[NEohioPAL]RE: smoking

[Lee Kamps]

It is now a well known fact that exposure to cigarette and tobacco smoke is
deadly whether you are the one smoking or if you are exposed to second hand
smoke. In fact, recent studies have confirmed that second hand smoke is
worse than "first hand smoke" and that prolonged exposure to second hand
smoke is as deadly as if you were the one smoking. That is why the voters of
Ohio passed the "smoke free Ohio" law banning indoor smoking in public
places.

It never comepletely banned the sale of cigarettes nor said that no adult
can decide to smoke. It is still an individual choice whether or not to
smoke cigarettes. However no one else should be involuntarily exposed to
second hand smoke, no matter what. There is nothing wrong with showing
smoking on stage in a play if the script calls for it. However there are
good props and fake cigarettes that could be used to show cigarette smoking.

My gosh, when I was a kid, we used to play with fake cigarettes that used
flour to simulate cigarette smoke. It made us kids look tough and just like
those adults we saw in the movies and on television smoking. If that was
good enough for a bunch of children playing at smoking, why not use it on
stage?

I'll bet that if those famous actors, entertainers and television
personalities that were killed from cigarette smoking (John Wayne, Sammy
Davis Jr., Nat "King" Cole, Edward R. Murrow, Peter Jennings, Humphrey
Bogart) could come back from the grave; they would be telling everyone never
to start smoking cigarettes. I met a doctor a while back whose specialty was
treating addictions. He said that nicotine was by far the most addictive
drug out there. He said it was more addictive than cocaine, heroin and
booze. There should be no reason to glamorize cigarette smoking on stage.

Lee Kamps

-----Original Message-----
From: neohiopal-admin at lists.fredsternfeld.com
[mailto:neohiopal-admin at lists.fredsternfeld.com]On Behalf Of TONY BROWN
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2007 11:50 AM
To: neohiopal at lists.fredsternfeld.com; D. Budin
Subject: Re: [NEohioPAL]Tony Brown


boy-howdy! did that column spark debate. good. that's my job.

anyway, two last (and i mean last, on my part) comments:

1. i don't doubt the health effects of smoking; i smoke on and off (mostly
on the last couple of years), and i feel the effects when i do. i voted for
the smoking ban, and the places i frequent that enforce it are more pleasant
for it. but my point is: the issues raised in this debate are best left to
playwrights, directors, designers, special effects people, and actors to
decide, not lawyers and legislators and judges and (god forbid) our
supremely informed voters. taking that artistic decision away from stage
artists constitutes censorship, just as with nudity and obscenity. we cannot
allow that to happen. if stage artists determine that the best way to
portray a playwright's character is for the actor to smoke real cigarettes,
then they should be free to do so, with perhaps some audience warnings if
the space is such that the audience is going to breathe the smoke.

2. i mastered the art and science of the shift key a few years back. it's a
long tradition in newspapers to write in all lowercase when what is being
written is not intended to show up in the newspaper. we also misspell
deliberately for the same reason. if you want to know the origin of "ok," it
was born of newspaper-ese. some editor or other used to mark copy that was
ready for the typesetters "oll korrect" -- the misspelling signaling to the
typesetters that it ("oll korrect") was not to be set in type as part of the
copy. it was eventually shortened to "ok."

anyway. thanks for the debate. it's extremely gratifying.

tony



>>> "D. Budin" <popcycles at sbcglobal.net> 4/16/2007 1:28 AM >>>
Actually, I don't have a strong opinion on the smoking-on-stage issue, but
just a question for Tony Brown: So, do your editors at the PD put in all
your upper case letters for you?  (Or are you actually a cockroach, like Don
Marquis's Archy, jumping from key to key and unable to hold down the shift
key?)

  David Budin

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