Cambridge Should Ban Cigarettes Altogether

    With retail giant CVS Pharmacy recently announcing plans to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products, I call for the City of Cambridge to follow suit and completely ban the sale of pre-packaged, mass-produced tobacco goods, namely, cigarettes. This is the 21st Century and we, as a city, should be the intellectual and progressive leader in the World today.
    As it is, high school students have little trouble finding someone to buy them cigarettes, sometimes right across the street from school. I am confident that many of these same teenagers would not go to the trouble of seeking out cigarettes from strangers in Somerville, Boston or Arlington. Just having that many fewer teens with access to cigarettes would have a substantial effect on keeping them smoke-free and healthy their entire lives. This in turn translates to savings in health-care costs, which is my preemptive response to those who would argue that banning cigarettes would hurt our city's economy. More importantly, the health of our citizens is of infinitely greater consequence than a loss in tax revenue. New markets will arise; and if people should decide not to spend that cigarette money elsewhere, then indeed the measure would have a tremendous impact on reducing poverty in Cambridge, a city that is currently deporting many of her longtime residents and, with them, her cultural integrity and relevance, as part of an unwritten policy of economic and perhaps political micro-colonialism.
    Cambridge stands poised to make a dramatic impact upon the world, culturally, politically, and artistically. This is a new age where the celebrity of the future need no longer rely upon a cherried Marlboro to typify cool to the young consumer. Art and creativity, it turns out, can be allied to progressive and healthy values, rather than decadence and disease.
    I do not think it realistic to attempt to ban smoking outside in public, as after all smokers are still reeling enough from the ban, over ten years ago now, on smoking inside places of business, particularly in these nasty New England winters. As a former and intermittent smoker myself, I can sympathize with the sentiments of smokers, especially cynical Boston smokers who seem to pride themselves on increasing their risk of cancer and other mutagenic effects. That is why I want to give my children a chance to grow up in a city without cigarettes. This measure alone would be enough to dramatically decrease the number of cigarettes smoked in the city, which would also be good for the esthetic value of our streets, centers and sidewalks, as well as the health of plants and our sacred River Charles. A city that continues to pollute its own river is committing suicide.
    Personally, I don't care what happens to those who profit off of killing others, so the economic arguments, as I have mentioned, do not touch me. They are moot and smell of nationalist barbarism, a smell that, along with second-hand smoke, should be eliminated from our air and our lungs. The one exception I would make is Leavitt and Pierce. They should not be exempt from the ban on packaged cigarette products, which are an addictive poison that is used to commercially exploit the souls of children, but independent tobacconists such as L+P should be allowed to continue selling loose pipe and rolling tobacco, as well as cigars, as this is the industry upon which, in great part, our magnificent nation was built, not the interest of Phillip Morris's stock-holders and hypnotic marketing campaigns. I do not think these items would pose nearly as great a danger as pre-packaged cigarettes to our youth, and if I should be proven wrong on that count, the measure could then be extended as necessary.
    It may seem crazy, but so did all great innovations and changes initially appear.