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So apparently Westminster, MA is trying to become the first city in the country to ban the sale of cigarettes. Their board of health proposed it, and now the Massachusetts State Board of Health will have the final say. Question – is this the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard or is the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard? I mean, what the hell are these people smoking (no pun intended) if they think this will deter people from smoking in ANY WAY possible?

First let me say that I think smoking is nasty. It really is disgusting. I’ve smoked a cigarette or two in my day – 99% of which were smoked at Cooks Pond when I was 17 and trying to impress some future hairdresser junior smokeshow from Holy Name. The one good thing about a cigarette is it lasts the perfect amount of time. It gives you a five-minute opportunity to have a conversation with someone and then end it in a non-awkward fashion. The conversation ends when the cigarette ends and you don’t have to make up some bullshit excuse to stop talking to this guy:

But other than that cigarettes are the biggest scam going. And I for one thing think that the Massachusetts State Legislature’s best day’s work was the day they banned cigarette smoking in bars and restaurants. When I first turned 21 I knew exactly where I was going on Friday and Saturday nights – Leitrims. It was a magical place filled with cheap beer, accessible girls with questionable morals, and a giant cloud of second hand smoke. You’d wake up the next morning and you smelt like your Aunt Marie’s living room.

Then smoking got banned and it was like a God damn revolution. Now when you go into a bar you can actually breathe, and you don’t have some raspy woman from Busgate 2014 dropping ashes on your shoes. And I swear to God, this has cut down on the number of smokers in Massachusetts by at least half. Why? Because it’s not convenient or cool to smoke anymore. If you’re pounding down keystones and everyone around you is smoking then you’re a million times more likely to smoke than you are if you have to go outside with some dude who wants to explain to you the story behind all of his tattoos. Smoking is all about convenience – social smokers won’t do it if it’s a pain in the ass. And 110% of smokers begin as social smokers.

But what the Board of Health is doing is just plain stupid. You know what this is gonna solve? Absolutely NOTHING. I mean, what are they trying to accomplish here? Do they think some dude from Westminster who’s been smoking for 35 years is gonna quit because he has to go to Fitchburg now? The only difference is once these people have to go to Fitchburg to get cigarettes they can pick up some heroine on the way home.

The argument being made is that it will keep kid’s from smoking. Newsflash idiots – kids can’t buy cigarettes legally. They get one of their 18 year old friends to buy it for them. Now little Junior from Oakmont Regional High School is gonna be taking rides into Fitchburg with 18 year old freshman friend from Leominster. Now he’s completely fucked. Nice going Board of Health.

Oh yea, and fuck the local economy right? I mean, Westminster is a thriving metropolis anyway, so they can totally afford to lose all the money they’d be bringing in off the sale of cancer sticks. Like these guys right here:

The Westminster Board of Health is considering a ban on tobacco sales in town. Brian Vincent, right, owner of VincentÕs Country Store, is upset with the way this will hurt his business. Also pictured are employees Vinny McInnis, left, and Jonathan Aho.
SENTINEL & ENTERPRISE / Ashley Green

Stores like this don’t exist without two essential elements: scratch tickets, and cigarettes. We’ve all seen it before. You just wanna buy a gallon of milk and you have some moron in front of you saying in the thickest Massachusetts accent possible, “I’ll have two numbah 13’s, two numbah 20’s, three numbah 5’s, 18 quick picks, and a pack of Newports.”

We all hate these people. Hey idiot, you think I like spending my free time with you at Cumberland Farms? I realize you’re a complete waste of space and have no problem burning your limited funds on these vices. But don’t let it affect my life by making me wait in Cumby’s for a minute longer than I have to. Get the hell out of my way.

You just wanna smack some sense into these poor nudniks  – one quick pick is worth the same as 500 quick picks. You’re not gonna win on any of them and it barely increases your odds of winning anything. Guess what? 500 chances out of 5 million might as well be 1 chance out of 5 million. Not happening either way. BUT these people are ESSENTIAL to both the local economy and the tax base. Do you like your roads paved? Because I do. Well guess what? Massachusetts is gonna start looking like Macedonia if these people don’t keep blowing their paychecks on the thrilling world of state-sanctioned gambling and cigarette taxes.

And guess what happens if Westminster gets rid of cigarettes? They’ll be the first town in the country whose economy is solely based off the sale of crackers:

Hopefully those crackers up in Westminster like their crackers, because their entire economy depends on them now.

This is Andrea Crete,

Courtesy of T&G Staff/CHRISTINE PETERSON

one of the three members of the Massachusetts Board of Health who will decide this issue. Guess where she DOESN’T live? Westminster. But for whatever reason this purple carpetbagger gets to arbitrarily decide that businesses can’t sell a product that is 150% legal. The townsfolk in Westminster are all up in arms about this, presumably because they enjoy freedom. They asked her at a selectmen’s meeting yesterday whether or not she would be voting for the ban. She declined to say. AKA, she’s voting for the ban.

The bottom line for the Westminster Board of Health is this – stop trying to save the world. Of course people shouldn’t smoke. But this is America. And in America you have the right to slowly kill yourself and blow all your money without some do-gooders trying to protect you from yourself.

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