Roadkill Journal

The first, but likely not the last, unanticipated consequence of Washington State’s new smoking ban is the topic of Jake Ellison’s report this morning in the Seattle P-I:

“The smoking ban: No ifs or ands ... but plenty of butts”

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/257262_butts27.html

It seems those selfish smokers are tossing their butts on the sidewalks!

You know, there is only one thing to do: We need another law. In fact, not just a law, but an entire legal initiative! A campaign!

First, we need butt tracking.

We need to coerce the tobacco industry. Cigarettes need to be numbered – registered, even! Individual cigarettes need tracking ID’s, complete with barcodes. Oh sure, it’ll cost Big Tobacco a few bucks to set up, but they are so used to being economically sodomized that by now they like it. They’ll go along. After all, they can pass the cost to the customers. Smokers are addicts, and will pay anything for a fix…

Of course, retailers will have to track the sales of cigarettes, and keep records going back at least a year. The State should set up a system so smokers – for a suitably large fee – can get special “pariah” ID’s decorated with a skull and crossbones which retailers can scan. All the data will be uploaded to a special “air offender” database.

Then we need to crack down on the “butt-heads” who are the cause of all this trouble.

We need to vigorously enforce the littering laws. We need a new, bigger fine just for butts – it will be necessary to pay for the army of butt cops equipped with barcode readers. We’ll need new holding facilities – smoke free, of course. And special courts for raking in the dough.

And then we need to get tough on those miscreants who help teens smoke, whether it’s intentional or not. Any time someone under 18 is caught smoking, the cigarette will be tracked back through the database to the purchaser. I think jail time is in order for this offense, even if you’re just a store clerk who accepted a bad ID.

Of course, this will be a “three strikes” offense… Those things are deadly weapons, you know…

Speaking of criminal offences, we’ll need to make defacing a cigarette barcode in any way a felony…

We need to get tough on the butts themselves. With all the nasty chemicals they contain, butts don’t belong in an ordinary landfill. We need a new hazardous waste designation just for butts, complete with mandatory collection and cradle to grave tracking. We’ll need a special new disposal facility…

Finally, we can’t ignore the most important item: A butt tax to pay for it all. As it is, we’re taxing the cigarettes, but the butts get a bye. That just isn’t right.

After all, there is a war on, and tobacco is the enemy! Onward, smoking NAZIS!!!