What if more than one person kicked their smoking habit now that a new year has come? Wouldn?t the world, with a few ?yosi? [cigarettes] less, be a better place for all of us?

I have always been against smoking. If I had the power, I would eliminate tobacco altogether. However, I have to admit that my hands are not completely clean when it comes to this vice. I have tried huffing and puffing two sticks of cigarette in my adult life, the first one out of spite, and the second to find out why I had the first stick in the first place.

I am not proud of myself for consuming my first stick when I could have just screamed instead of polluting my lungs and the air around me. As to the second stick, well, I needed it to confirm how crazy it was to smoke. Now I can firmly say, armed with firsthand experience with nicotine and tar, that I abhor smoking.

But I?m afraid that many people seem to have a different sentiment. I have reason to believe that the world is unfair to those who choose not to smoke and that it has made very little effort to protect non-smokers and punish the walking pollutants, especially the more irresponsible ones.

The atmosphere isn?t designed to automatically suck in air that is not healthy for its living inhabitants. I find it absurd to designate smoking areas in both public and private places. I mean ? hello? The movement of smoke isn?t something anyone can contain. I did not have to ace my science classes to know that smoke spreads beyond anyone?s control, thanks to its loosely bonded molecules. So even if one stays away from a smoking lounge, bad air follows with all the harmful elements it has.

Now, don?t get me started on what I like to call ?self-acclaimed smokers? turf.? Smokers have a habit of huddling like one happy community and monopolizing strategic spots, like the front portion of buildings, open-air balconies with awesome views, or waiting sheds. They act as if it is fine for them to bless passersby with the smoke they exhale. I am happy for the social life they get to have in exchange for their alveoli, the tiny air sacs that keep them alive. But I can never bring myself to tolerate their fumes while I am trying to get on with my life, especially when I have just shampooed my hair.

I am sure many will agree that for any nonsmoker, walking next to a human muffler or standing in line next to a smoker or sitting with a smoker in a moving vehicle is like being stuck in hell. No matter how pure one chooses to be, the nonsmoker is subjected to the cruel torture of inhaling the devil?s breath.

If I had my way, I would designate gas chambers for smokers. Take note, not a smoking lounge, but a gas chamber, an enclosed space devoid of comfort or style. I imagine a chamber with glass walls and ceilings for better visibility. That way, we, the nonsmokers, will see how smokers drown in their own smoke. After all, smokers deserve to get what they are looking for: a place where they can suck in all the bad air for themselves. They don?t have to share it with others.

I could stop now but the thing is some smokers are not satisfied with polluting the air. They also pollute our lands. They throw cigarette butts wherever they like, as if there?s nothing wrong with it. I have walked along Sapphire, Garnet and Emerald streets in Ortigas a few hours after dawn, and it wasn?t a beautiful sight. The streets were lined with cigarette butts like remnants of fireworks on New Year?s Day. I suppose those who work the graveyard shift are to blame for the desecration of what otherwise is a civilized community.

I can go on and on about how smokers carelessly hurt the environment and how they unthinkingly violate the nonsmokers? right to fresh air. Yet, no one will reprimand these people who, if you think about it, are killing nature as well as their neighbors.

We may not have noticed it, but in our society not all forms of killing is illegal. For as long as people freely smoke and refuse to make any efforts to go about it responsibly, a grand and slow mass murder goes on to which smokers unconsciously sign up. The alarming part is that we are all victims: the active smokers themselves and all the passive inhalers of the bad air they emit. Cigarettes have always been a legal tool not only for suicide, but also for genocide.

I may be thinking extreme thoughts, but where does smoking really lead to? To health problems, right? Years of basking in the ?hipness? of smoking or in the stress-relief it is supposed to provide will just mess up people?s health. I say that one?s health is too much a price to pay for the faux pleasures of smoking. People can live without cigarettes if no one invented them or produced them in large quantities.

We are not yet done with the year?s first month. It is not too late to squeeze in quitting smoking into one?s list of resolutions. I know it won?t be easy, especially for those who are badly hooked on the habit, but they have to start somewhere. They can try at least.

In the long run, not only the smokers will be saved. The lives of the people who have to bear with passive smoke to be with their smoker friends or families are also spared. And the environment could use a little less abuse from its inhabitants.

A world with less yosi will be a better place for all of us.

Mary Tyrene L. Delgado, 28, is currently between jobs.