Good news: We get to smoke for free.
Bad news: We have no choice
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
WHY IS it called "secondhand smoke"? What’s "secondhand" about it? When I find myself gagging on it, and look around for the source, it’s always coming straight from the cigarette. The smoker’s not using the smoke first before sharing it with me. Most of the time, he’s not puffing on the thing at all. He’s just sitting there, letting the tendrils of carcinogenic particulates pollute the room.
Let’s give smokers this much credit – when they do take a pull on their coffin nails, they usually refrain from blowing it right in our faces.
So there’s nothing secondhand about it. Those of us who "don’t smoke" are getting the full, genuine, original article, fresh and straight off the rack. Face it, folks – we’re smoking. The good news is, were not even having to pay for it. The bad news is, we don’t have any say in the matter.
Now, the term "passive smoke" makes some sense. When you consider that most people are "nonsmokers," but all of them at some time or other have to breathe the stuff anyway, it becomes clear that most who smoke aren’t doing it on purpose.
Fortunately, the majority has in recent years become a lot less docile. As a result, fewer and fewer of us are forced to work long hours in smoke-saturated factories, stores and offices the way I was when I first came to work at this newspaper, a fact that cost me thousands in medical bills (even with insurance).
Notice how often I’m slipping into the first-person here. This makes me uncomfortable, which is why you’ve probably never read an entire column from me on the subject of smoking, even though it has been for many years my bane. I’m suspicious of other people who advocate things that would directly benefit them or some group they belong to, so I avoid it myself. When I wrote a column that dealt with my rather extreme food allergies, I spent much of the piece trying to rationalize my self-absorption.
But the subject of public smoking has been brought to the fore, and the time has come to speak out. There’s a new surgeon general’s report. The University of South Carolina has moved virtually to ban it. On the state and local levels, there are moves afoot to eliminate smoking from bars and restaurants – the last broad refuges of the gray haze.
It’s time to speak up. In fact, I wonder why the majority was so diffident for so long. I guess it was that classic American attitude, "Live and let others fill our air with deadly fumes." An anecdote:
A restaurant in Greenville. Our waiter came up and asked in a whisper whether we’d mind if a gentleman who smokes were seated next to us. You see, he explained, the petitioner was in a wheelchair, and that was the only table available that would be accessible to him. Granted, this was the nonsmoking section, but if we could accommodate him….
Uh, well, gee. A guy in a wheelchair. Poor fella. Its not like I can’t smell the smoke from across the room anyway ("nonsmoking areas" are a joke). I started thinking aloud: "I suppose… I mean… if there is no alternative… I’m allergic to it and all, but if you have to…."
At this point, the waiter began to back off, and said – with a tone of deferential reproach that must have taken him years to perfect – "Thats all right. I’ll just ask the other gentleman to wait for another table."
Gosh. I felt like a heel. I pictured a hungry, forlorn, Dickensian cripple, waiting for some kind soul to let him have a bit of nourishment. Tiny Tim grown up, being dealt another cruel blow by life. As the waiter started to back away from our table, I was about to relent… when suddenly, a rather obvious point hit me: "Or," I said, "he could just not smoke."
Why did he have to smoke if he sat in the section full of people who had specifically asked not to breathe smoke while dining? Easy answer: He didn’t. Nor did he need to spit, curse, pick his nose or break wind.
OK, I got off-message. Its about public health, not offensiveness. As the surgeon general reported, even brief exposure to tobacco smoke "has immediate adverse effects" on the body. (I knew that before, since smoke causes my bronchial tubes to start closing the instant they make contact. I’m lucky that way. I don’t have to wait 30 years to get sick.)
But you know what? Even if it were only a matter of being offensive, even if it were nothing more than putting a bad, hazy smell into the air, there would be no excuse for one person imposing it upon even one other person.
We’re not talking about one person’s interests being set against anothers. Its not in anybody’s interests for anybody to smoke – unless you make money off that human weakness.
Take that guy in Greenville. He was already in a wheelchair! Im supposed to waive the rules so that he can make himself sicker, and us with him? What madness.
It’s not even in the interests of many bars or restaurants – although, if nonsmoking establishments become the norm, I can foresee a time in which there would be a niche market for smoking dens.
And I’d prefer for the market to sort that out. I am no libertarian, yet even I hesitate to pass laws to ban smoking in public places. But the market has not addressed the matter to the extent you would expect. Why?
Richland County Councilman Joe McEachern says a restaurateur recently told him, "Joe, Ive got some great customers who are smoking; I cant personally put up a sign that says ’no smoking.’" But if there were a law, his business would benefit because the demand for clean-air dining is greater than he can meet now: "I can’t get enough room for nonsmoking."
