Bad for being addicted. Bad for not being able to quit. Bad bad bad. Puff puff puff. As adults, I think we can openly admit that people smoke because it can help take the edge off life's stresses.
Smoking is a crutch, a coping mechanism and a dirty, filthy, disgusting habit.
It is all of these things. And so much more. And yet, in the public debate over whether Winnipeg should ban smoking in restaurants and bars, talk about people's relationship to their smoking habit has been strikingly absent. Penni Mitchell does. Somewhere in our lean towards respecting non-smokers rights, the issue has flipped into being against people who smoke.