smokerphobia; noun

Stigmatization & Misinformation

Smokerphobes stigmatize smokers by definition. Using misleading statistics, for example, "80% of lung cancer is caused by smoking". Sounds scary, sounds like you have an 80% chance of developing cancer. This however does not indicate the rate at which smokers may develop lung cancer. Even if it were 100%, there is still no information as to the probability. In reality the data shows, at best you have a 70-67% of not developing lung cancer if you smoke. Smokers accept this risk.

When these tactics don't work they try, and try to stigmatize further by claiming that smokers are 'harming' non-smokers too. There have been many attempts to link heart attacks to passive smoking, to in turn, justify prohibition. This has turned out to be incorrect. Even some anti-smokers accept there is zero evidence for outdoor prohibition. But still some wish to stigmatize or prohibit it.

Smokers and non-smokers can and have lived in harmony for centuries, the problem has, is and always will be smokerphobes. Complaining about smoking around you is one thing, complaining about someone smoking in a bar down the street in a place no one is forced to work at or even go into, is, intolerance.

The aim has always been to prompt people. To accept statements like "We need to reduce the number of smokers", seem normal. Imaging if someone were to say the same thing about any other group? Jews? Imaging if someone said we need to reduce the number of gay people? Every one of these statements is vile.

Conversion Therapy

Conversion therapy has a long history of abuse. It is mostly associated with the 'treatment' of homosexuality. However it was used just as brutally against masturbation and the mentally disabled. Today it is broadly thought to be, at best pseudoscientific, though many consider it to be psychological abuse.

The central premise is to make the subject associate something unpleasant with a behavior/desire. The film A Clockwork Orange depicted this process applied to a violent criminal. However the moral of the story is that despite what he had done, it was horrific abuse.

Today only smokerphobic groups still advocate for this pseudoscientific treatment. Forced conversion therapy on cigarette packs is wrong. Forcing a medical treatment on someone is wholly unethical. A pseudoscientific one should be a crime. The film's most famous line is "But it works!"

Cultural genocide

The end game for anti-smokers is the total eradication of smokers as an ethno-culture. Some hope that they can make a smoker-free generation through outright prohibition, and smokers will die off. This only makes people become repressed smokers. Marijuana has been prohibited for a century in many countries, yet is more popular than ever. Simply put, it is national, spiritual and cultural destruction. This is the definition of Cultural genocide.

If we prohibit smoking, how will people who identify as smokers, be able to smoke in the future? This just taking away a right. Lets instead stub out smokerphobia, and create a new world with less intolerance.