OK, so if most people don’t smoke, and it’s to everybody’s benefit to clear the air, why can’t we work something out?
Maybe this is why: I still feel kind of bad about the guy in the wheelchair. But I shouldn’t.
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The restaurant owner who says his business would grow even more if he went totally non-smoke is foolish not to do it. 99% of smokers don’t mind sitting in non-smoking as they know they will light up as soon as they hit the street. It takes about an hour to eat, more or less, at most places. If someone cannot go one hour, then they need medical help anyway. So let the free market decide the issue. Here is another question: SC farmers and many residents intentionally burn off their cotton stalks and their lawns. In addition, football tailgaters light up charcoal grills proliferating smoke over everyone near the stadiums. Do you want to outlaw these practices too?
Brad’s example with the wheelchair bound smoker shows how imperfect the free market is in resolving this issue. Timid non-smokers are at a huge disadvantage.
Brad, I find it strange that a writer for the State, an entity that fought a long, hard battle to eliminate video poker in SC, would have such a difficult time supporting an outright ban on restaraunt smoking. Correct me if I’m wrong but weren’t you one of those who strongly supported the video poker ban? I would do just the opposite, ban cigarette smoking in most public places(a clear infringement on non-smokers) and allow video poker (a clear personal choice issue).
The waiter should never have put you in that position.
Are people capable of playing video poker without smoking at the same time? It sure didn’t seem like it.
Anyway, folks still don’t understand our position on video poker. I’ll explain again. Video poker was a vice that we were pretty neutral on — in fact, in 1994 we advised folks to vote for the local option (a conclusion in which I did not agree). The thinking was that the rules that would accompany such approval would keep the industry from getting out of hand.
That was naive on our part, because over the next few years, the industry’s lawyers and lobbyists managed to get every sensible restraint on them tossed out, either from the court or from the State House — or they just ignored them with impunity.
1998 was the year that they took their political cooption and intimidation of legislators to a new level, taking a lawmaker who had been one of their most eloquent adversaries, turning him, and electing him governor. (The great irony was that with such a weak incumbent, Jim Hodges could have been elected as himself, but I don’t think he ever believed that.)
Lawmakers were really scared after that to stand up to video poker. It had grown to nearly $3 billion cash flow a year, and had demonstrated a ruthless willingness to spend large portions of that to control the political process.
It was corrupting our government to a degree that it needed either to go, or be controlled with real regulation. We would have settled for the latter, but video poker chose all or nothing, and in the end they got nothing.
To address the other point:
None of us like to dwell on our weaknesses, or call attention to them (in case you can’t tell, writing this column made me uncomfortable; looking back at it, I think it’s awkwardly written.
And in my case, I don’t like asking other people to act in my specific interest. I try not to call for something unless I am convinced it is in the best interest of society as a whole. And if I conclude that something is best for society as a whole that is also best for ME, I feel like I have to apologize for acting selfishly — or at least disclose it.
That may sound stupid, but it’s all tied up in the complicated way that a Catholic journalist justifies what he does for a living. Andrew Sullivan has to tell you he’s gay; I have to tell you I’m asthmatic. Of course, I don’t assert it as anything I’m proud of. I hate it.
Anyway, it would indeed be nice for ME if I never had to think about it, and could go out to dinner or to hear live music without worrying about whether I’ll be able to breathe or not.
But up to this point I haven’t advocated for that. I’ve tried to let the "non-smoking section" system — pathetically inadequate as it is — work for me as well as it can. That means I can go to a restaurant or reserve a hotel room without having to say, "And when I say nonsmoking I really mean it; because I have overreactive lungs." In other words, I can just go there and breathe without having to ask anyone to specially accommodate ME.
That’s why I had such a problem with that waiter’s request, and was so ticked off about coming to the end of a nine-hour drive and having to spend the whole night in a smoke-saturated room. In each case, I had to plead special personal needs, and I hated that. Under the present system, the general rules of society should have kept me from having to do that. But they didn’t.
Brad, you are ignoring my questions about outdoor grill smoke at football tailgates and the farmers burning off their fields. Ignoring them is your choice, you own the blog, but if you are against other people making smoke, why just single out cigarette smokers?
