18+ Adults world-wide are smokers. In much of the world non-smoking attitudes are the minority. I can look up the stats to back that up if you like, but you know as well as I do that I'm right.

You're so greedy - I know you'd take more of us if you could.

---

April 29, 2006
Smoke ban battle heats upBy RICK BELL, CALGARY SUN

Dave Rodney lost the battle but he may soon win the war. The Calgary Conservative MLA who oversees the provincial agency on the attack against addictions, figures a new-look Alberta Tory government, complete with a fresh-out-of-the-box frontman, could nix nicotine in public places as early as spring next year. "Society is ready for it," says Dave, chairman of the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission, who considers the desire for a new law very strong in the cities and getting stronger elsewhere.
"I think as early as next session we could see the Smoke Free Places Act as originally formulated. Why wouldn't we have regulations on a toxic substance, not only for users but for the people around them? We've all known somebody dying of cancer from smoking. If we can see people living healthier, happier and longer then let's get it done.
"This could well be one of the issue leadership candidates will be debating and I wouldn't be surprised if there is a good deal of agreement about the way to go." The Tories pick a replacement for Ralph by year's end. Along with tougher butting-out legislation, Dave says higher taxes on smokes and financial incentives for those getting fit and staying fit may also not be far behind in Toryland.
"Those ideas are warming up and continue to get hotter." For Calgary, a puffing prohibition in public places in 2007, would mean Calgarians won't have to wait until Jan. 1, 2008, to breathe smoke-free in public, a provision already found in many advanced industrialized jurisdictions.
The 2008 date was decided by a gutless majority of city aldermen frightened by certain doomsday mouthpieces in the hospitality industry who predicted Calgary would become something akin to a ghost town if smokers couldn't light up in bars and casinos. Calgary is something of a ghost town socially but such a sad condition isn't about smoking, it's about the workaholic pace of Pleasantville, where you toil until you can do no more and finally plop on a couch, seeking the solace of a rented video. A provincewide ban on smoking in all spots, including bars and casinos, was proposed this time last year and failed. As a rookie Tory MLA from Calgary, Dave (Yes, He Is The Guy Who Climbed Everest Twice) Rodney, attempted to get his Conservative colleagues to back a ban on butts in public areas. To him the proposal seemed a no-brainer.
But, with few exceptions, Dave's fellow Tories, led by a most reluctant Ralph, deep-sixed his designs, only agreeing to force smokers to butt out where kids are allowed. Until there was public outrage, government MLAs wanted to smoke in their own offices. So much for brains. So much for reining in health-care costs. So much for cutting the rate of cancer. Next spring, with a new premier, almost certainly a non-smoking one, Dave's original plan has a real chance to have new life breathed into it, especially with MLAs saying they are intent on controlling medical costs. "It would be a more consistent message if action was more pronounced in every way," says Dave, who found his southwest Calgary constituents overwhelmingly support his stance. He feels it was rural MLAs who heard "loud and clear from a portion of their constituents who just weren't ready." Ray Martin is the NDP MLA who scored a win in the legislature when the ruling Conservatives agreed it would be stupid for a new provincial half-billion buck endowment fund for cancer research to invest in tobacco companies. Ray is on Tory Dave's side on this one, as is the rest of the opposition, the Liberals and Ray's colleagues on the Left. "He would have our full support. If the government wants to deal with cancer rates they must deal with the smoking issue. Last time, Klein didn't want it and no one could beat Klein. But Klein will not be around."
So the politicians ready for battle, once the Conservatives pick their general. As for the smokers who feel their rights are being denied, Dave doesn't blink. "They still have the right to smoke. They just can't smoke everywhere."

Dear Tobacco,

I thought you might want somewhere to see all the stats around how the filters from your smokes are not only major pollutants, but also a source of environmental toxins.

CVW Cigarette Litter Home

Funny - if the toxins weren't there, would there be the need for filters?

Dear Tobacco,

I wrote earlier about the little foam butts that are left at the bottom of a ciggarette. You know, the filter? I talked about how they must be filling up virtual landfills that are our streets, lawns, and containers. Well as I was leaving work I realized I'd hardly be able to count how many butts there were between the doors of the office and the 200 meters to the car. You're really invasive, you know.

Then as I was thinking about how you are everywhere, I realized that even in my backyard there is a glass bowl that I offer up as the ashtray to friends who smoke. Sure enough, there is one lonely non-biodegradable butt in there. And I think there are some buried in the dirt in my front flower planters. I wish your ass wasn't everywhere I turned, and that the entrances to my home weren't tainted by your residual presence. I wish the grass by my office wasn't littered with butts.

It's like the feces of a ciggarette, except it won't stick to your shoe if you step on it. Might as well, though.

Dear Tobacco,

Eric's funeral is tomorrow. I guess you'll be there - in spirit at least - but I wanted to tell you that I'd rather you not come.

I'd rather you not be so self-involved that you force those under your power to step outside for a smoke after the service. I hope that for some small instant that their desire to quit you is overwhelming, and that as a result of your impact on Eric and his life someone will have the strength to throw you out & out of their lives. I hope that the kids at the funeral will have a stark lesson as to why they shouldn't invite you into their lives. I hope that his family isn't mad at him, but more appropriatly mad at you. For when you and humans join in company bad things happen.

I'd rather not be having a funeral tomorrow. I'd rather have Eric back. I'd rather he had a chance to exchange every ciggarette for a minute with his loved ones. I'd rather be talking with him about his days on the farm, how he wanted to get his grandson some new rubber boots, or how he's fiercly proud of his kids and what wonderful adults they have all become.

