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It always strikes me as odd just how far people are willing to go in order to smoke. On one hand, I fully understand that the addiction to nicotine is absolutely crippling and most smokers aren’t strong enough to resist it but on the other hand, I want to just say “really??!!?”

Thanks to a technicality in VA legislation, certain bars in Northern Virginia are exempt from the recent smoking ban – sort of. If a bar has a completely walled off and separate room for smokers with its own ventilation system that is not connected to the non-smoking area in any way, then said bar may be permitted to allow smoking inside. Is it just me, or does this seem like quite a stretch in the name of catering to smokers?

Sure, smokers are people too and they deserve the right to frequent any restaurant or bar they want, they just don’t have the right to expose others to harmful chemicals via smoke. For bar owners, this presents an opportunity to be among the very few bars that can offer indoor smoking but at what expense? I mean, do smokers really bring in THAT MUCH more money where bar owners can afford to add an extra room and a separate (sustained) ventilation system? Not to mention adding staff who are specifically allocated to the smoking section. In short, most bars will not be able to justify spending extra just for people to smoke indoors. For those few bars that happen to already have the required separations, it’s just a matter of time before legislation is reworded to tackle that issue.

A proposal to make U.S. forces smoke-free is currently under consideration. This was decided after a study was commissioned by the Pentagon and the Veterans Affairs Department. The study done by the Institute of Medicine, which provides independent advice to policymakers, health professionals and the public, to see if steps can be taken toward having a smoke-free force some day.

Smoking rates among military personnel after returning from war zones have been found to be 50 percent higher than among those not deployed. This not only means bad news for our troops’ health but that the military has not made this problem a priority. This is mostly because troops have been trying to argue the case of “how else am I going to deal with the stress of fighting across seas without cigarettes?”

Expert Ellen Hahn explains that the stress they are dealing with is also a result of tobacco, because nicotine acts as both a stimulant and a depressant. “For people who are in stressful situations like the military, if you haven’t had a cigarette in two hours, you’re going to feel stressed out and irritable, and it’s MOSTLY because of the withdrawal,” said Hahn, who runs the University of Kentucky’s Tobacco Policy Research Program. “Nicotine is one of those drugs that both stimulates you and calms you down when you need it,” she said. “Smoking does ease stress, but also creates it.” If troops were aware of this consequence they might think twice about lighting up their next cigarette while feeling under pressure.

Studies have also found that tobacco costs the Defense Department more than $1.6 billion a year in medical care and lost work days. The Veterans Administration has also spent more than $5 billion to treat veterans for tobacco-related illnesses. Both have been working for years to reduce smoking among soldiers and vets and after this study, this problem is being taken more seriously. The Pentagon claims that this ban is a ways from happening but at least a major move has been made-realizing and accepting that something must be done about this.