TESTIMONY -- BILL SIGNING CEREMONY (E-CIG BAN) -- 12/30/13
I'm Audrey Silk, the founder of NYC Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment (or C.L.A.S.H.).
We argued in 2002 that the rationale for the ban -- protecting nonsmokers -- was a fraud built on junk science. A tool to control smokers, not smoke.
At the Oct. 2002 hearing, you, Mr. Equality, protested, "This bill is not designed to stop you from smoking." Followed by, "If you want to smoke, that's your right, and I will defend that."
To this day, on the DOH web site, is a FAQ answer to the question, "This is America. Don't citizens have a right to smoke, even if it hurts them?" The answer: "Yes, smokers are free to continue to smoke" and primary smoking itself "acceptable."
Now we have you adding devices with no smoke to what's called the SMOKE-FREE Air Act. Though discussed secondarily, there's ultimately not one written word about "exposure" contained in the bill under "Legislative intent." All four officially documented reasons are that smoking is indefensible and unacceptable that even the thought of it must be censored and intends to codify that intolerance into an Act we were told was not designed to do that.
It's really been no secret that you'd lied earlier but this is surely YOUR "you can keep your health insurance, period" moment.
With the addition of e-cigs to the Act, we have the most concrete proof that it's never been about the smoke. It's about hating someone else's choice and the imposition of Dear Leader's religion on everyone else.
In order to "denormalize" not just smoking but people who smoke -- helped by once calling yourself "superior" as a reformed smoker and calling smokers "crazy and stupid" -- you've had to denormalize civil liberties.
You have shown nothing but disrespect and contempt for not just the choice to smoke, but for individual decision-making itself! This is legal private life, not public health. You don't own me like state property.
Today, in the building my taxes equally fund and as a final image in your reign that couldn't be more antithetical to the legacy you desperately want depicted, I return the respect. Good people disobey bad laws.
hate smokers...and so should you.
Ahh just kidding; light em up!