Smoke on the water… just not under it

Come December 31 of this year, there are going to be some irritable sailors aboard U.S. Navy submarines.

No more smoking on submarines... which was a such a good idea to begin with.

No, it’s not that they’ll have chauffeurs while visiting their favorite girls in port; it’s that the Navy has decided to make that the official day to begin banning smoking on submarines while they’re under the water.

To be completely honest, I’m a bit flabbergasted that there is smoking allowed on a machine that relies on air scrubbers and a circulation system to spread oxygen to sailors while dunked below the waves. I mean, I live in a state where come May there won’t be smoking in bars, let alone enclosed tin cans shared with other people months at a time.

The reason? Tests found “unreasonable amounts” of secondhand smoke aboard the vessels while submerged. Ummmm… no kidding.

The announcement could be hand-in-hand with the Navy’s decision in February to allow female sailors to serve along with the men as crew on submarines. I hope not, but who knows.

Lt. Cmdr. Mark Jones of the Commander Naval Submarine Forces out of Norfolk, Va., said about 40 percent of the submarine sailors are smokers.

The navy will help sailors who smoke by offering programs to help them quit and making nicotine patches and gum available on each boat. Talk to any smoker, however, and they’ll let you know just where you can stick those patches and gum when it comes to being compared to the real thing.

Individual commanders will have the discretion to allow smoking while the submarines are afloat—known as “zero depth”—but anytime the vessels sink beneath the surface, there will be no puffing allowed.