The smoke still lingers from last week’s Turn on the Lite. And this week I’m really seeing red—through all the gray smoke that is. And you should be irritated as well. Can you believe it? Lawmakers in twenty-two states have actually had the audacity to pass laws that ban smoking statewide. Yep, you heard me right. These lawmakers took it upon themselves to respect the rights of citizens who don’t want to pollute their lungs with secondhand smoke.

The nerve of these lofty lawmakers—taking both young and old alike into consideration while contemplating these smoke-free laws. What were they thinking? Just because the American Lung Association has reported that secondhand smoke is responsible for between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in infants and children under 18 months of age, resulting in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations each year, and causes 430 sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths in the United States annually…exactly who do these lawmakers think they are?

And who in the world cares about the rising costs of healthcare? Sure smoking causes one in five deaths in America and the total cost of caring for people with health problems caused by cigarette smoking is about $72.7 billion per year, but why should we care about such waste? Don’t we taxpayers have money to burn?

No ifs, ands, or butts about it; lawmakers in the smoke-free states definitely stuck their noses where they don’t belong…right into the smoke-contaminated environment. It sure is a good thing Kentucky lawmakers have better scents.