Brad, I am very sorry that you have asthma and breathing problems and allergies. I am also very sorry Cindy Scoppe has diabetes. But 1) why do you both have to let us know about this almost every time you write a column? and 2) Why is it that people with asthma and allergies managed to get along for years and years without making their physical problems an issue, and now they suddenly seem to think that their problems make them better than anybody else and they should have to be accommodated? People with food allergies like you mention have now made it impossible for frequent flyers like me to get peanuts on a flight because some of you are allergic to peanuts and God forbid if one gets near you. In the same fashion, people with respiratory allergies and asthma are trying to let their conditions legislate what goes on in the rest of the world. My suggestion to you and others like you:only patronize restaurants that are smoke free and in other places, simply remove yourself from the proximity of smokers. The free market will sort the rest of the problem out. I for one, Brad,am horribly allergic not to cigarette smoke but to most fragrances and colognes. However, I am not one of the people who b—s and moans about it and tries to make all my coworkers stop wearing perfume. I arrange my life so that I am not in the proximity of a heavy cologne or perfume wearer. Why can’t you and others like you simply do the same?
Let me address Dave and Jewel in the same comment.
I just went on at great length trying to answer questions, and Dave gets worked up about me not addressing a couple of things that until this moment I did not realize were serious questions. I will now address them as such:
I don’t single out cigarette smokers. Other people — the surgeon general, USC, the mayor, some state legislators — brought up the subject. Now, I can’t speak for them, but I would GUESS that the reason they brought it up is because it is one hell of a more ubiquitous problem than the rather limited practices you mention.
As you yourself said, “outdoor grill smoke at football tailgates.” That’s something that loads of us will never, ever be exposed to. I will never willingly attend a football tailgate party. (I hate football; I hate crowds, etc.) I suppose a situation could arise in which I might be forced into it to prevent hurting someone’s feelings, but it’s not anything I would ever suffer if there were any polite way to refuse.
By contrast, it’s pretty hard to imagine doing my job — or any other job that is coming to mind as I write this that I am qualified for and which would feed my family — without having to go into the occasional restaurant, and even, sometimes, a bar. And while I choose the venue whenever I can, that is very often beyond my power.
What you should have said was “backyard barbecues,” which are far more common, and which can smoke up your backyard without you having made a decision to subject yourself to it. But if I were one of the people (mentioned above) who brought up the subject to which I was reacting, I doubt that particular threat would have come to mind. Think about it: Even backyard barbecues are a relatively limited phenomenon, and even if your next-door neighbor cooked out every night (which would be a personal anomaly, not a broad societal problem), he would have a very difficult time arranging the winds so that you would get anywhere near the concentration of smoke into your lungs that you would get in your first two steps into, say, the New Brookland Tavern. To even approach that relative effect, you’d have to stand right over the grill and deliberately suck it in.
You may have noticed also that as popular as grilling is, there are very, very few public accommodations in which a person is likely to pull a grill out of his pocket and fire it up. In fact, you named one of the very few. Cigarette smoking occurs in — let’s be conservative — thousands of times more different venues than grilling, and with far less warning.
“Farmers burning off their fields?” That applies HOW? No one’s talking about telling farmers they can’t smoke cigarettes out in the middle of nowhere; why would be be banning burning fields? Sure, one burning field produces a lot more smoke — let’s say, millions of times more smoke — but unless you wander onto the wrong country road at the wrong time, you’re a whole lot less likely to acquire lung-damaging quantities of it.
By contrast, burning leaves and brush in towns and subdivisions can be a health hazard — just because of the concentration of population — which is why many jurisdictions ban it.
Shifting more toward Jewel…
Please don’t be sorry, Jewel. I hate that. That’s why, contrary to your assertion that I tell you this almost every time I write a column, I have never (as near as I can recall) written a column on the subject of my asthma. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it, but only as it was necessary to — as I have abundantly explained — be completely honest about my personal interest in something about which I am writing. For instance, if I’m writing about how I believe military service should be universal, I have to disclose that I never had the opportunity to serve because of — well, guess why. NOT to mention that would be to give you the false impression that either a) I served with distinction; or b) I ducked the draft. I owe it to you, not to me, to disclose that.
But I will do that in passing, and move on as quickly as possible, before someone starts crying crocodile tears for me.
Still, out of the hundreds and hundreds of columns I have written for this newspaper, I would be very interested if you could fine — oh, let’s be generous — more than five in which I mentioned the word “asthma” in reference to myself.
Ditto with food allergy. Although it is something that profoundly affects the way that I live — I have to deal with it three times every day, or die — I am aware of only having actually developed the subject in that one column referenced above. As to casual references, I’ll make the same offer — let me know if you can find more than five.
We now see — assuming you take me up on that challenge — that the truth is almost, but not quite, 180 degrees from your hyperbolic assertion.
