I have to agree with the Mayor...we do a pretty good job of shaming smokers.  However, I would suggest that smokers have no shame.  Please refer to the young lass dumping her butts in the parking lot.

No amount of finger pointing is going to help.

It's time to move up to firearms.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

Ever. Your comment below made me think of this anecdote.

And finally, while enjoying a lunch date with my sweetie, what should I spy right outside but a smoker - standing 5 feet away from one of those convenient butt containers - flicks his cigarette into the newly laid mulch...which then promptly catches fire.  A waiter and I join forces to extinguish the flames with pitchers of water.

Last year I was walking to work on an amazingly hot saturday. As I walked past an apartment building I noticed some careless retard had dumped a flaming butt (great band name?) into a mulch garden and it had started to smolder. Some concerned citizen promptly called 911 and within minutes the intrepid heroes of the city fire department roared onto the scene with their massive pumper truck.

Upon arrival the fireperson in charge noticed a crowd forming, including small children, and that the fire was extremely small. So, he went up to some random 8 year old kids and said "Hey! You want to help us put the fire out?" He then pulled the garbage line off the truck and allowed the kids to help hold it while he turned it on and together they all sprayed the fire down.

The parents took pictures, the kids were beaming, and everybody was laughing and having a gay old time. All was right with the world... until the union filed a Grievance against the fire department for allowing untrained civilians to assist in rescue operations.

Actually, the last part about the union didn't happen. But I just thought it was cool the firemen would go out of their way to make the day of a bunch of little kids so I thought I would try to move this thread from an angry bitchfest to a happy feelgoodery.

The easiest way to reduce cigarette butt litter would be to repeal smoking bans and allow smokers to smoke indoors again, where there are ashtrays. Personally, as a smoker, while I still avoid littering when I can, given the exorbitant taxes I pay as well as being forced to smoke outside I really have a hard time being concientious about not flinging butts on the ground anymore, and mostly am out of habit.

No need to apologize, Lou.  I'm a smoker, and smokers who toss their butts on the ground piss me off, too.  

I once watched a guy empty his car ashtray while waiting for a light.  From the sidewalk I asked him, "Where do live?"  "Why?" he asked.  "Because I want to come to your neighbourhood and dump shit all over the streets there," I replied.  Damn if he didn't start picking his mess up...

Perhaps if these people had a dustpan full of their filth dropped onto their desk once or twice they might get the message.  I know the douche bag uppity dog owner who drove up to my local park one day while I was sitting on a bench, got out of her car, watched as Muffy took a big doggy dump, looked imperiously down her nose at me as I explained it was law to clean up after your pet, and returned to her car with Muffy without deigning to say a word to me, I know she got the message when I grabbed Muffy's feces with a plastic bag and smeared it on her windshield.

The best part was her impotent rage as, swearing like a sailor, she proposed calling the police.  I even offered her the use of my cell phone...

I must constantly fight the urge to politely inform smokers "look there bud, you dropped something".  Finally in America we've reached the point where most responsible citizens find it unthinkable to just drop their litter on the street, and yet those who would never dream of throwing their empty Starbucks venti coffee cup out of the window of their car, don't think twice about flicking a lit butt out of their windows.

Perhaps it's because a cigarette butt is so small?  Perhaps it's because, when lit, they are relatively difficult to dispose of - you can't just take your last draw and then stick them into the closest garbage bin.  But frankly I don't really care.  It's their nasty habit, they should deal with the refuse, however inconvenient it is to dispose of.

Perhaps if we non-smokers embarked on a concerted shaming campaign?  Whenever you see somebody do this, treat them like you would a 4 year old that hasn't yet learned that you don't just drop your twinky wrapper in the middle of the sidewalk.

I, for one, am sick and tired of cleaning up people's cigarette butts up off my lawn. Unfortunately my house being next to a bus stop does not help because many people see the need to chain smoke to their hearts content while waiting and then fling their nasty tobacco stubs for distance in some kind of low pulmonary function Olympics.

My state also has a new program where people get free nicotine patches, individual smoking cessation counseling, and a whole host of subsidized bennies from our tax dollars by calling some 800 number and saying they want to quit. That is all well and good, and I agree with the logic that it is better to fix the problem now than pay for them to die slowly and painfully while languishing on Medicaid sucking all of our precious tax dollars down their new tracheotomy hole, but why can't we just eliminate benefits altogether?  No more paying for cigarette caused illnesses later on or nicotine patches now. Since Medicaid will be slashed we can reduce or repeal the tobacco and alcohol tax. Everybody would then have the right to exercise their personal responsibility and accept the consequences thereof. It's win-win-win! I would even promise to stop complaining about smokers (as long as they kept their Butts off My Lawn).

That said, I disagree with the government mandated "no smoking in restaurant and bars" law on principle, I think property owners should be allowed to do what they want (within reason) on private grounds. That said, I enjoy restaurants that no longer smell like nasty gym socks and probably go out more since the smoking bans got put in.

When I moved to New England in 2002, I thought fireflies were mating on the free^H^H^H^H tollways or something. So many pretty sparks flying about.

Then I realised I was looking at the lit cherries of the butts they were tossing. Yeesh. I've never seen a sight like that before; I usually live further west where fires during dry seasons are a problem.

- derumi (del-me)
"Bobby Fischer? Man, that guy is crazy!" - Mike Tyson