Outlaw Cigarette Filters???

When I was a kid back in the late '40s and '50s most of the older folks in my family were smokers. Cigarettes in those days were unfiltered, nothing but tobacco wrapped in paper. Seems like every smoker was picking little pieces of tobacco out of their mouth after first lighting up.

Somewhere along the way it was determined that inhaling directly from a cigarette wasn't the best thing for your health. Next thing I knew cigarettes had these filter things on the end. They were more expensive to purchase, but pretty soon everyone was using them. I think it made folks feel good about their health when they smoked cigarettes with filters.

I even tried smoking myself. When I was a young teen, a buddy and I swiped a pack of my daddy's Chesterfields and a book of matches and headed down through the woods to the Little Patuxent River, where we sat on the bank and each of us lit up one of them Chesterfields. We were both kind of excited to find out what this smoking deal was all about. I was good for about two puffs off that thing before I flicked it into the river. As I recall, my buddy finished most of his and took the pack home with him. I don't know if he ever smoked any more after that, but I sure didn't...definitely was not my thing.

I don't even know if they make cigarettes today without filters on the end of 'em. But as I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the worst items for litter is cigarette filters. In the old days before filters, that old half-smoked cigarette would be broken up and blown away in a short while even if you threw it out in the yard or woods. But cigarette filters seemingly last forever!

Plus back in the old days, folks were pretty careful with their cigarettes and actually used things called ash trays. Every car had ash trays for smokers. In today's society, we don't allow smoking indoors, so every smoker throws their butt/filter down right before they enter a building. Few smokers use provided receptacles. Folks that drive today's cars don't have ash trays. They usually ride with their window cracked a bit so the smoke can blow out, then when they finish, they just throw the butt/filter out the window.

Cigarette filter litter is one of the worst types of litter in the world today. You can visit multiple websites and view the damage with explanations of the extremely long decomposition period needed for filters. Here's one of the sites. My street here in the BToS is fairly busy with auto traffic, requiring me to police my front yard for cigarette filter litter.

What if we just outlaw the sale of filtered cigarettes?

We can probably accomplish a couple of goals with one simple law. First folks probably wouldn't like smoking unfiltered cigarettes and might smoke less and second when they discard the cigarette, there's no filter to litter and the actual cigarette would decompose relatively quickly. So, we could probably cut the number of smokers while reducing filter litter.

Ponder it,
JD

PS - Of course as we discussed in a previous posting, there are the 'unintended consequences' of any law. What would they be with a law outlawing cigarette filters? One would likely be more lung damage for smokers of unfiltered cigarettes. Or would smokers use cigarette holders with throw-away filters. Then we'd likely have just as much litter from them as we have now. Maybe the whole issue is lost before I even finish typing this missive.