As for colognes and other fragrances — guess what, Jewel? I have the exact same problem. Ditto with gasoline fumes, and diesel exhaust. And, to go back to Dave, wood smoke.
In fact, although I’ve been told all my life I’m allergic to cigarette smoke, I suspect that’s an oversimplification. In any case, even if I’m allergic to it technically (which is probably the case), that’s not nearly the problem as the simple fact that it is an IRRITANT to the linings of the broncial tubes — just like perfume, gasoline, etc. It could probably be hypoallergenic smoke, if such a thing exists, and the bronchial tubes of asthmatics would probably react to it.
So, how come I don’t whine about those things in columns, seeing as how I’m such a big baby only concerned about his own health?
Well, probably because that’s a damnable lie. I write about public policy questions before our society, and WHEN I DO SO, IF I have a personal interest, I have to disclose it, or be dishonest.
No one has suggested passing local ordinances or state laws banning perfume, so you don’t see me writing about it. But if it were brought up for discussion, and I decided to enter the forum, I would disclose my personal interest.
To do otherwise would be insupportable.
Brad, I still think video poker should be legal. We shouldn’t punish those that want to play the games just because the providers of the service see fit to act like jackasses. That argument is irrelevant. The auto companies have behaved horribly over the years regarding safety and pollution issues but no one has ever suggested banning automobiles.
Brad,
you may or may not be an exception here (you certainly claim to be) but in my experience most extreme allergies are of the intracranial variety.
Brad, thanks for the detailed explanation. I don’t especially like any type of OPS (Other People’s Smoke) myself, but I have a concern that our society is heading to a controlled environment where there can be a law about everything one could do except think, and even that would be regulated if some people had their way.
One thing I wonder about video poker is now that it’s gone, what are all those people doing who used to sit for hours and hours playing it? Are they now going back and forth to the C-store counter and scratching tickets off? Where did they all go? Maybe they are at the library reading books now.. hahahaha
The anti-smoking crowd is another example of those who consider themselves to be “liberal”, but are intolerant of other people practicing any diversity in behavior.
Most of their incidents of complaint are exaggerated sufferings to elevate their victimhood. The few incidents of rudeness by smokers could be handled by personal request, but these bluenose liberals don’t have the social skills or courage for that. They prefer to have the governments pass laws which they can point out to smokers and businesses.
It’s an epidemic of immaturity expressing itself as a political movement to further empower a Big Mama government to whom they can tattle on others.
Count me as a proud member of the anti-smoking class. The world is better off because of the success we’ve had on this issue.
Doesn’t anyone get what Brad is saying? Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs on the planet.I quit smoking twenty years ago and it was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.This is a serious health problem.I haven’t been to a concert in this town in ages because of the smoke.The last one at the New Brookland Tavern had me coughing up my lungs the next morning.We throw people in jail for using drugs who are really not hurting anyone but themselves.What makes smokers so special?
Most anti-smoking zealots are also intolerant of other personal behaviors their fellow man. Yet they constantly harp about how the “religious right” is such a threat to their liberty.
These intolerance movements are based on emotion and taste, but constantly justified with junk science. Long-term studies done when there actually was a lot of background smoke in the workplace found statistical correlation whatsoever with any diseases.
Sorry bud,
You get it.
The anti-smoking crowd is another example of those who consider themselves to be “liberal”, but are intolerant of other people practicing any diversity in behavior.
LOL! I love how people like Lee have co-opted political correctness. “Practicing diversity in behavior.” Classic.
I wonder if Lee would be so tolerant of someone who, say, swore loudly and profanely in a restaurant in the presence of Lee and his family.
“Practicing diversity in behavior.” Classic.
Yeah,
Lee should send that one in to Northern Sun or
Ephemera,Inc.He could probably get fifty bucks
for it.Don’t give ’em away for free,Lee!
I don’t see why this issue keeps coming up. If you smell smoke, just walk away and don’t come back.
If you can’t outrun smoke, then you probably shouldn’t submit yourself to the potential dangers of a public appearance anyway. I DON’T SMOKE (not until the 6th beer or so…), but I also don’t understand this rabid need to ban and erase all memory of the practice.
What’s next? Digitally snuffing all evidence of smoking from early films and Tom and Jerry cartoons? Oh wait, that’s already being done.
Personally, I find women breast feeding in public malls and restaurants to be abhorrent and at least as unsanitary (if not more so) as smoking, but I’m not boob enough to think it should be banned because of my personal preferences.
Those clamoring for a ban on public smoking should just walk away. The exercise would do you some good and probably help you melt away the pounds put on that you gained from eating the vile junkfood you so love.
