Friday, May 4, 2012

Top Addictions Doctor: Don't Treat Smokers Like Animals

Top Addictions Doctor: Don't Treat Smokers Like Animals


Yevgeny Bryun, the chief narcologist at the Heath and Social Development Ministry, told reporters that smokers "pay for their sin" through tobacco taxes, so the government has an obligation to provide "civilized, humane conditions" where smokers can "fulfill their painful needs."
Designated smoking areas should be reasonably comfortable with good ventilation, but many do not meet this standard, he said.
"Airports are now setting aside places to smoke, [but] these places are impossible to enter," he said, Interfax reported. "This is an outrage. This is treating man like an animal, because he has paid for his sin."
Bryun urged the state to show compassion toward smokers.
"You cannot change the habit of a person who has smoked from childhood," he said. "He will never give up tobacco. But he is a living, breathing human being, and he needs to be provided with a place where he can smoke freely."


I love reading about real doctors who still treat people with compassion.

It's such a rarity I just had to put it up here...