Surely we've reached the saturation point in anti-smoking education/propaganda. At this level of bombardment and legislation, the only people who will take up smoking are the ones who really want to, and there will always be plenty of such people regardless of how thoroughly they've been educated about its dangers. Smoking may be foul, and hazardous to your health, and an annoyance to some people around you, but it's also one of life's perfect pleasures, just ask Fran Lebowitz. Has any PSA of any kind ever affected anyone's life? I quit smoking a couple of years ago, and while I never have physical cravings, I do miss it. There are numerous physical and psychological benefits to smoking. It says so in this pamphlet, "So You Want to Shorten Your Life." Non-smokers lose credibility when they claim that all smokers are caught in the vise grip of a pitiless addiction, or ensnared by seductive advertising or peer pressure and nothing more.

If smoking didn't exist, think how much more awkward and stilted homosexual social life would be. I can't tell you the number of times I've been approached in bars by guys asking for a light, or to bum a smoke, it's the perfect way to ease into a conversation. My spirit crushed by years of futility, I no longer go to bars to meet people, but I can't imagine how it would be possible without smoking. Of course these days you're probably more likely to be avoided and shunned for smoking. When someone in a gay bar asks you for a light, not only have they made their interest known without having to acknowledge it, but then you get to steal an up-close glance at them when you light their cigarette, because people always, always look down when you light their cigarette. That few seconds is all you need, it's like a gift of intimacy before its natural time. And not only that, but drinking without smoking just seems impoverished somehow. A drink and a smoke, the perfect combination. You sit there with discolored fingertips, ruining your health in two distinct but equally satisfying ways, hoping to meet someone of substance despite the incredible odds against you, odds made longer by the fact that you smell like an ashtray. Maybe it requires a tragicomic view of life to see the beauty in that.

Most importantly, smoking needs to exist so that in country songs, guys can still get in their pickup trucks and go out for smokes and never come back, hitting the open road. It doesn't work with toilet paper.