The same junkfood that is probably killing you faster than any secondhand smoke.
I’ll declare a truce on this issue if we can just leave it the way it is. But let’s not revert back to the days when everyone could smoke anywhere they pleased (elevators, movie theaters, offices and even hospitals). The world is a much better place today because of the limitations on smoking.
If a smoker is inconsiderate and bothering people, I don’t mind asking them to refrain. Likewise, I have made people who were rowdy to clean up their language or leave the premises.
That is what we are supposed to do, handle bad manners personally, not ask government to outlaw it so the cowards can sneak off and whine to management or call Dial-a-Snitch.
Based on the venom of Lee’s last post, am I the only one who gets the feeling he has felt the past injustice of being reported to management solely because his pheremones have become permanently concatenated with Marlboro molecules, resulting in a noisomeness that is instantly offensive to anyone in a five foot area?
*Huff-puff-huff* (taking the deep breath that only a nonsmoker truly can after such a long sentence)
“Based on the venom of Lee’s last post, am I the only one who gets the feeling….”
Yes, you’re the only one.
I used to smoke for about 10 years until about 17 years ago. I don’t like the smell of smoke and nobody in my house smokes indoors. I will tell any smokers that they should quit for their own sakes and their children’s etc. etc. etc.
I’m not in favor of smoking by any means. However, what I really can’t stand is the Anti-Smoking Nazis. Where in the world do these bullies get the audacity to demand that restaurants can’t allow smokers to smoke? If their favorite restaurant allows smoking maybe it’s time for them to find a new favorite restaurant. Nobody is forcing them to patronize the restaurant.
I might be in favor of a state law requiring restaurants and various other establishments to post a sign about their smoking status but that’s it. Who are these Anti-Smoking Nazis that they demand that EVERY restaurant should be non-smoking?
Who are these Anti-Smoking Nazis that they demand that EVERY restaurant should be non-smoking?
Posted by: LexWolf | Jul 17, 2006 11:16:06 PM
I do propose we ban the cliched Nazi analogy concerning anyone with whom you disagree. If only you were using it, you’d be half as interesting as you think you are.
Also, do you think you can put your future, singularly meandering thought-per-entry into one or two paragraphs in the future as opposed to the string of thirty that is your normal style? It’d be a kindness, and it’d spare me the extra effort of clicking past your comments without reading them as is my normal practice.
Many thanks, in advance.
Bill Clinton and Hillary outlawed smoking in the White House but Bill found some creative uses for cigars anyway. Question: Did he light up? If yes, did he inhale? Jimmy Carter at least had his guests go up on the White House roof and smoke, even if it was dope. Carter and Clinton, quite a legacy, those two.
Capital A has the problem of a lot of emotive “thinkers”, who relates every issue to his own personal desires, and does not recognize that others consider the issues from an objective viewpoint.
I don’t smoke cigarettes, and don’t enjoy a smokey room. My observations of the typical anti-smoking activist wanting the government to play their mother in order to force the rest of the world to conform to their social viewpoint, are taken from years of observing this cowardly intolerance by modern moralists.
When Bill and Hillary campaigned in SC in 1992, Hillary was smoking cigarettes in the back of the limo, and wouldn’t permit the driver and bodyguards to open the window for fresh air, because she didn’t want the press to see her puffing away.
Lee, if you’ll look a few posts above, you’ll see that I’m on the side of the Republican brat pack in this case. I don’t agree with the outlawing of smoking, and I find those who do to usually be quite contradictory in their aims. I guess you were too busy posting your same point, repeatedly, in almost the exact same way to notice.
The post of mine that you were referring to was placed in jest. Itss goal was to underline how overly emotional you had become concerning the issue.
I guess there is one emotive state you could puff on a bit more — laughter.
Capital A,
your latest 4 posts were 6, 2 and twice 3 paragraphs. Do you think you could condense your aimless, clueless bloviations into one or two paragraphs? Thank you in advance.
It’s pretty simple. I’m a smoker. If I plan to smoke during dinner, I choose a restaurant that allows it.
If I’m in a non-smoking establishment I don’t smoke.
Why do non-smokers even enter restaurants and bars that allow smoking? Huh? And then they get all bent out of shape because – GASP! – a smoker’s in there, lighting up!?!
Just don’t go.
Buy a vowel.Nicotine is a dangerous DRUG that I don’t want to take.So,I’ve gotta drive to Chapel Hill to hear live music without doing the drug that you’re strung out on.
If you had said,”It’s pretty simple.I’m a junky”,I would have no promblem with that,and you’d be better off too,because doing heroin is a lot less dangerous than cigarettes.
