There are some double standards at work here. I am not a smoker, but am puzzled at the hysterical and Puritanical anti-smoking sentiments I sometimes encounter. Smokers of tobacco (a legal substance) have been demonized, something which runs counter to the more compassionate attitudes that have developed toward other types of substance abuse (which, in some cases, can also lead to AIDS). Odd.

I once saw a great t-shirt which read: "Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Should be a convenience store, not a gov't agency."

"There seems to be a moral confusion here."

Karen....that is the very definition of liberalism.

"I once saw a great t-shirt which read: "Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Should be a convenience store, not a gov't agency."

Isn't that Wal-Mart? ;)

Karen:

Very good points. You probably know this, but here are some reasons why illness is politicized:

1) Funding, funding, funding. Organizations devoted to finding cures for diseases almost all function under the belief that all they need is government funding to get those cures. So they try to make it politically uncomfortable to ignore them. It's an interesting thesis, but it's never worked, by the way. All it's done is set the organizations against each other in a mad dash for attention rather than working together to improve all health care funding.

2) Most AIDS activists are convinced that they would be getting more attention and would have a cure by now if it weren't for the fact that so many of those with the disease are gay. They would have a great point if our government were really mobilized against all those other diseases. Let's see, cancer? Nope, we still have that one. Heart disease? Still going strong. Macular degeneration, a disease that causes blindness for millions of the nation's strongest voting bloc (the elderly)? Nope, not even that one has been cured. You get the idea.

3) The hardest thing to tell people sometimes is that the horrible thing that's happened to them is really no other human being's fault. People who get cancer or AIDS despite being responsible have every right to be angry and upset... but not necessarily at their fellow man, especially when that fellow man or woman is often a doctor or scientist breaking his/her back to care for them or find that cure. It's an old story that goes all the way back to Cain and Abel. Cain's sacrifice was rejected, and so he blamed and killed his brother. That worked out really well in the end.

I always thought it was interesting how Magic Johnson was held in such high esteem when he came out with the fact that he had HIV. And we all know how he acquired it...unlike Ryan White, who was an innocent victim of the disease. Years later, Magic announced that he was free of the disease because he had prayed to G-d. So I guess G-d doesn't give a darn about every other person who still has the disease or has died from it. (only former NBA stars with lot's of clout and money)

Brava, Karen, for taking the reins in hand, having your say and leaving us with a thoughtful message.

The reins are always in my hand.

And thus...a double brava to you!!

If you have AIDS you are shielded, even though you might spread it to others, and you are given glamourized status, absolved from responsibility of engaging in risky behavior.

There are some good points here. What we know based upon science is that if you are a smoker there is an awfully good chance that you have done some real damage to yourself and to others.

We also know thanks to science that if you have the HIV virus there is a good chance that you may have contracted it from engaging in an unsafe activity. In that respect it is not so different from smoking, but there is still the chance that you may have contracted it from some other method too.

So what we have is a question of personal responsibility. Are you accountable for your actions.

Jack, the evidence for secondhand smoke is actually pretty shoddy. The evidence for secondhand AIDS, however, is pretty good.

I was working at the hospital in 1983-4, when the first AIDS training came in for health-care workers. We weren't allowed to mention the connection with gay men, for fear of insulting and stigmatising them. A year later it became the fashion to highlight the connection with gayness instead. This has gone back and forth for two decades. It is alternately politically correct to associate AIDS with gay men and next week declare that anyone can get it.

Jack, the evidence for secondhand smoke is actually pretty shoddy.

AVI,

It is not shoddy enough to say that there is no correlation between illnesses caused by exposure to second hand smoke.

And there is no question that smoking is harmful. One could much more easily make the argument that a smoker is potentially hurting others than someone who is HIV positive.

The HIV positive man/woman has to essentially bleed on an open cut for them to hurt you whereas the smoker need nearly light up nearby, shoddy evidence or not.

Jack:

If you think that all an HIV positive person has to do is bleed on an open cut to transmit the disease, well uh, please write to me privately and I'll explain to you some fairly shocking facts of life. That's not how HIV is primarily transmitted. Not in America.