No Smoking - for Now

Smoking kills people. That's not a statement of opinion, but one of fact. According to the annual Tobacco Atlas report from the American Cancer Society, an estimated 6 million people worldwide will die from smoking-related illness in 2010.

In August of 2009, Reuters reported that the estimated annual cost on society from tobacco use would top $500 million including healthcare expenses, decreased productivity, and environmental damage. Smoking contributes to 7 of the top 10 fatal illnesses including various types of cancer.

Smoking, like the use of any drug, is a choice, having to breathe the second-hand air pollution it produces is not. I believe that if mankind were meant to breathe the toxins found in tobacco smoke he would have found himself living in the poisonous, gaseous atmosphere of the planets Venus or Jupiter.

The Associated Press recently reported that a group challenging a policy used to enforce Ohio's ban on workplace smoking says a judge's ruling in favor of a Columbus bar means other taverns who have been cited by the Ohio Department of Health could have their violations tossed.

The report goes on to say, "The state is appealing the Franklin County ruling, which says the department exceeded its authority by holding Zeno's bar responsible for the actions of its patrons. Presiding Judge David Cain says the department fined Zeno's despite "no smoking" signs, the removal of ashtrays and requests by employees that smokers extinguish cigarettes."

Make no mistake - I am all for the smoking ban, but I'm rarely excited about government waste and collecting fines for money's sake. This example seems to indicate that methods for enforcing the law were not established clearly enough before the measure was put to public vote.

I am reminded of the controversy over mandatory e-checks for cars. If you don't remember, this was the unbelievably wasteful and pointless environmental protection law that required all vehicles be checked for emission levels before they could be licensed in Ohio. It never worked and was only enacted in certain counties, as if air from one never got to the other. Brilliant.

E-check was supposed to help the environment but really just filled the pocket books of special interest groups, politicians and crooked e-check companies. Fortunately, smart people figured out what a crock it had been and finally it was eliminated.

I think the smoking ban may be facing a similar problem. A good idea in concept, but it needs more tweaking. Laws like this are designed to protect people, and that's good, but sometimes you have to consider the original reason for the legislation.

For example, attempted suicide was for decades a criminal offense. (I suppose if you managed to succeed, you had nothing to worry about.) Today, even though it has been largely removed from the books as a criminal act, suicide is still often considered an unwritten "common law crime."

If cigarettes will eventually take the life of the smoker in one way or another, isn't he or she guilty of attempted suicide? Following that line of thinking: if second hand smoke is also deadly but simply kills more slowly, over time and increased exposure, wouldn't a smoker be guilty of attempted murder?

Bizarre way to look at this situation, isn't it? That kind of Orwellian thinking can really screw up any hope of a sensible resolution to this problem. In short, a general public smoking ban is good for everyone - whether they know it or not. However, a bar is not a place where most people are overly concerned about their health. Children are not allowed and most only serve drinks and snacks.

Your typical hole-in-the-wall, which is just another small business struggling for a foothold in a choppy economy, is not somewhere you might need to go to get dinner with the family. So maybe it would have been better to exempt these kinds of establishments.

Instead of collecting fines randomly from these businesses, what about letting them pay a fee to have someone evaluate them as "smoke-friendly?" That way, if the owner feels his business has suffered financially because of the ban, he can assume all the risk and his patrons can make the choice whether or not to frequent his bar.

It's never easy to find compromise on this kind of issue because making exceptions opens the flood gate for new precedents in other areas. I think it's safe to say, however, that most people do not want to see smoking return to restaurants and other public buildings.

Read more by columnist Gery L. Deer at www.gerydeer.com