Not making much sense there, are you, Bill? If there were truly a market for smoke-free concerts, don’t you think there would already be such establishments in Columbia? Since there aren’t any you see nothing wrong with coercing all places to be smoke-free. If smoke-free places are so important to you coercive types why not just open some yourselves and ban all smokers from entering?
This is really the central problem with the Anti-Smoking Nazis – they are simply not willing to compromise or to allow people to make their own choices.
Lex, are you proposing a return to the “smoke anywhere, anytime” era of the 1950s or are you just arguing to keep things as they are now? My compromise is to keep things as they are now even though I would prefer a total ban on all public smoking.
Yes Lex,there is a market for smoke-free bars/music clubs(I could provide you with a list).The closest to SC is “Cat’s Cradle” in North Carolina.South Carolina has always been pretty much last in the country when it comes to progress of any kind and we’ll probably be one of the last to open a smoke free bar/music club.To be honest,I’m not that concerned with Columbia opening a smoke free club.Music promoters are well aware of Columbia’s reputation:this is not a music town(nobody shows up).It would be nice to go when some brave musicians do take the financial risk.If they do come to SC,it’s usually Greenville or Charleston or just straight on to Athens and Atlanta.
You are free to make your own choices,but not to be making them for me(freedom stops when you infringe upon the rights of others).As it is now,the drug dens in Columbia are all your’s,buddy.
If there is a market for no smoking restaurants and bars, why don’t the owners create such and why don’t the non-smokers patronize them and boycott those establishments which permit smoking?
Because the non-smoking movement is about forcing conformity on everyone, even people the non-smoker will never meet, in places he will never go.
Bill, I know all about the dismal concert scene in Columbia, smoke-free or not. I check out Pollstar (City Schedule in the search box top left) once a month or so to see what the Handlebar, Music Farm and similar places have to offer. The paucity of worthwhile concerts in Columbia is always appalling. Just look at the current schedule – this is pitiful for an MSA of half a million. Unfortunately, the State’s concert listing is usually full of holes and not of much help.
However, leaving aside the fact that I don’t smoke, I will reiterate my point that if the “drug dens in Columbia” are all mine then it would behoove you non-smokers to open your own non-drug dens instead of denying independent businessmen the right to run their clubs as they choose. Either that or convince some that their business would improve by banning smoking. I simply do NOT agree with your coercive approach.
Bud, I would propose a modified “smoke anywhere, anytime” policy. I can accept a smoking ban in the workplace (enclosed areas only), hospitals and other places where you don’t have an option of simply staying away or going elsewhere. However, there is absolutely no reason why restaurants, bars, clubs, etc. have to fall under this coercive regime. Just don’t go to smoking places and instead patronize the ones which ban smoking. Simple as that, but probably too simple for the Anti-Smoking Nazis.
The problem with bans on smoking is that they often deprive people of their property rights. I have no problem with a school, workplace, or what have you deciding not to tolerate smoking. Making this a law is where I part company with Mr. Warthen.
Mr. Warthen cites “market failure” as the reason behind his call for a law banning smoking on private property. But what is “market failure?” Is it market failure when there are no vending machines dispensing beer for my drinking convenience? Is it market failure when every American is not as rich as Bill Gates?
The market failure argument is a false argument. It assumes that all economic actors must act purely according to an abstract economic model where everyone seeks benefit, reduces risk, or other seemingly logical behaviors. According to this argument, when a singer like Neil Young eschews mainstream acceptance to sing what he truly feels like singing, this is an example of “market failure.” Mr. Young has failed to meet the musical “needs” of the greatest number of people.
If a restaurant owner decides to make less money and cater to smokers, why should we decide that this is not to be allowed? Because of Mr. Warthen’s utilitarian arguments? Why stop there? Why not go the next step to central planning and a “rational” model for living?
The bottom line is that Brad hates smoking. Hell, I hate smoking. But I don’t go around telling people what to do with their lives or what restaurant or bar owners should do with their property. That’s because I’m not a busybody like Brad Warthen.
Here’s something to gladden the hearts of all the busybodies and Anti-Smoking Nazis: Marriott to ban smoking in all US, Canada rooms.
Now they have an entire hotel chain that’s smoke-free. Surely they will give all their business to Marriott now and other chains will be forced to follow suit just to keep up. Or many smokers will refuse to stay at Marriott’s hotels and they will lose business. Who knows how it will end up but it should be interesting.
Of course now that the Anti-Smoking Nazis have their very own hotel chain they will stop harassing the other chains, won’t they? Won’t they?
