THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 7, 1995 TAG: 9504070009
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 32 lines
Regarding ``Lighten up on smokers'' (letters, April 3): I am an ex-smoker - yes, I know, the worst kind - but I need my air free of smoke.
I am in my 30s, yet I suffer from a lung disease caused by smoking. I smoked for 23 years - since I was a teenager. Now I have shortness of breath all the time.
This disease can kill me. I'm not supposed to be around any passive smoke. I have friends and close relatives who smoke but are kind enough to make sure it's not around me so I don't have to breathe it.
I quit cold turkey. Yes, it was hard, but I did it.
I can smell cigarette smoke on a person or in a house. My sense of smell is keener now that I don't smoke. Believe me, you can smell it just walking by someone who smokes. And I would like to dine out without inhaling some stranger's smoke.
If my husband is kind enough not to smoke around me, others should be as well. Smokers can never know, unless they ask, if the person next to them is sickened by smoke.
KIM BURTON
Norfolk, April 3, 1995 by CNB