Missouri Smoke getting in your eyes

Smoking issue

I despise smoking. Smokers smell, they contribute to health hazards. In crowds, they make me smell in a manner that is most offensive when I get away from them; the odor hangs on and ruins my clothes, fouls my surroundings and belongings. (Wipe a wet cloth down the walls of the smoker home, or on the windows of the smoker car. Yech!) With all of the information about health in particular that has been daily available for the last 50 years, I have a really difficult time appreciating the intellect of someone who chooses to begin a smoking habit.

I understand the evils of smoking in terms of health and these days in terms of money. I have great sympathy with the people who think that adding four cents to a pack of cigarettes will keep young people from smoking. I am suspicious of the success future of such thinking, but they have my sympathy.

However, this is an amendment to the constitution. I cannot support a lifetime tag on the amendment of any constitution that addresses an addiction, a health issue and a small tax. This would have to be introduced in a different format to get my support. So, I will be voting NO next week and the smoking idiots can remember that if you play, you pay. Sure, your health care will cost Missouri neighbors, but you will be the uncomfortable one with the ravages of lung cancer or emphysema and with the shortened life. We will miss you, but it was, at the very base of things, your choice and you can choose.

Stem Cells and Missouri -- Out of the frying pan

Stem cell issue

I have major problems with the Missouri Stem Cell Initiative a proposed amendment for the 2006 elections in Missouri.

Number one, I do not believe this is good for Missouri or the United States. I believe that researchers have not sufficiently resolved the possibilities of stem cell benefits for the ailments and conditions targeted from other sources of stem cells besides embryonic stem cells. I believe there are sufficient other resources for stem cell research and possible resolution of health conditions, both disease and injury. Resources which include cord blood, baby teeth, adult stem cells and others. I do not support the call for the embryonic stem cell supply. There are lines of embryonic stem cells of sufficient supply to experiment. Prove it first with these; then be good scientists and check in other paths to learn if the results cannot be replicated with acceptable stem cell sources. Embryonic stem cells are not acceptable. I must vote NO.

Secondly, the advertising for this initiative makes fools and points the ‘stupid’ finger at Missouri residents and voters by implying that without this amendment being enacted, Missouri residents will be denied the medical advancements of stem cell research. What a totally fraudulent statement to make! That is so insulting. If I were mad/insane enough to endorse this mad scientist idea, I would hope that my pain at the insulting promotion would counsel me to vote NO.

Thirdly, with the caveat that I do endorse stem cell research and that I do not wish to diminish the suffering of people with injuries and conditions for which there is no other encouragement, stem cell research and application/treatment is still a medical procedure. And a medical procedure with limited demand among the general population.

I resist the thinking that would make a medical procedure an amendment to any constitution. Make it a law; make it a proclamation, make it a proposal with term limit, but not an amendment.

I find sufficient reason and personal opinion to vote NO on Amendment 2 next week.