These states ban smoking in restaurants and bars: Calfornia, Delaware, New York, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey (casinos exempted), Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Montana banned smoking in restaurants – bars exempt till 2009. South Dakota had a ban – status unsure. In January 2006 the Territory of Puerto Rico banned smoking in the workplace, including bars and casinos.
I go to Connecticut a lot(love Toad’s),so I think this progres is inevitable.Smoking just hasn’t reached the stigma(it’s a deadly DRUG)level here that it has in other states.
The progressive loss of liberty is not progress.
There is nothing wrong with controlling behavior by attaching social stigma. Our society doesn’t believe in that. Liberal dogma asserts that we shouldn’t be judgemental, should tolerate all lifestyles – but they only apply that to THEIR lifestyle of recreational drug abuse, alcohol abuse, promiscuity, homosexuality and other perversions.
Their belief system reflects their social cowardice. They don’t want to personally deal with inconsiderate smokers. They want the police to do it for them. Conversely, they want the police to prevent anyone from excercising their right to criticize the vices of liberals, by passing laws which pronounce their vices to be their rights.
Lee, you’ve got it exactly backwards. Liberals are very consistent in their approach to lifestyle issues. It’s the conservatives that pick and choose what to restrict. Public smokers are dangerous polluters of the environment. They’re taking away my freedom to breathe clean air.
Liberals are in favor of allowing people to do what they want to do, even if they find the behavior offensive. The same rules should apply across the board. Nudity, drugs, alcohol, firerams and tobacco should all be legal in some restrictive ways. Indecent exposure is illegal but everyone is allowed to walk around in the buff in their home or in certain nudist camps. Most drugs are illegal, even in private. This should be changed to allow private, home use. There are many laws affecting alcohol use, mostly for public safety reasons (There probably should be additional laws related to drunk driving). But again, in the privacy of one’s home drinking is legal. You can’t fire a gun into a crowd of people. But you can keep one in your home for protection or target shooting.
But until the 1980s tobacco use was allowed virtually everywhere. But then things changed, for the better. And the world is a much, much better place because of the restrictions society has imposed. Let’s not turn the clock back and return to the polluted, dangerous days of the 50s. I say if something isn’t broke, don’t fix it. In the area of public tobacco use things are ok as they stand.
Let’s turn the clock back to before anal retentives, calling themselves “liberal”, tried to legalize their perversions as normal, and outlaw the private minor vices of other people and take away our rights to bear arms in public for protection of ourselves and the peace.
As for “secondhand smoke” being so dangerous, why did the long-term studies of people exposed to lots of it for years find no greater incidence of health problems among the nonsmokers in that environment all day?
If liberals were truly worried about public health, they would shut down the homosexual bath houses and prostitution which is the root source of AIDS.
Thank you Lee; you just proved my point. Conservatives are hopelessly intolerant of alternative lifestyles while at the same time wanting to ram their “perverse” lifestyle down the throats of those of us who simply want to breathe clean air.
Thanks,bud,I’m tired of arguing with these people.These conservatives are such a hostile lot.Reminds me of a line from a Joni Mitchell song,”You can feel it out in traffic,everone hates everyone”
Bill, But Clouds Got In Your Way, so Look at Life From Both Sides Now, As You Really Dont Know Clouds At All.
bud, if you actually were respectful of homosexuals as people, you would not use it as a smear technique.
If you don’t think sexual abuse of minors is perverse, that proves my point. And homosexuals lead the movement to redefine marriage broadly enough to cover much of what is not criminal. In Holland, they just succeeded in lowering the age of consent to pre-teens.
bill, you tire easily. You never made an argument. Lex, Dave and I argued for freedom of choice and against the baseless hysteria over “secondhand smoke”. All you folks did was launch personal attacks on us on other issues, as if that was going to drag your fat out of the fire.
“I’m tired of arguing with these people.These conservatives are such a hostile lot.”
Hmmmm… wonder why, Bud? Could it be that those conservatives don’t appreciate your persistent attempts to limit their freedom? Could it be that you mistake your failure to support your points for conservatives’ hostility?
Lee, your non-sequitor about underage sex in Holland just reminded me of another place that is rolling the clock back on the age of consent – South Carolina! And let’s see, I think here it was done by ..gay liberals from Holland??…no, that’s not right…yes I remember, it was incompetent conservative legislators! And their buddy the incompetent conservative governor!
Well isn’t that just a marvel! But afterwards it would be illegal for them to light up and relax, so be careful out there kids!