Eric had huge hands. When I was a kid his hands were rough and calloused from years of work and sweat. I was kind of scared of them, but I grew to realize that their power was often unknown - a gentle jab terrified me as a 5 year old, but as I grew I realized his hands were really only the size of his heart. When I saw him this Easter they were still huge, but they had softened to the fine silkiness that you might expect from worn suede - a delicate membrane that while so strong is also so vulnerable. Even they used to have your stain. Hmph.

I guess you know that though.

So tomorrow we gather to cry and celebrate Eric. I don't think there will be a word spoken about you though - which is a good thing. Secretly everyone there loathes you, Tobacco, but out of respect to the man Eric was with and without you we will speak only of him.

You, are not welcome.

Dear Tobacco,

Another grass fire was started near Calgary the other day because of a butt being thrown out a car window. This happens at least twice per year - a smouldering ember of tobacco ignites the brush and grass around it and in an instant the destruction spreads. Kind of paints a scary picture eh?

When it comes to You, people forget how selfish you make them seem. How everything in the world could come to a halt if they can't get that cigarette in. How right after they've taken their last drag it might be more convenient to toss it out the window than to butt it in the ash tray. How those that do that aren't thinking of the power of nature to take any opportunity it's given to create havoc. It's like they don't respect their own potential power of destruction - not even getting started on the physical destruction on the human body.

I read some intense statistic once that suggested that all the plastic filters from cigarettes are slowly filling up thier own virtual dumps, but those dumps manage to make it onto any number of gutters, planters, sidewalks, road-sides, sewers, bottles, cans, toilet paper dispensors in bar bathrooms, and of course grass fields and campgrounds. The visibility of the stronghold that You have on our people is intense - be it debris, spit, powder, fire, smoke, or ash we all don't have far to look to see you in action.

People aren't themselves when they are addicted to you. They do things they might scold their kids for doing. They say things or sacrifice things because of the hold that you have on them. I say this partly out of suspicion, and mostly out of hope. Why? Because I know that there are good odds that Buddy who started that grass fire had no intent in hurting anyone except themselves. I can only hope that without you, Tobacco, in their life they might not have been in/directly responsible for a fire that always has the chance of taking lives.

Funny that you're able to multi-task so darned well - you can kill the host and anything else you touch in one fell swoop, even if they don't ask for it.

Pretty frickin' clever.

---

Butt sparks large grass fire

calgary.ctv.ca

jyo

POSTED AT 6:22 PM Wednesday, April 26
There was a huge grassfire Wednesday in S.E. Calgary and firefighters say it started because someone was careless with a cigarette butt.
The fire started at 1 p.m. near 57 St. and 51 Ave. S.E. It torched about 120 hectares of grassland, but there's no damage to any structures. A shifting wind made it tough for firefighters to get a handle on the blaze.
It took them a couple hours to put it out.

Dear Tobacco,

When my Mom called me at work this morning to tell me about Eric I filled in her words for her; "He died last night, didn't he..." and soon she choked out "Yes."

It was probably the saddest moment I've been through for a long time.

Later she told me that she felt it last night, I think in a stronger way than I did. She knew, and so this morning she sat talking to him as the sun rose. It wasn't long before she got the call from Dee.

I IM'd Jon to call me at work, and told him over the phone. I've only known for 2 hours now, yet this morning seems to have lasted forever.

I just thought I'd let you know.

Dear Tobacco,

Last night I had the feeling that I'd be writing you again. I thought about how you have touched my life, and the lives of everyone around me, and how I needed to get some things about you off my chest. I realized that I wanted to write lots and lots of letters to you, as a legacy to my friend Eric and his family. You see, he's the one I wrote to you about a couple of weeks back.

I had the feeling that it would take his death to actually get me going on this commitment - that it had to be something bigger than me to make me get down to expressing my thoughts, to help me talk to you about the real effects you have, and to help me grieve.

You see, Eric died last night. It was peaceful. His wife and many siblings were by his side, and indeed his whole family was nearby this past week. But as 'well timed' as a death can be, he still died as a direct result of your influence on him. He still died at least 20 years before his time. He still must leave a family behind.

I hate you.

Dear Tobacco,

Today I had dinner with the first person I've ever known to be weeks away from death because of lung cancer. Actually, he is the first person I've known that has *known* they are weeks from death, unlike my Uncle who died rather suddenly. He knows that within weeks his body will give out, his breath will be too short, but that despite it all he has made some wonderful connections and done some great things with this news.

I think it sucks that his addiction to tobacco has now taken years from his life. Granted he used to have a chocolate bar too many throughout the week, and he wasn't teriffically active, but shit - he didn't deserve this. Who the hell does.

I was scared to have dinner with their family today. I didn't know how I'd react to seeing his worn body, always near exhaustion and ever closer to shutting down. I didn't know what I'd say, how I'd act, or what I should do. What does one say to someone who will be soon facing the reality of death, the uncertainty of what comes next, even the knowledge that one may not know (care?) what happens to their lawn this summer?

We ended up having a lovely time, talking about gutters, crocs, grandkids, decks, property values, the food, brownies, painting, and of course the dogs (who came to dinner too).

I'm sad, though.

How do I give a hug to someone that recognizes that I might not see them again?

I don't know what my 'open letter to Tobacco' is really intending to say, other than the fact that people are taxing, making, profiting, investing in, and promoting tobacco are dealing with some BAD Karma. Shit, I don't know if there is a Hell, but there is the bad chi that surrounds tobacco. I'd like those people to know that the water they drink and the air they breathe has the moisture of the tears from those that have been touched by their labours. Our tears dreading the imminent cancerous death of our life-long friend, the tears that will come after, and ultimately the tears of all others suffering a similar fate are in the air that you and I breathe every day.

It's bizarre how much of our consciences we're able to 'turn off' to make a buck.

God, this sucks.