Wally Smith was smoker as a younger man. He was smoker when he and Auntie Kay and daughter moved to Oliver. Every spring he caught a cold, and when he started a fire in the orchard from an improperly doused cigarette, he promptly quit the habit.

The Oliver Co-op Hardware Store gave Christmas presents to all the members, a carton of cigarettes every year without fail. Didn’t matter if you smoked or not. I don’t know what Wally did with his carton but every Christmas he complained about the gift.

I always heard about how vile smoking was from Wally and Auntie Kay. To me smoking had a deceptive innocence about it. Our neighbors all smoked, the Taskers, the Jardines, the Adams, the Bonnetts, to name a few. I enjoyed the company of these families and really didn’t see the harm that tobacco use was doing.

At the age of 16, when my friend Beverly Tasker offered a cigarette to me I accepted the opportunity. Upon taking the smoke into my mouth and blowing it out again I didn’t see the big deal until Bev told me to inhale, then I choked!

Instead of just abandoning the whole smoking idea, I asked Bev how she could handle the smoke. She told me the easiest way was to French inhale, which I tried and found smoking much easier. I was hooked. From that day on I smoked occasionally, mostly at school, down by the pump house and around town.

I smoked for 8 years. In the spring of 1973, when cigarettes were .90 a pack I quit. The first thing I noticed was how happy my parents were that I’d quit the vile habit. Since I wasn’t spending every nickel and dime on tobacco, I had change in my pockets.

I no longer burned holes in my clothing and didn’t have to worry about knocking the burning ash onto the car seat while I was driving, that happened a time or two. Today that would be called distracted driving.

Today, tobacco use has changed a lot over the years. There are new flavors to attract people, but not in NDP Alberta. Even the old standby menthol is now banned in Alberta as of September 30th 2015. Menthol was what I smoked in my new smoking days, everything else was too harsh for my tender mouth and throat.

It is interesting to note that the president of the Western Convenience Stores Association, Mr. Andrew Klukas said prior to the Alberta NDP decision, and I quote, Making the sale of all flavored products like menthol cigarettes illegal will predominantly impact adults who will no longer be able to buy the products they have used responsibly and enjoyed for many years, unquote.

Mr. Klukas is trying to convince us that addicted adults are acting responsibly and have been enjoying their addiction for many years. This sounds absurd to me. Once hooked, I hated smoking and despised my addiction to the tobacco plant.

Our new NDP government is the one acting responsibly for the common good since we adults have trouble in the responsibility department, especially when it comes to addictions. Since banning tobacco altogether is out of the question, the government has done the best it can.

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