I love the smell of fresh air in the morning. It has the smell of victory. The following places used to allow smoking:
Hospitals
Airplanes
Government Offices
Almost all Restaraunts
Movie Theaters
Most Office Buildings
Malls
Sports Arenas (indoors and out)
Elevators
Department Stores
Smoking is now banned in virtually all of the above. This is a victory for pragmatic Americans that recognize smoking for the disgusting, invasive, poisonous, litter producing habit that it is. We should never return to the backwards oppressive days of the past when the act of breathing in public was often an adventure. For those of you on the reactionary right you can take your disgusting Marlboros, Kents, Kools, Winstons, etc. and …. well I better not say. But it really is fun to savor this important victory in the fight against fresh air oppression.
Yes, and a 20-year study of airline crews found no health effects from long and constant exposure to measured levels of tobacco smoke.
It makes sense for a hospital to prohibit smoking around people who are captive, bedridden, sick, and have no other place to go. It should still be the choice of the hospital, not some quack legislature.
Some restaurant and store owners may prefer to prohibit smoking. Others, may want to invite it, such as cigar smokers. It is still a private decision that cannot be made intelligently by some bureaucrat.
It rarely makes sense to prohibit smoking outside, in one’s backyard or one’s home, yet that is what the prohibitionists want.
Smoking is prohibited in the bud house, yard, car, driveway, garage and anything else I own. Since I own a share of all public common areas I would also like to see no smoking allowed there as well. These include sidewalks, parks, government office buildings etc. Others may wish to allow smoking in public common areas. Our elected officials are responsible for making this decision for us. I will vote for public officials who will ban smoking in public common areas.
Privately owned entities are choosing in increasing numbers to ban smoking without government intervention. Good for them. I will seek these businesses out and patronize them. Some activities fall into a gray area, airlines for instance. We really don’t have much of a choice regarding who we fly with. Fortunatelly the market has chosen wisely and smoking is not allowed on domestic airline flights.
If you anti-smokers stopped with dictating to your family and making buying decisions, we wouldn’t be having to defend our rights against you.
But your ilk wants to impose its moralisms on everyone. You are as intolerant of diversity as Carrie Nation, and just as selective.
Smoking is a safe target now, for piling on by the mobs on their latest social lynching. But they dare not criticize “lifestyle choices” which spread HIV, hepatitis and tuberculosis, much less the unchecked diseases brought in by the politically immune illegals crossing the Mexican border.
Lee, what exactly have you been smoking? Your last post was completely uninteligible.
I think it is the notion of individual liberty and personal responsibility which is unintelligible to you, bud.
I still can’t figure out why you worshipers of liberty (as opposed to liberty tempered by responsibility) support speed limits. Why should government interfere with your rights to drive as fast as you want to?
You can’t figure out most things about liberty and responsibility, probably due to attending government schools.
Government only has authority to set speed limits on the roads it owns. We can drive as we please on private property, and as the owners please on private roads.
Like the majority of non-smokers, I am neither asthmatic nor allergic to smoke, but I find those who choose to pollute my air with their noxious fumes offensive. If smokers could keep their smoke in their own airspace, I would say more power to them. But they can’t.
The adverse health effects of involuntary smoking should make no-smoking ordinances nearly automatic everywhere. Most every city in the U.S. has noise ordinances, sign ordinances, zoning ordinances, prohibitions against public nudity, etc., and these are for things that some people find offensive, but have no real adverse affect. Smokers can’t paint their house purple, but can rob me of my clean air. That seems a little incongruent, doesn’t it?
Regulating the pollution coming from someone’s cigarette really is akin to regulating the pollution coming from some factory’s smokestack. No one has any problems keeping smokestacks –located on private property– away from where innocent people might breathe the smoke, but yet somehow smokers should have the right to spew the same pollution near me personally?
The government has the constitutional duty to promote the general welfare. Certainly ensuring that I am able to breathe clean air falls under this provision.
The oak trees in the city put out far more “pollution” than cigarettes smoked in public. Left Logic would say, “Cut them down!”
Second-hand Smoke Study Sparks Controversy
By Mike Wendling
CNSNews.com London Bureau Chief
May 16, 2003
London (CNSNews.com) – A study about to be published in this week’s British Medical Journal indicates that second-hand smoke doesn’t increase the risk of heart disease or lung cancer, but the publication and the study’s authors have come under attack by anti-smoking groups.
Two American researchers analyzed data from an American Cancer Society survey that followed more than 118,000 Californians from 1960 until 1998.
James E. Enstrom, of the University of California at Los Angeles and Geoffrey C. Kabat of the State University of New York at Stony Brook concluded that “the results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke (second-hand smoke) and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect.”
“The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed,” the researchers wrote.