I was speaking with one of those really tolerant non-smokers – a member the rare breed that is so refreshing to find nowadays. This guy lets me smoke in his house (although I do only visit there once or twice a year.)
Anyway, he shyly took me aside one time and told me one feature of cigarette smoking really irked him – ugly piles of butts on the ground.
I took this guy seriously, because his tolerance gives him a lot of credit with me. I started looking around. And I did see – in areas where smokers (are forced to) congregate — there were often, indeed, ugly piles of butts on the ground.
And I now see these butts on the ground as little bullets in the War on Tobacco. I figure that each butt is like a little bullet given to the forces that would restrict smoking even more. A bullet that they can use to get the support of folks like my tolerant friend.
So, filter cigarette smoker that I am, I clip off the filter and place it in my pocket. The paper and tobacco go on the ground in my rainy Alaskan town – sure to be quickly washed away. But if I lived where the rain don’t always fall, I would consider tearing up the paper and tobacco and letting the breeze disperse it to invisibility.
The little bit of tobacco that gets in your pocket is a small price to pay for denying the enemy ammunition. Just make sure to check your pants before they go in the laundry!
I roll my own and am conscientious about not littering with (my butt) the remains. But in those instances when a garbage, ash try or fire isn’t available, I may toss it. It doesn’t feel like littering to me, cause like you say, it’s only a bit of tobacco and less paper. Perhaps we need ashtrays at large, the way spittoons were common in the old west.