Issue with the Georgia Smoking Ban

Georgia recently passed a smoking ban - no smoking in public anything. The only place that opens itself up legally for smokers now is a private smokers club.

Personally, I think this is kind of great. I hate smoking indoors. It hangs in this haze around the ceiling, makes your hair smell gross, and makes my eyes water.

However, zee and I were discussing some of the downfalls of this ban this morning, arguments that I hadn't really thought of.

First, everyone knows that smoking in bars is kind of necessary - a lot of smokers only smoke while drinking. So obviously a ban on smoking in public places restricts this bar smoking demographic. That's a bit of a problem.

What I didn't think about was the effect on concerts or other music venues. Zee and I wanted to go to this hard rock/metal concert in August. ( System of the Down - we like the lyrics - "Why'd you leave the ketchup on the table"!!!!!!!!!) We realized in this post Gen X age, where everyone at concerts is now tripping on X, this non-smoking ban causes a lot of problems.

You see, the only tickets I could find were seemingly the best tickets - right up front. However, in this day of bone-breaking mosh pits, for old fogies such as us, sitting in the front is a bad move. Of course all of the tickets way up high have already been taken by old folks.

Zee pointed out that now, due to the smoking ban, you have a large group of 20-somethings tripping on X, moshing, and dying for a smoke to put away the Ecstasy jitters. Ouch. That sounds really painful. What do you do, dedicate a smoking lounge? Do you put a bunch of frazzled young uns in a small room together to smoke, while they are busy pissing eachother off in their X delirium or while they are anxiously touching eachother? (My first thought of people on X is the movie "Rocky Horror Picture Show" - the song lyrics, "Touch me touch me touch me touuuuuccccchhhh meeeeee....")

What about raves? How does that work? Everyone needs a 15 minute break to stop dancing, get even more dehydrated, and smoke.

How about pot at concerts? The familiar stench of people passing joints will now be a day in the past, unless you attend some Bonaroo fest on some lawn somewhere in the boonies. What do potheads do now, bring brownies to share? "Bite, bite, give, motherfu#$er!"

Anyway, I am altogether pretty happy about the smoking ban. Sending zee and my daughter to Huddle House for breakfast seems altogether more appetizing now, since they won't be shrouded in a nicotine haze.

My issue is with all the venues where non-traditional, anti-establishment activities take place anyway. Those little fu$% heads get their only release from their pack of Camels.