This letter is response to the many letters I have read that have come from Maine smokers complaining about their “rights.”

Freedom of speech is a right. The freedom to assemble is a right. I never noticed anything about “the freedom to kill others with your hobbies” as a right in the Constitution.

Now, I’m sure this will enrage many of the smokers that read it. Honestly, I don’t care at all.

Smoking does kill, whether you choose to believe it or not.

Claire Landry wrote in a that she has been smoking for 55 years and she’s “still here” (Oct.8). She’s a very lucky woman.

My grandmother, who never once smoked, died of lung cancer last year. The cause? My grandfather’s smoking. I was there, holding her hand, when she died. I watched my grandmother suffer through a horrible disease that, in the end, literally suffocated her.

If Ms. Landry has an issue with her “rights” as a smoker being taken away, then I challenge her to go to the hospital and watch someone die from this disgusting, degrading affliction.

The reason smoking is banned in restaurants and at bingo is because it is a silent killer. I agree that Ms. Landry has the right to choose, but people don’t get a choice when it comes to lung cancer.

Annie Aberle, Auburn