Dear Chet,

I think that precisely because smoking is a health issue, it is also a character/values issue. Unless someone became deeply addicted to cigarettes before it was common knowledge how unhealthy it is - and I don't think that could be true of many people of my generation - their decision to smoke communicates something (and something very important to me) about how much they value their own lives and the health of the people in their immediate airspace. It's not about how their clothes smell, it's about how their attitudes toward life smell.

I think there's a difference between insisting on perfection and having some standards. In your post you mention a difference between marijuana and other drugs; can I assume that you wouldn't take a hard drug user to be your best friend or (hypothetically) your wife? If so, then you must think it isn't necessarily shallow to have standards.

Thanks for the discussion,

Marion