Ottawa County in Michigan proposes to ban smoking outdoors based on what may appear on the surface as some very scary sounding numbers. Add in some extreme speculation presented as fact, mention "the children" and….PRESTO….another oppressive ban takes shape.
Some quick and honest fifth grade level math reveals the reality of the "problem". The cigarette butts picked up by these volunteers weigh in at about 200 lbs. Stating that this accounts for "62%" of the total of 20,000 lbs of garbage picked up is not just fudging the numbers. This is an out and out fraudulent lie…..off by a factor of 62 since the correct percentage is 1. Approximately ten tons of garbage was removed from Ottawa County’s beaches last year. If nary a butt had been on the beach, they still would have picked up….that’s right….approximately ten tons of garbage.
Outdoor bans based on litter have become an ever-more popular method of pushing smokers around and whether it has to do with beach butts or Second Hand Smoke casualties, the antis seem to have no problem convincing the masses and the politicians that 2 + 2 = 42.
Their lies become bolder and their rhetoric more shrill with each ban that passes. At what point will we-the-people take back, by whatever means necessary, the rights and dignity they so gleefully strip from all of us.
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